Raynald of Châtillon
Raynald of Châtillon tortures Patriarch Aimery of Antioch (From MS of William of Tyre's Historia and Old French Continuation, painted in Acre, 13th century Bibliothèque nationale de France.)
Spouse(s)	Constance of Antioch Stephanie of Milly
Born	c. 1125
Died	4 July 1187(1187-07-04) Hittin

Raynald of Châtillon (also Reynald, Reynold, Renald, or Reginald; French: Renaud de Châtillon, old French: Reynaud de Chastillon) (c. 1125 – July 4, 1187) was a knight who served in the Second Crusade and remained in the Holy Land after its defeat. He ruled as Prince of Antioch from 1153 to 1160 and through his second marriage became Lord of Oultrejordain. He was an enormously controversial character in his own lifetime and beyond.

Background[link]

Raynald's origins are obscure; Du Cange believed he was from Châtillon-sur-Marne,^[1] but according to Jean Richard, he was a son of Hervé II of Donzy, and he inherited Châtillon-sur-Loing sometime before joining the Second Crusade in 1147. In the east, he entered the service of Constance of Antioch, whose first husband had died in 1149. She married Raynald in secret in 1153, without consulting her first cousin and liege lord, Baldwin III of Jerusalem. Neither King Baldwin nor Aimery of Limoges, the Latin Patriarch of Antioch, approved of Constance's choice of a husband of such low birth. With Constance he had a daughter, Agnes of Châtillon, in 1154 (who later married the Hungarian Prince Béla, who was living at the court of Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus in Constantinople, and eventually became King Béla III of Hungary).

In 1156 Raynald claimed that the emperor Manuel I Comnenus had reneged on his promise to pay Raynald a sum of money, and vowed to attack the island of Cyprus in revenge. When the Latin Patriarch of Antioch refused to finance this expedition, Raynald had the Patriarch seized, stripped naked, covered in honey, and left in the burning sun on top of the citadel. When the Patriarch was released, he collapsed in exhaustion and agreed to finance Raynald's expedition against Cyprus. Raynald's forces attacked Cyprus, ravaging the island and pillaging its inhabitants.

The Emperor Manuel I Comnenus raised an army and began a march into Syria. Faced with a much larger and more powerful force, Raynald was forced to grovel, barefoot and shabby, before the emperor's throne for forgiveness. In 1159 Raynald was forced to pay homage to Manuel as punishment for his attack, promising to accept a Greek Patriarch in Antioch. When Manuel came to Antioch later that year to meet with Baldwin III, King of Jerusalem, Raynald was forced to lead Manuel's horse into the city.

Soon after this, in 1160, Raynald was captured by the Muslims during a plundering raid against the Syrian and Armenian peasants of the neighbourhood of Marash. He was confined at Aleppo for the next seventeen years. As the stepfather of the Empress Maria, he was ransomed by Manuel for the extraordinary sum of 120,000 gold dinars (500 kg of gold-worth approx. £15,819,706.00 in Oct 2010) in 1176.

Rise to prominence[link]

Raynald depicted in captivity as part of a statue of Saladin in Damascus, Syria

Raynald served as Baldwin IV's envoy to Manuel and, because his wife Constance had died in 1163, was rewarded with marriage to another wealthy widow, Stephanie, the widow of both Humphrey III of Toron and Miles of Plancy and the heiress of the lordship of Oultrejordain, including the castles Kerak and Montreal to the southeast of the Dead Sea. These fortresses controlled the trade routes between Egypt and Damascus and gave Raynald access to the Red Sea. He became notorious for his wanton cruelty at Kerak, often having his enemies and hostages flung from its castle walls to be dashed to pieces on the rocks below.

