On May 13 2012 00:20 sc4k wrote: Definitely was a war of aggression but then again...the conquest of richard the lionheart is a pretty cool tale. I always preferred western knights to shitty little arab knights riding around on ponies with bows and their silk cloth. Nothing cooler than a barder warhorse and a suit of armour + a broadsword. When I went to Turkey I talked to some guys about this and they were like 'haha stupid western armour? It looks so stupid and they are so clunky and useless, much better a brave knight of suleiman's horde with his majestic robes and well made sword, and rapid horse.
Funny how perspectives on these things come almost entirely from your background.
:D You know how many knights dumped their armour when they realised how hot it was in the Levant? Hell, Barbarossa died because he went for a swim in his armour. And Lionheart's tale was basically him pissing off the nobles of Europe while he went to the Middle East, conquering Cyprus on the way (another Christian power...) and having to hide who he was on the way back for fear of being discovered. It's a toss-up who was a worse king of England, him or John
Oh come on! All he did was piss of the French King, the Holy Roman Emperor, the Byzantine Emperor, most of the most powerful families in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, his own army when he declined to march on Jerusalem and nearly start a civil war when he started meddling in the internal politics of the Holy Land. That's not that bad is it?
Also the only aspect of crusading and the crusades that can't explicitly be considered an offensive conflict was in Spain, but even then, the myths surrounding the Reconquista have done so much to complicate dividing fact from legend that it's incredibly difficult to figure out what the hell actually happened. Also, it's actually insulting to talk about wanting to tell the "truth" about the Crusades and then blindly conflate the Byzantine Empire with Western Christianity. The Byzantines were very different culturally, politically and religiously from the "West" their society was influenced heavily by the Greek tradition (Greek, not Latin was the official language of the Court, unlike much of the rest of medieval Europe), there were significant differences from a religious point of view as well, including the Patriarch of Constantinople not recognizing the authority of the Pope as the head of Christianity (A minor difference of course...). In fact, that was one of the conditions set by Urban II in exchange for aid, that the Byzantines would accept the suzerainty of the Pope over Byzantium.
I defy you to explain how the Muslim world presented a clear and present danger to Western Europe in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. After the collapse of Abbasid power, the Muslim world was riven with just as many divided principalities and quarreling states as Europe was. The idea of the all-conquering Muslim united in a desire to endlessly expand the borders of Islam in that period is a complete and total myth.
On May 13 2012 00:20 sc4k wrote: Definitely was a war of aggression but then again...the conquest of richard the lionheart is a pretty cool tale. I always preferred western knights to shitty little arab knights riding around on ponies with bows and their silk cloth. Nothing cooler than a barder warhorse and a suit of armour + a broadsword. When I went to Turkey I talked to some guys about this and they were like 'haha stupid western armour? It looks so stupid and they are so clunky and useless, much better a brave knight of suleiman's horde with his majestic robes and well made sword, and rapid horse.
Funny how perspectives on these things come almost entirely from your background.
It's a toss-up who was a worse king of England, him or John
Haha actually it's arguable that John was a lot better for England since, by being such a colossal dickhead magna carta happened!
On May 13 2012 00:50 FaiL_SaFe wrote: I defy you to explain how the Muslim world presented a clear and present danger to Western Europe in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. After the collapse of Abbasid power, the Muslim world was riven with just as many divided principalities and quarreling states as Europe was. The idea of the all-conquering Muslim united in a desire to endlessly expand the borders of Islam in that period is a complete and total myth.
There's a clear logical fallacy in the claim that because they are and were different factions among Islam and Islamic leaders, and conflicts between them, no unity could be found. The notion of Ummah and Jihad was exeptionaly strong in the early days of Islam and were the stated motives beyond a lot of the early Islamic invasions.
On May 13 2012 00:20 sc4k wrote: Definitely was a war of aggression but then again...the conquest of richard the lionheart is a pretty cool tale. I always preferred western knights to shitty little arab knights riding around on ponies with bows and their silk cloth. Nothing cooler than a barder warhorse and a suit of armour + a broadsword. When I went to Turkey I talked to some guys about this and they were like 'haha stupid western armour? It looks so stupid and they are so clunky and useless, much better a brave knight of suleiman's horde with his majestic robes and well made sword, and rapid horse.
