The sentence “Deus vult” It has become widespread again in recent years. It appears in viral posts, in quotes from contemporary authors, and even in tattoos. But very few people know its true meaning. Its literal translation from Latin means “God wants it”. The first implementation of this saying goes back to the First Crusade in 1095, when Pope Urban II called for the liberation of the Holy Land at the Council of Clermont and shouted in front of the crowd: “Deus vult!”
As the story goes, the crowd present at the council responded to the pope with the same cry, becoming the motto and battle cry of the warriors fighting in the name of Christ. In this way, every military campaign was believed to have divine authorization to confront the enemy. This “will of God” that Urban II spoke of led to eight crusades between 1095 and 1291, two centuries of bloody and religious battles that ended with Christian victory.
The first Latin document found with this peculiar phrase dates from 1096 and is titled Gesta Francorum (The heroic deeds of the Franks). It describes the events of the First Crusade, in which, according to the author A group of soldiers gathered in the Italian city of Amalfi to prepare to attack the Holy Land. Dressed in tunics with the Holy Cross printed on them, they shouted: “Deus le volt! Deus le volt! Deus le volt!“.
Today, the use of this phrase has both positive and negative uses. On the one hand, its interpretation is still positive in some religious areas, as it symbolizes devotion to the divine will and spiritual devotion. This is explained in a document written by European Catholics in Spanish that defines Deus vult as an invitation to live your faith courageously in times when the religious world is left out. The sentence is also circulating in pop culture: especially in medieval-themed video games like Crusader kings or films like Kingdom of Heavenwhere it acts as a historical reference.
But its modern use has also been favored by world politics. Out of 2016Parts of the American extreme right began to appropriate the term. The phrase appeared in political tweets and banners and was even painted on the wall of a mosque in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The following applies to these groups: Deus vult It functions as a symbolic expression of the fight against Islam and as a justification of a supposedly threatened Western Christian identity.
Analysts like Ishaan Tharoor from the Washington Postexplain that the far right imported the terms and symbols of the Crusades to integrate them into their digital discourses. In this context Deus vult became one keyworda way to express anti-Muslim or nationalist positions without resorting to explicit hate speech. The term even appeared on signs and signs during the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017.