In November 1177, at the head of the army of the kingdom, he helped King Baldwin defeat Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard; Saladin narrowly escaped. In 1181 the temptation of the caravans which passed by Kerak proved too strong and, in spite of a truce between Saladin and the king, Raynald began to plunder. Saladin demanded reparations from Baldwin IV, but Baldwin replied that he was unable to control his unruly vassal. As a result, war broke out between Saladin and the Latin kingdom in 1182. In the course of the hostilities, Raynald launched ships on the Red Sea, partly for piracy, but partly as a threat against Mecca and Medina, challenging Islam in its own holy places. His pirates ravaged villages up and down the Red Sea, before being captured by the army of Al-Adil I only a few miles from Medina. Although Raynald's pirates were taken to Cairo and beheaded, Raynald himself escaped to the Moab. Saladin vowed to behead Raynald himself, and at the end of the year Saladin attacked Kerak, during the marriage of Raynald's stepson Humphrey IV of Toron to Isabella of Jerusalem. The siege was raised by Count Raymond III of Tripoli, and Raynald was quiet until 1186.

That year he allied with Sibylla and Guy of Lusignan against Count Raymond, and his influence contributed to the recognition of Guy as king of Jerusalem, although Raymond and the Ibelins were attempting to advance the claim of his stepson Humphrey's wife Princess Isabella. Humphrey remained loyal to his stepfather and Guy.

Later in 1186 Raynald attacked a large caravan travelling between Cairo and Damascus, breaking the 4 year truce between Saladin and the Crusaders signed in 1185. He took all the merchants and their families prisoner as well as a large amount of booty and refused to receive envoys from Saladin demanding compensation. This led directly to the end of the truce.^[2] Saladin sent troops to protect a later caravan (in March 1187) in which his sister was returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca. Later writers (such as the 13th century Old French Continuation of William of Tyre and the Latin Continuation of William of Tyre) conflated these two incidents, claiming erroneously that Saladin's sister, aunt, or even mother, had been taken prisoner, but this is contradicted by Arabic sources, such as Abu Shama and Ibn al-Athir. King Guy chastised Raynald in an attempt to appease Saladin, but Raynald replied that he was lord of his own lands and that he had made no peace with Saladin. Saladin swore that Raynald would be executed if he was ever taken prisoner.

Capture and execution[link]

Raynald of Châtillon's death
Guillaume de Tyr, Historia (BNF, Mss.Fr.68, folio 399)

In 1187 Saladin invaded the kingdom, defeating the Crusaders at the Battle of Hattin. The battle left Saladin with many prisoners. Most prominent among these prisoners were Raynald and King Guy, both of whom Saladin ordered brought to his tent. The chronicler Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani, who was present at the scene, relates:

Saladin invited the king [Guy] to sit beside him, and when Arnat [Raynald] entered in his turn, he seated him next to his king and reminded him of his misdeeds. "How many times have you sworn an oath and violated it? How many times have you signed agreements you have never respected?" Raynald answered through a translator: "Kings have always acted thus. I did nothing more." During this time King Guy was gasping with thirst, his head dangling as though drunk, his face betraying great fright. Saladin spoke reassuring words to him, had cold water brought, and offered it to him. The king drank, then handed what remained to Raynald, who slaked his thirst in turn. The sultan then said to Guy: "You did not ask permission before giving him water. I am therefore not obliged to grant him mercy." After pronouncing these words, the sultan smiled, mounted his horse, and rode off, leaving the captives in terror. He supervised the return of the troops, and then came back to his tent. He ordered Raynald brought there, then advanced before him, sword in hand, and struck him between the neck and the shoulder-blade. When Raynald fell, he cut off his head and dragged the body by its feet to the king, who began to tremble. Seeing him thus upset, Saladin said to him in a reassuring tone: "This man was killed only because of his maleficence and perfidy".

Seeing the execution of Raynald, Guy of Lusignan feared he would be next. But his life was spared by Saladin, who said of the execution:

It is not the wont of kings, to kill kings; but that man had transgressed all bounds, and therefore did I treat him thus.