Funny how perspectives on these things come almost entirely from your background.
Your average crusader (much like your average medieval soldier really, christian or muslim) looked much more like a hobo. Dirty clothes from walking for months, stained with the blood of innocent villagers they had slaughtered to gather ressources (large armies were a true plague, regions like Lorraine in the 17th were devastated for centuries after armed men had killed nearly half of the population). The armor, too hot and heavy for such a trip, was often tossed away. And don't get me started on their teeth...
On May 12 2012 23:50 NebuLoSa wrote: some people in this thread should look up a guy named breivik....shit...
So i was already warned, so i cant fully express my opinion.
Lets just say that its pathetic that you have to resort to ad hominem atacks, "you dont agree with me? you are racist." I guess nowadays its more hip to mention breivik instead.
Also i noticed you are from sweden, so its only natural this type of a comment by your part, seeing that sweden is the european capital of propaganda.
Now dont get me wrong, dont come calling me racist or whatever, i dont give 2 shits if europe gets literally flooded by a billion immigrants.
The fact that the OP only pops in for a few occasional two-liners without addressing any of the significant counter-arguments made against his initial points goes to show my initial suspicions were true - he knows fuck all about the subject, probably heard one biased sermon in a Church about it, and tried to pass off as an expert on it thinking he would be doing something good for the promotion of Christianity.
On May 13 2012 00:49 Alexstrasas wrote: Why no one talks about the pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population? Why no one talks about the deportation of thousands of peninsular women? One muslim general alone took around 300,000 peninsular woman (supposedly virgins, so most likely underage girls) with him to Damascus.
We do, because we have a genuine interest in history. We're not trying to prove that muslims are good or evil. Personally I don't give a damn, I'm simply interested in our past. I don't see where you took the idea that no one talks about the "pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population", atlhough it is true that the christian population was originally treated better by the conquerors of Spain, who were far more advanced than the indigenous population.
The fact that you come from Portugal yourself is meaningless, by the way. Most of the population is unaware of their own history.
On May 13 2012 00:49 Alexstrasas wrote: Another thing this general took was one of the biggest peninsular treasures, a jewelled table belonging to King Solomon, wich takes us to the other point wich is the retarded glorification of claims of Muslim cultural and scientific contributions, like saying that the library of Cordoba alone had more Greek philosophical texts than all of Western Europe combined. Well shit, if they pillaged then hauled half of the treasures from europe no wonder they had a great library.
Pillage was fairly common back then. How do you think crusaders survived the long walk through Europe? How many cities do you think they burned to the ground? To put it simply, the only difference was that crusaders burnt everything when muslims were civilized enough to preserve valuable texts and knowledge. From your post I also don't expect you to know anything about antiquity, but many texts in the possession of sultans had simply been kept ever since the fall of the Roman empire.
On May 13 2012 00:49 Alexstrasas wrote: Here is a recap of the crusades. Muslims were shitting all over europe, Christians got pissed, gathered up took europe back then launched a counter-atack.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Read my first post and the post above it. You have obviously no idea of what you're talking about, and should at least admit it.
On May 13 2012 00:50 FaiL_SaFe wrote: I defy you to explain how the Muslim world presented a clear and present danger to Western Europe in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. After the collapse of Abbasid power, the Muslim world was riven with just as many divided principalities and quarreling states as Europe was. The idea of the all-conquering Muslim united in a desire to endlessly expand the borders of Islam in that period is a complete and total myth.
There's a clear logical fallacy in the claim that because they are and were different factions among Islam and Islamic leaders, and conflicts between them, no unity could be found. The notion of Ummah and Jihad was exeptionaly strong in the early days of Islam and were the stated motives beyond a lot of the early Islamic invasions.
And there's a clear straw-man in your response, rendering the entire thing worthless. He didn't say no unity existed. He said there was just as much incoherence among the Islamic states as there was among the European states.
OK guys. You got me seriously curious about the deep history and intentions behind all the crusades...so unless you guys want to keep fighting can someone write a big nice one for me or direct me somewhere :D?
