Tolerance and intolerance

Social conflict in the age of the crusades.

This wide-ranging collection explores the issue of tolerance during the period of the Crusades through the treatment of prisoners, the ransom of captives, and the problems faced by many groups during the period of the crusades. One of the central issues revolves around the attitudes of the participants. There were significant differences among Latin and Eastern Christians, between Christians and Muslims, and Christians, Muslims and Jews. But, too great an emphasis on the religious roots of intolerance has oversimplified the ways in which ideas of tolerance developed. What is important in these essays is an effort to explore these relationships in their complexity in order to penetrate those generalizations that have often distorted more than enlightened. Tolerance and intolerance therefore are terms that can obscure as much as enlighten.