To a few Christians of his time, Raynald was considered a martyr killed at the hands of the Muslims. Saladin's actions ultimately proved to be beneficial to his own interests. By killing Raynald while sparing Guy, the factional struggle in Jerusalem continued^{[citation needed]}. This struggle would later greatly diminish the potency of the Third Crusade.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life[link]

• Raynald and Constance had two daughters: Agnes de Châtillon, who married King Béla III of Hungary and Jeanne de Châtillon, probably the second wife of Marquis Boniface I of Montferrat.

• From his second marriage with Stephanie de Milly, he had two children: a son, Raynald of Châtillon, who died young, and a daughter, Alix (Alice) de Châtillon, who married Azzo VI d'Este.

In Media[link]

• The Passio Raginaldi principis Antiochae, an account of Raynald's death, was written by Peter of Blois c. 1200.
• Raynald is portrayed in the 1963 Egyptian movie Al Nasser Salah Ad-Din (film).
• A largely fictionalized version of Raynald is played by Brendan Gleeson in the 2005 movie Kingdom of Heaven.
• Raynald is portrayed in a positive light, as a powerfully charismatic figure in the biographic novel Rino's Last Crusade by Gad Shimron, published in Hebrew in 2011 (previously published as The Satan in the Holy Land in 1998, also in Hebrew).
• Raynald is featured as an NPC in the game Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings as an antagonist in Saladin's campaign.
• In the novel The Knights of Dark Renown (1969), by author, Graham Shelby, Raynald is depicted as the malevolent 'Red Wolf of Kerak'.
• Appears as a NPC in the computer game "Baldur's Gate 2", in the Bridge District of the city of Athkatla.
• In the historical Knights Templar Trilogy by the Swedish author Jan Guillou, Raynald is depicted as a scheming, incompetent and selfish villain accelerating the loss of the Holy Land to Saladin.
• In the novel Knight Crusader by Ronald Welch [1954] Reynaud de Chatillon is depicted as a brave but piratical character who is mainly responsible for the debacle that was the Battle of Hattin
• In the historical fiction novels by Jack Whyte, Knights of the Black and White, and Standard of Honor, Raynald is depicted as a Templar knight, partially responsible for the loss at the battle of Hattin.
• The return address on the package bomb sent by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was Reynald Krak, a reference to Chatillon.^[3]

Sources[link]

• Hamilton, Bernard, "The Elephant of Christ: Reynald of Châtillon", Studies in Church History 15 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 97–108.
• Hamilton, Bernard, The Leper King and His Heirs, 2000.
• Hillenbrand, Carole, "Some reflections on the imprisonment of Reynald of Châtillon", in Texts, Documents and Artefacts: Islamic Studies in Honour of D.S. Richards, ed. C.F. Robinson, Leiden, 2003.
• Maalouf, Amin, Crusades Through Arab Eyes, 1985.
• Peter of Blois Petri Blesensis tractatus duo: Passio Raginaldi principis Antiochie, Conquestio de dilatione vie Ierosolimitane, ed. R.B.C Huygens, in Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis vol. CXCIV, 2002.
• Richard, Jean, "Aux origines d'un grand lignage: des palladii Renaud de Châtillon", in Media in Francia: Recueil de mélanges offert à Karl Ferdinand Werner, 1989.
• Runciman, Steven, A History of the Crusades: Volume 2, The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East (1952)

References[link]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

v t e Princes of the Principality of Antioch Reigning Princes (1098–1268) Bohemond I Tancred (regent) Bohemond II Roger (regent) Baldwin (regent) Constance Fulk (regent) Raymond I (by marriage) Raynald (by marriage) Bohemond III Raymond II (regent) Bohemond IV Raymond-Roupen Bohemond IV (restored) Bohemond V Bohemond VI Titular Princes (1268–1457) Bohemond VI Bohemond VII Lucia Philip Marguerite John I John II John III

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Baldwin IV redirects here. It can also refer to Baldwin IV, Count of Flanders and to Baldwin IV, Count of Hainaut.