Armor isn't cheap, the average guy (and the majority of the people of the first crusade) did not have the heavy set armor. The richer nobles on the later crusades did have armor, as they had the funds to afford it. Not sure how useful heavy armor is in the heat of that region though, hell I got cooked runnin around in a t-shirt at 105oF
After the crumbling of the Western Roman Empire (~400), the 2 christians world were completely separated on a political level. To even claim that the crusades were to defend eastern christians is ludicrous at best. There were ideological wars of reactive aggression against heathens, and not only muslims ones.
Also the simple idea of having an united 'muslim" empire is false. Many dynasties were in place at that time and internal struggle happened between muslims just like it happened between the early middle ages kingdoms in catholic europa. The crusades didn't happen because Francs had to defend their kingdoms against heathens invasion based on religious reasons. It wasn't a honest reaction of defense because the land of Christianity weren't threaten at that time as the land possession in north Africa and Palestine were lost during the early years of Islam (Patriarchal and Umayyad Caliphate) several centuries before the crusades.
Crusades were a political conflict transformed into a religious one. In fact, we should revise the complete history of crusades and stop calling pilgrimages crusades on the basis that knights were sent with pilgrims to defend them against seljuk, byzantines (yes them too) and various thiefs. Arrived in the Holy Land, these knights were somewhat eager to do something with themselves and started to create domains and segregate their countries in order to favor christians, whereas the previous caliphates were much more peaceful (except the seljuk of course).
On May 12 2012 22:17 nttea wrote: I've always felt blaming religion for wars is pretty ridiculous, they're mostly motivated by human greed and politics. From what i can see Islam and Christianity are pretty indistinguishable from each other in their Hypocrisy and vileness.
That's not a fair statement. Take Islam for example. The Arab expansion was incredible and throughout the Arab sultanates during from the 7th century and for a long period of time that lasted until the 13th or 12th, depends on how you look at it, these areas of Northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East went from depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture. Religion helps to consolidate the masses and provide a clear set of goals. That isn't always bad for the people and good for some supposed "puppeteers".
Well those areas going from "depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture" could just as well be attributed to cultural and political unification, which could have been any entity and didn't have to be Islam (much like what happened when alexander conquered the middle east) Still doesn't mean the religion isn't full of shit. edit: but errr... my main point was Christianity and Islam are very similar religions good or bad.
On May 12 2012 22:17 nttea wrote: I've always felt blaming religion for wars is pretty ridiculous, they're mostly motivated by human greed and politics. From what i can see Islam and Christianity are pretty indistinguishable from each other in their Hypocrisy and vileness.
That's not a fair statement. Take Islam for example. The Arab expansion was incredible and throughout the Arab sultanates during from the 7th century and for a long period of time that lasted until the 13th or 12th, depends on how you look at it, these areas of Northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East went from depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture. Religion helps to consolidate the masses and provide a clear set of goals. That isn't always bad for the people and good for some supposed "puppeteers".
Well those areas going from "depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture" could just as well be attributed to cultural and political unification, which could have been any entity and didn't have to be Islam (much like what happened when alexander conquered the middle east) Still doesn't mean the religion isn't full of shit. edit: but errr... my main point was Christianity and Islam are very similar religions good or bad.
Their followers might be since they're humans affected by the same passions, but the religions, by religion I mean the verses of their Holy Books, are very different.
On May 13 2012 00:20 sc4k wrote: Definitely was a war of aggression but then again...the conquest of richard the lionheart is a pretty cool tale. I always preferred western knights to shitty little arab knights riding around on ponies with bows and their silk cloth. Nothing cooler than a barder warhorse and a suit of armour + a broadsword. When I went to Turkey I talked to some guys about this and they were like 'haha stupid western armour? It looks so stupid and they are so clunky and useless, much better a brave knight of suleiman's horde with his majestic robes and well made sword, and rapid horse.
Funny how perspectives on these things come almost entirely from your background.
