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On May 13 2012 05:36 SiroKO wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2012 05:18 Scootaloo wrote:
Although there are some arguments to redeem the crusaders not a lot of valid ones are actually named in the OP, which seems to try to educate people on a subject it knows very little about.
For instance the battle of Manzikert you reference, you forget to mention that the reason this battle turned out so badly was DUE to the European powers, mercenary armies where commonplace, and in this situation the Byzantine emperor used European Catholics for this purpose. However, halfway through the battle the Europeans backstabbed the Byzantines, taking their modern-day Greek holdings to form the Latin Empire (which collapsed soon after).
And what you forget to mention about the first crusade that could actually help your argument is that Saladin razed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1010, possibly the most important Church for all Christians based on Jerusalems significance to the Christians and the many pilgrimages that centered around it, this action had brought the Christians into a incredibly aggressive state of mind against the muslims (one could compare it with what would happen if modern day Christians razed Mecca), a sentiment easily abused by the Pope when he called for the Crusade in 1096, combined with regional conflicts, zealousness and wealth of the nobility that took part it is understandable that the French, Belgian and Norman rulers involved heeded the call.
At the end of the day though it's all powerplays, what you need to understand is that unlike the Muslims, which where under the rule of massive empires in the time period the crusader took place, Europe was in no such state of union, whereas the Sunni or Shiite Caliph could just summon massive armies from their vast lands the European states needed a leader they could all serve under to combine their forces, due to European feudal history and renewed religious significance, the only persons that could take this role was the pope and patriarch.
If you can look at history without projecting your own religious beliefs onto it it should be pretty clear that Crusades, Jihads or any other war that ever happened where just plays to increase power through whatever means was effective at that time, be it developing an understanding with the Pope/Caliph or just gaining more land to rule. You can always go deeper when talking about history. The intelligence lies in distinguishing what is necessary and what is not. Assuming someone doesn't know about something when he doesn't directly talk about it proofs you're not interested in a meaningful discussion but rather showing off your knowledge. Besides, it wasn't Saladin who razed the Holy Sepulcre in ~1010, since he lived in the XIIth century and led the Muslim army against the third crusade.
Fuck man, feel free to address any of the opposing arguments to your initial OP AT ANY TIME. I don't think you understand the meaning of irony when the only post you've made discussing anything was probably some paraphrased cut and paste job you did in the OP, and then after that you've just come into this thread to take jabs at other people by vaguely referring to them as being "not interested in meaningful discussion" and then not actually rebutting anything that is said, leaving it to other people to do. You're a hypocrite.
P.S. And occassionally throwing in one-liners like: "It wasn't Saladin who razed the Holy Sepulcre..." NO-ONE WAS TALKING ABOUT THAT. Nice try throwing in diversions to keep people off track and avoiding the main arguments. That's what I hate about Christians like you - when you're debating stuff like evolution occasionally you'll throw in lines like: "What about the Cambrian explosion?" And it's like, fuck, you're not actually interested in realising that you don't know shit compared to scientists, in this case, you don't know shit compared to people who have actually studied this in history, but you just keep trying to reach for more arguments in the hope that one of them will show Christianity in a good light and be like: "Aha! I finally caught you out with an anomaly which scientists/historians have yet to disprove!".