Baldwin IV
Medieval depiction of Baldwin's coronation.
King of Jerusalem
Reign	11 July 1174 – 1185
Coronation	15 July 1174
Predecessor	Amalric I of Jerusalem
Successor	Baldwin V
House	House of Anjou
Father	Amalric I of Jerusalem
Mother	Agnes of Courtenay
Born	early summer of 1161 Kingdom of Jerusalem
Died	16 March 1185(1185-03-16) (aged 24) Kingdom of Jerusalem
Burial	Church of the Holy Sepulchre

William of Tyre discovers Baldwin's first symptoms of leprosy (MS of L'Estoire d'Eracles (French translation of William of Tyre's Historia), painted in France, 1250s. British Library, London.)

Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (1161–16 March 1185^[1]), called the Leper or the Leprous, the son of Amalric I of Jerusalem and his first wife, Agnes of Courtenay, was king of Jerusalem from 1174 to 1185. His full sister was Queen Sibylla of Jerusalem and his nephew through this sister (who succeeded him) was the child-king Baldwin V. He had a half sister through his father's second marriage to Maria Comnena - Queen Isabella I of Jerusalem.

Early life[link]

Baldwin spent his youth in his father's court in Jerusalem, having little contact with his mother, Agnes of Courtenay, Countess of Jaffa and Ascalon, and later Lady of Sidon, whom his father had been forced to divorce.^{[citation needed]} Baldwin IV was educated by the historian William of Tyre (later Archbishop of Tyre and Chancellor of the kingdom), who made a disturbing discovery about the prince: he and his friends were playing one day, attempting to injure each other by driving their fingernails into each other's arms, but Baldwin felt no pain. William immediately recognized this as a sign of serious illness, but it was not conclusively identified as leprosy until a few years later; the onset of puberty accelerated his disease, in its most serious lepromatous form.^[2]

Baldwin's father died in 1174 and the boy was crowned at the age of 13, on 15 July that year. In his minority the kingdom was ruled by two successive regents, first Miles of Plancy, though unofficially, and then Raymond III of Tripoli, his father's cousin. In 1175, Raymond III, the acting king of Jerusalem, made a treaty with Saladin.^{[citation needed]}

As a leper, Baldwin was not expected to reign long or produce an heir, and courtiers and lords positioned themselves for influence over Baldwin's heirs, his sister Sibylla and his half-sister Isabella. Sibylla was being raised by her great-aunt Ioveta in the convent of Bethany, while Isabella was at the court of her mother, the dowager queen Maria Comnena, in Nablus.^{[citation needed]}

Baldwin's rule[link]

Top: Death of Amalric I; Bottom: Coronation of Baldwin IV. (MS of William of Tyre's Historia and Old French Continuation, painted in Acre, 13C. Bib. Nat. Française.)

Raymond's regency ended on the second anniversary of Baldwin's coronation: the young king was now of age. He did not ratify Raymond's treaty with Saladin, but instead went raiding towards Damascus and around the Beqaa Valley. He appointed his maternal uncle, Joscelin III, the titular count of Edessa, seneschal after he was ransomed. Joscelin was his closest male relative who did not have a claim to the throne, so he was judged a reliable supporter: indeed, he proved his loyalty.^{[citation needed]}

In his capacity as regent, Raymond of Tripoli had begun negotiations for the marriage of princess Sibylla to William of Montferrat, a first cousin of Louis VII of France and of Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor. William arrived in early October and became Count of Jaffa and Ascalon upon his marriage. It was hoped that he would be able to govern for the king when he became incapacitated, and succeed him with Sibylla.^{[citation needed]}

