So dumb. Crusades were a defensive war. Knights are not exclusive to crusades. But they’re keeping the name, Crusaders.
The College of the Holy Cross announced it would drop its Knight mascot and related imagery to avoid ties to the violence committed by Christian armies during the Crusades.
The Massachusetts school’s president, Rev. Philip Boroughs, said in a letter to students that “the visual depiction of a knight, in conjunction with the moniker Crusader, inevitably ties us directly to the reality of the religious wars and the violence of the Crusades.”
“This imagery stands in contrast to our stated values. Over the coming months, the College will gradually phase out the use of all knight-related imagery,” he wrote.
Students and faculty members unsuccessfully urged the school to drop the Crusaders name entirely, arguing it associates the school with the violence committed against non-Christians nearly 1,000 years ago.