:D You know how many knights dumped their armour when they realised how hot it was in the Levant? Hell, Barbarossa died because he went for a swim in his armour. And Lionheart's tale was basically him pissing off the nobles of Europe while he went to the Middle East, conquering Cyprus on the way (another Christian power...) and having to hide who he was on the way back for fear of being discovered. It's a toss-up who was a worse king of England, him or John
I defy you to explain how the Muslim world presented a clear and present danger to Western Europe in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. After the collapse of Abbasid power, the Muslim world was riven with just as many divided principalities and quarreling states as Europe was. The idea of the all-conquering Muslim united in a desire to endlessly expand the borders of Islam in that period is a complete and total myth.
maybe seljuks can be given as a reason. being faily arabic and muslimic influenced. or constant imigration of turkmen horde can be shown as a growing military population in anatolia. than again that population is not muslim though guess we can say their alliagence and han is.
well of course we can always try to defend the crusade "institution" with very limited pool of examples but yeah..
On May 13 2012 01:21 Kukaracha wrote: We do, because we have a genuine interest in history. We're not trying to prove that muslims are good or evil. Personally I don't give a damn, I'm simply interested in our past. I don't see where you took the idea that no one talks about the "pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population", atlhough it is true that the christian population was originally treated better by the conquerors of Spain, who were far more advanced than the indigenous population.
nah, the fact is that you very rarely will hear about the muslim aggression. you will almost always exclusively hear about the christian aggression and the christian atrocities (don't believe me? ask ten random people on the street about the Crusades, who was at fault, etc.) even in this thread that is evident. its understandable given the "blame the victor" mentality that has often risen up in our judgements of the past, but it is also extremely dishonest. as are the kind of statements like:
"were far more advanced than the indigenous population"
which simplifies a very complex issue far beyond what is strictly advisable.
On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote: You should read 'The crusade through Arab eyes'.
Basically everyone did it for their own agenda. The Pope called for the crusades to make the Church more important. Alexius needed help protecting the Byzantine empire (which was created through conquest and unjust invasions in the first place) against the Arabs. The European nobles that went wanted to conquer new lands to rule.
Suffice to say Alexius wasn't very happy when a mob of unorganized barbarian religious lunatics led by greedy nobles arrived at his gates.
Religion was all an excuse and a manipulation of the common people, as usual. The jews and the orthodox Christians had as much to fear from the crusaders as the muslims did as they say jews, orthodox christians and muslims as basically the same. There is at least one battle in which arabs and crusaders fought other arabs and other crusaders. And of all massacres, the cannibalism at Ma'arra was the worst. It was basically crusaders eating whoever they could capture after sacking to achieve 'shock and awe'. The cannibalism wasn't the result of famine among the crusader soldiers. It was meant as intimidation.
Can't believe you want to argue this was a 'just war'. Didn't realize Breivik had internet in his cell block.
User was temp banned for this post.
WHAT?????????
not only is that incredibly wrong is also very stupid...
The bizantine empire started in 320s after christ, when the roman empire fell and was divided in oriental empire (bizantium) and western empire. Since islam only apeared in 622 how can byzantium be an agressor against Islam?
Get you fact rights my friend because you don't know shit..
On May 13 2012 01:21 Kukaracha wrote: We do, because we have a genuine interest in history. We're not trying to prove that muslims are good or evil. Personally I don't give a damn, I'm simply interested in our past. I don't see where you took the idea that no one talks about the "pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population", atlhough it is true that the christian population was originally treated better by the conquerors of Spain, who were far more advanced than the indigenous population.
nah, the fact is that you very rarely will hear about the muslim aggression. you will almost always exclusively hear about the christian aggression and the christian atrocities. even in this thread that is evident. its understandable given the "blame the victor" mentality that has often risen up in our judgements of the past, but it is also extremely dishonest. as are the kind of statements like:
"were far more advanced than the indigenous population"
which simplifies a very complex issue far beyond what is strictly advisable.
True, you should therefore avoid questioning something concluded by historians.
It's somewhat ironic that you come up with this random "fact" that people always ramble about crusaders and not about djihadists and then speak about carefully looking at a complex problem.
However, even if this is true, how is this not logical for French people to learn about crusades, for example, as it's part of our ancesters' history? Muslims only set foot in France once, and we do learn this in schools. Aside from that, why should we learn Spanish and Egyptian history (although we do learn about the conquest of Spain, you know).
EPT
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good or bad.