Meanwhile, Baldwin was planning an attack on Saladin's power-base in Egypt. He sent Raynald of Châtillon (the former prince of Antioch through marriage to Amalric I's cousin Constance of Antioch) to Constantinople as envoy to Manuel I Comnenus, to obtain Byzantine naval support. Raynald had recently been released from captivity in Aleppo: Manuel paid his ransom, since he was the stepfather of the Empress Maria of Antioch. Manuel sought the restoration of the Orthodox patriarchate in the kingdom, and arranged the marriage of Bohemond III of Antioch to his great-niece Theodora Comnena, sister of the queen-dowager Maria. Reynald returned early in 1177, and was rewarded with marriage to Stephanie of Milly, a widowed heiress. This made him lord of Kerak and Oultrejourdain. Baldwin tried to ensure that Reynald and William of Montferrat co-operated on the defence of the South. However, in June, William died at Ascalon after several weeks' illness, leaving the widowed Sibylla pregnant with the future Baldwin V.^{[citation needed]}

In August the king's first cousin, Philip of Flanders, came to Jerusalem on crusade. Philip demanded to wed Baldwin's sisters to his vassals. Philip, as Baldwin's closest male kin on his paternal side (he was Fulk's grandson and thus Baldwin's first cousin; Raymond was Melisende's nephew and thus first cousin of Baldwin's father), claimed authority superseding Raymond's regency. The Haute Cour refused to agree to this, with Baldwin of Ibelin publicly insulting Philip. Offended, Philip left the kingdom, campaigning instead for the Principality of Antioch. The Ibelin family were patrons of the dowager queen Maria, and it is possible that Baldwin of Ibelin acted this way in hopes of marrying one of Baldwin's sisters himself.^{[citation needed]}

In November, Baldwin and Raynald of Châtillon defeated Saladin with the help of the Knights Templar at the celebrated Battle of Montgisard. That same year, Baldwin allowed his stepmother the dowager-queen to marry Balian of Ibelin, a concilatory move to both, but it carried risks, given the Ibelins' ambitions. With Maria's patronage, the Ibelins tried to have the princesses Sibylla and Isabella married into their family as well.^{[citation needed]}

In 1179, the king met with some military setbacks in the north. On 10 April, he led a cattle-raid on Banias, but was surprised by Saladin's nephew Farrukh Shah. Baldwin's horse bolted, and in saving him, the much-respected constable of the kingdom Humphrey II of Toron, was mortally wounded. On 10 June, in response to cavalry raids near Sidon, Baldwin took a force, with Raymond of Tripoli and the Grand Master of the Templars, Odo of St Amand, to Marj Uyun. They defeated the raiders fording the Litani River, but were caught by Saladin's main force. The king (unable to remount unaided) was unhorsed, and had to be carried off the field on the back of another knight as his guard cut their way out. Count Raymond fled to Tyre, and the king's stepfather Reginald of Sidon rescued a number of the fugitives, but the prisoners included the Grand Master, Baldwin of Ibelin, and Hugh of Tiberias, one of Raymond of Tripoli's stepsons. In August, the unfinished castle at Jacob's Ford fell to Saladin after a brief siege, with the slaughter of half its Templar garrison.^{[citation needed]}

The popular Muslim attitude towards Baldwin was recorded by the traveller Ibn Jubair, who wrote that he was called al-khinzir ("the pig", regarded as an unclean animal), and his mother Agnes al-khinzira ("the sow").^[3]

Western historians have been more generous: Steven Runciman opined that Baldwin's ability was unquestioned and his courage superb.

