Crusade and Reform in Latin Christendom

Convinced that crusade expeditions were failing ''because of our sins'', Paris-trained reformers targeted ''corrupt'' clergy and ''loose women'' (meretrices) in campaigns against prostitution, clerical marriage and concubinage, and lay fornication. Moral theologians tied new forms of participation in crusading to existing and novel forms of lay devotion and promoted crusaders as a new form of idea...