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There's so much misinformation in some posts. Crusades in my opinion can't be justified. There were more than one crusade, so it wasn't catholic resistance: in fact they tried many times to retake Jerusalem ( captured during the first crusade but then lost). And the reasons for this wars weren't absolutely religious. Yes, there were some fanatics, but even the Pope, accordin to many historians, declared this war for non-religious reasons. And many soldier weren't there to fight for God, rather for the $$ or maybe God's grace. And the muslim wolrd was light year ahead of the catholic one. Maybe people are forgetting that in Europe many Latin and Greek books got burnt/lost because the church didn't allow people to read them (and we're also talking about very important book). Arab medicine was on a complete another level: I read from a history book that catholic medics for example to heal dementia cut a cross on top of the head of the ill to make "the devil exit", while the Arab tried to change his alimentary habit (soldiers at the time lacked a good alimentation, and that was the cause of many kind of diseases). There were some Arab philosophers (Averroè and others) who actually even were interested in the Aristothelic view of the world, so we can't really say Arab were close minded. Yeah, of course there were some episodes of intolerance toward Christians, but they still offered something like a forced conversion. And come from a Christian background. Hell, even Wojtila asked for forgiveness for the terrible act catholics did in the past. Even Christians are men, they can be wrong sometimes: there's really no need to defend even if they did something wrong.
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On May 13 2012 06:27 IGotPlayguuu wrote:
There's so much misinformation in some posts. Crusades in my opinion can't be justified. There were more than one crusade, so it wasn't catholic resistance: in fact they tried many times to retake Jerusalem ( captured during the first crusade but then lost). And the reasons for this wars weren't absolutely religious. Yes, there were some fanatics, but even the Pope, accordin to many historians, declared this war for non-religious reasons. And many soldier weren't there to fight for God, rather for the $$ or maybe God's grace. And the muslim wolrd was light year ahead of the catholic one. Maybe people are forgetting that in Europe many Latin and Greek books got burnt/lost because the church didn't allow people to read them (and we're also talking about very important book). Arab medicine was on a complete another level: I read from a history book that catholic medics for example to heal dementia cut a cross on top of the head of the ill to make "the devil exit", while the Arab tried to change his alimentary habit (soldiers at the time lacked a good alimentation, and that was the cause of many kind of diseases). There were some Arab philosophers (Averroè and others) who actually even were interested in the Aristothelic view of the world, so we can't really say Arab were close minded. Yeah, of course there were some episodes of intolerance toward Christians, but they still offered something like a forced conversion. And come from a Christian background. Hell, even Wojtila asked for forgiveness for the terrible act catholics did in the past. Even Christians are men, they can be wrong sometimes: there's really no need to defend even if they did something wrong.
I'm not sure of understanding your digression on Islamic scientific accomplishments.
Do you mean that technological and/or scientific superiority justifies colonization ?
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I have to disagree with a few parts and add a bit more information.
The purpose was to get the "Holyland" back for Christianity. This time of History reveals that Popes had more power than kings; they were essentially kings themselves. My teacher said that Pope Innocent III was the most powerful pope in Western Civilization. (Forgot a lot of details, its been 2 months since exam  ) Quite interestingly, a pope (forgot his name) excommunicated an entire kingdom because of the investiture conflict. He made the king travel to his winter palace and beg for forgiveness. The king had to shout from the outside because the Pope wouldn't let him inside.
Essentially, the crusades was triggered by Christianity. The Pope told men that if they went on this battle, their sins would be forgiven. From my class lectures, I felt as if the Pope was acting out of ego rather than for the sake of Christianity. To me, it was about conquering more land and more power to fund the construction of more churches.
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No, indeed there was absolutely no colonization. I really don't know how you can possibly think of an Islamic colonization in this contest. They invaded the Byzantine empire, but invading is one thing in my opinion (taking lands because you need it), colonizing it's kinda different (spreading your culture, destroying the native cultures). The reason for the crusades, trust me , wasn't resistance, it was rathe an offensive. Again, the european world was to variegated to be united under the "let's resist the common enemy". For example many Holy Roman Emperor werent even supporting the Pope, yet they went on the crusade (Frederick Barbarossa, who wasn't in good terms with the previous Pope, but to make peace with the new went on the campaign). Don't try to put some deep idealogical reasons to a war waged for practical purposes.
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On May 13 2012 06:26 Mango Chicken wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2012 05:36 SiroKO wrote:On May 13 2012 05:18 Scootaloo wrote:
Although there are some arguments to redeem the crusaders not a lot of valid ones are actually named in the OP, which seems to try to educate people on a subject it knows very little about.