Baldwin and Guy of Lusignan[link]

In the summer of 1180, Baldwin IV married Sibylla to Guy of Lusignan, brother of the constable Amalric of Lusignan. Earlier historians claimed that Sibylla's second marriage was entirely due to the influence of the King's mother; however, Hamilton argues that this is to reflect uncritically the personal grievances of William of Tyre and of the Ibelins. A plan to marry Sibylla to Hugh III of Burgundy had broken down; Raymond of Tripoli seems to have been attempting to marry her to Baldwin of Ibelin to bolster his power-base. A foreign match was essential to the kingdom, bringing the possibility of external aid. With the new French king Philip II a minor, Guy's status as a vassal of the King's cousin Henry II of England – who owed the Pope a penitential pilgrimage – was useful in this respect. Baldwin also betrothed his 8-year-old half-sister Isabella to Humphrey IV of Toron, repaying a debt of honour to Humphrey's grandfather, who had given his life for him at Banias, and removing Isabella from the control of her mother and the Ibelin faction. (Her betrothed was Raynald of Châtillon's stepson.)^{[citation needed]}

Guy had previously allied himself with Raynald, who was by now taking advantage of his position at Kerak to harass the trading caravans travelling between Egypt and Damascus. After Saladin retaliated for these attacks in the campaign and Battle of Belvoir Castle in 1182, Baldwin, now blind and unable to walk, appointed Guy regent of the kingdom.^{[citation needed]}

Nevertheless, in 1183, Baldwin had become offended by Guy's actions as regent. Guy attended the wedding festivities for Isabella (now about 11) and Humphrey, held in Karak; however, the festivities were interrupted by Saladin, who besieged the fortress with the wedding guests inside. Baldwin marshalled what strength he had and lifted the siege, but Guy refused to fight Saladin and Saladin's troops simply went home. Baldwin could not tolerate this and deposed Guy as regent. In disgrace, Guy retired to Ascalon, taking his wife the princess Sibylla with him.^{[citation needed]}

Joint kingship with Baldwin V, and death[link]

Although Baldwin seems to have held no ill-will towards his sister, Baldwin appointed his 5-year-old nephew Baldwin of Montferrat as his heir and successor, with the support of Agnes and her husband Reginald of Sidon, Raymond, and many of the other barons, excluding Sibylla from the succession. Raymond was to act as guardian of the infant heir, and later as regent if Baldwin IV was to expire, but Baldwin IV himself would continue to rule. The child was crowned co-king as Baldwin V on November 20, 1183.^{[citation needed]}

In the early months of 1184 Baldwin attempted to have the marriage between Sibylla and Guy annulled. The couple had foiled this attempt by holding fast in Ascalon, not attending the annulment proceedings. The military expedition to relieve Karak and the dynastic struggle had weakened Baldwin considerably. He died in Jerusalem in spring 1185, a few months after the death of his mother Agnes in Acre late in 1184. Though often suffering from the effects of leprosy and ruling with regency governments, Baldwin was able to maintain himself as king for much longer than otherwise might have been expected. As had been decided, Baldwin V succeeded his uncle, with Raymond of Tripoli as regent.

Baldwin in art, fiction, and film[link]

Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century manuscript illustrations to the histories of William of Tyre and Ernoul give little indication of Baldwin's illness. He figures in a Romantic depiction of the battle of Montgisard by Charles-Philippe Larivière in the Salles des Croisades at Versailles. This work, which dates from c. 1842, depicts him being carried into battle on a litter, his face uncovered and unscarred, his sword in his right hand. In fact, at Montgisard, he was still able to fight on horseback, and he used his sword with his left hand, since his right hand and arm had been the first affected by his illness.^{[citation needed]}

Baldwin appears, with varying degrees of historical fidelity, in a number of novels. These include Zofia Kossak-Szczucka's Król trędowaty (The Leper King), Manuel Mujica Láinez's fantasy El unicornio (The Wandering Unicorn), Cecelia Holland's Jerusalem, Judith Tarr's historical fantasies The Alamut and The Dagger and the Cross, The Knights of Dark Renown by Graham Shelby (1969) and Nikos Kazantzakis's Saint Francis. He is generally depicted as a sympathetic character. Baldwin has also featured in bandes dessinées: Serge Dalens's L'Étoile de Pourpre ("The Purple Star") (also published as Baudouin IV de Jérusalem) and Michel Bom and Thierry Cayman's Sylvain de Rochefort series. Dalens's work was originally illustrated by Pierre Joubert, whose pictures of Baldwin are associated with his image as a role-model in the French Scout movement.^{[citation needed]} And "The Crusader King", by Susan Peek

A fictionalized version of Baldwin is played by Edward Norton in the 2005 movie Kingdom of Heaven.^[4]

References[link]

Sources[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Baldwin IV of Jerusalem

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Baldwin IV..

• William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea. E. A. Babcock and A. C. Krey, trans. Columbia University Press, 1943.
• Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, vol. II: The Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge University Press, 1952.
• Bernard Hamilton, "Women in the Crusader States: The Queens of Jerusalem", in Medieval Women, edited by Derek Baker. Ecclesiastical History Society, 1978
• Bernard Hamilton, The Leper King and his Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

v t e Monarchs of the Kingdom of Jerusalem Godfrey* · Baldwin I · Baldwin II · Melisende with Fulk and Baldwin III · Amalric I · Baldwin IV · Baldwin V · Sibylla with Guy · Isabella I with Conrad I, Henry I and Amalric II · Mary with John · Isabella II · Conrad II · Conrad III · Hugh I · John II · Henry II * Did not take the title "King"

Rodney Stark is an American sociologist of religion. He grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota in a Lutheran family. He spent time in the U.S. Army and worked as a journalist before pursuing graduate studies at The University of California, Berkeley. After teaching at the University of Washington for 32 years, Stark moved to Baylor University in 2004, where he is co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion. He is an advocate of the application of the Rational choice theory in the sociology of religion, which he calls the theory of religious economy.

Stark-Bainbridge theory of religion[link]

During the late 1970s and 1980s, Stark worked with William Sims Bainbridge on the Stark-Bainbridge theory of religion,^[1] and co-wrote the books The Future of Religion (1985) and A Theory of Religion (1987) with Bainbridge. Nowadays their theory, which aims to explain religious involvement in terms of rewards and compensators, is seen as a precursor of the more explicit recourse to economic principles in the study of religion as later developed by Laurence Iannaccone and others.^[2][3]

Stark's views on the Growth of Christianity[link]

Stark has proposed in The Rise of Christianity that Christianity grew through gradual individual conversions via social networks of family, friends and colleagues. His main contribution, by comparing documented evidence of Christianity's spread in the Roman Empire with the history of the LDS church in the 19th and 20th centuries, was to illustrate that a sustained and continuous growth could lead to huge growth within 200 years. This use of exponential growth as a driver to explain the growth of the church without the need for mass conversions (deemed necessary by historians until then) is now widely accepted.

Stark has suggested that Christianity grew because it treated women better than pagan religions. He also suggested that making Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire weakened the faithfulness of the Christian community by bringing in people who did not really believe or had a weaker belief. This is consistent with Stark's published observations of contemporary religious movements, where once-successful faith movements gradually decline in fervor due to the free rider problem.

Personal religious faith[link]

In their 1987 book A Theory of Religion, Stark and Bainbridge describe themselves as "personally incapable of religious faith".^[4] While reluctant to discuss his own religious views, he stated in a 2004 interview that he was not a man of faith, but also not an atheist:

Interviewer: You once wrote that you’re “not religious as that term is conventionally understood.”
" Rodney Stark: That’s true, though I’ve never been an atheist. Atheism is an active faith; it says, “I believe there is no God.” But I don’t know what I believe. I was brought up a Lutheran in Jamestown, North Dakota. I have trouble with faith. I’m not proud of this. I don’t think it makes me an intellectual. I would believe if I could, and I may be able to before it’s over. I would welcome that." ^[5]

In a 2007 interview, after accepting an appointment at Baylor University, Stark indicated that his self-understanding had changed and that he could now be described as an "independent Christian." In this interview Stark recollects that he has "always been a “cultural” Christian" understood by him as having "been strongly committed to Western Civilization." Of his previous positions he wrote: "I was never an atheist, but I probably could have been best described as an agnostic."^[6]

On the theory of evolution[link]

In 2004 The American Enterprise (an online publication of The American Enterprise Institute^[7]) published an article by Stark critical of the stifling of debate on Evolutionary Theory. In "Facts, Fable and Darwin", Stark criticized the "Darwinian Crusade" and their "tactic of claiming that the only choice is between Darwin and Bible literalism". Though not a Creationist himself, he believes that though "the theory of evolution is regarded as the invincible challenge to all religious claims, it is taken for granted among the leading biological scientists that the origin of species has yet to be explained". He suggests that governments "lift the requirement that high school texts enshrine Darwin's failed attempt as an eternal truth."^[8]

Bibliography[link]

Stark has published 28 books and 144 articles according to his Curriculum Vitae. The list below is incomplete; see his Curriculum Vitae for the full list.

Books[link]

Sociology of Religion[link]

• Christian Beliefs and anti-Semitism (1966) with Charles Y. Glock
• American Piety (1968) with Charles Y. Glock
• The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival, and Cult formation (1985), with William Sims Bainbridge
• A Theory of Religion (1987), with William Sims Bainbridge
• Religion, Deviance, and Social Control (1996), with William Sims Bainbridge
• The Churching of America 1776-1992: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy (1992), with Roger Finke; 2nd edition under name The Churching of America 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy (2005)
• The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History (1996)
• Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (2000), with Roger Finke
• One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism ISBN 978-0-691-11500-9 (2001)
• For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery ISBN 978-0-691-11436-1 (2003)
• Exploring the Religious Life ISBN 0-8018-7844-6 (2004)
• The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success ISBN 0-8129-7233-3 (2005)
• The Rise of Mormonism (2005) ISBN 0-231-13634-X
• Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome (2006)
• Discovering God: A New Look at the Origins of the Great Religions ISBN 978-0-06-117389-9 (2007)
• God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades (2009)

General Sociology[link]

• Sociology (1985) an introductory college sociology text that has been through ten editions as of 2007.

Articles[link]

• John Lofland and Rodney Stark Becoming a World-Saver: A Theory of Conversion to a Deviant Perspective American Sociological Review of 1965. (an early and influential conversion theory based on field work among Unification Church members)^[9]
• Rodney Stark and Williams Sims Bainbridge (1979) Of Churches, Sects, and Cults: Preliminary Concepts for a Theory of Religious Movements Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 18, no 2: 117-33

• Stark, R., “Fact, Fable and Darwin” in One America, September 2004; Part 1 in [1] and Part 2 [2]

• A Taxonomy of Religious Experience in The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1965 [3]

Additional biographical source: Rodney Stark. "On Theory-Driven Methods." pp. 175–196 in The Craft of Religious Studies, edited by Jon R. Stone. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

Please expand this article. Some suggested sources are given hereafter. More information might be found in a section of the talk page. (February 2012)

• David Lehman, Rational Choice and the Sociology of Religion, chapter 8 in Bryan S. Turner (ed.) The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, John Wiley and Sons, 2010, ISBN 1-4051-8852-9
• Big Ideas Baylor Magazine's 2004 profile of Stark's career to date.
• Rodney Stark, "How Christianity (and Capitalism) Led to Science". The Chronicle of Higher Education. December 2, 2005.
• The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success Reviewed by William Grimes, Sunday, January 22, 2006, The New York Times

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Rodney Stark his homepage
• Stark interrogated in court as an expert

Paul Duncan Crawford (born 21 August 1947, Toronto) is a Canadian composer, radio producer, organist, and music educator.^[1] In 1967 he received a licentiate diploma from Trinity College London and in 1971 he earned a Bachelor of Music degree from McGill University.

References[link]

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