For instance the battle of Manzikert you reference, you forget to mention that the reason this battle turned out so badly was DUE to the European powers, mercenary armies where commonplace, and in this situation the Byzantine emperor used European Catholics for this purpose. However, halfway through the battle the Europeans backstabbed the Byzantines, taking their modern-day Greek holdings to form the Latin Empire (which collapsed soon after).
And what you forget to mention about the first crusade that could actually help your argument is that Saladin razed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1010, possibly the most important Church for all Christians based on Jerusalems significance to the Christians and the many pilgrimages that centered around it, this action had brought the Christians into a incredibly aggressive state of mind against the muslims (one could compare it with what would happen if modern day Christians razed Mecca), a sentiment easily abused by the Pope when he called for the Crusade in 1096, combined with regional conflicts, zealousness and wealth of the nobility that took part it is understandable that the French, Belgian and Norman rulers involved heeded the call.
At the end of the day though it's all powerplays, what you need to understand is that unlike the Muslims, which where under the rule of massive empires in the time period the crusader took place, Europe was in no such state of union, whereas the Sunni or Shiite Caliph could just summon massive armies from their vast lands the European states needed a leader they could all serve under to combine their forces, due to European feudal history and renewed religious significance, the only persons that could take this role was the pope and patriarch.
If you can look at history without projecting your own religious beliefs onto it it should be pretty clear that Crusades, Jihads or any other war that ever happened where just plays to increase power through whatever means was effective at that time, be it developing an understanding with the Pope/Caliph or just gaining more land to rule. You can always go deeper when talking about history. The intelligence lies in distinguishing what is necessary and what is not. Assuming someone doesn't know about something when he doesn't directly talk about it proofs you're not interested in a meaningful discussion but rather showing off your knowledge. Besides, it wasn't Saladin who razed the Holy Sepulcre in ~1010, since he lived in the XIIth century and led the Muslim army against the third crusade. Fuck man, feel free to address any of the opposing arguments to your initial OP AT ANY TIME. I don't think you understand the meaning of irony when the only post you've made discussing anything was probably some paraphrased cut and paste job you did in the OP, and then after that you've just come into this thread to take jabs at other people by vaguely referring to them as being "not interested in meaningful discussion" and then not actually rebutting anything that is said, leaving it to other people to do. You're a hypocrite. P.S. And occassionally throwing in one-liners like: "It wasn't Saladin who razed the Holy Sepulcre..." NO-ONE WAS TALKING ABOUT THAT. Nice try throwing in diversions to keep people off track and avoiding the main arguments. That's what I hate about Christians like you - when you're debating stuff like evolution occasionally you'll throw in lines like: "What about the Cambrian explosion?" And it's like, fuck, you're not actually interested in realising that you don't know shit compared to scientists, in this case, you don't know shit compared to people who have actually studied this in history, but you just keep trying to reach for more arguments in the hope that one of them will show Christianity in a good light and be like: "Aha! I finally caught you out with an anomaly which scientists/historians have yet to disprove!".
I definitely don't want to debate someone who assumes that anyone complaining about the overly-biased modern view of the Christian Crusades must be a Christian Creationist.
You're so full of certitudes and idiotic cliches as long as insulting.
I'm humble, and recognize that I've a lot to learn, but certainly not from someone like you.
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On May 12 2012 21:44 SiroKO wrote:
Mostly for the purpose of demonizing Christianity, which would therefore not be much better than the Islamic faith
in fact, they're the same, and both should be treated just as any another religion, because that's what they are.
two religions in an ocean of religions.
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On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote:
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.
This is an accurate summation of the primary actors' motivations. The Byzatines had been under pressure from the advancing Turks for a long time, and that is why Alexius requested help, mainly in the form of mercenaries and such, from the west. The Pope saw this an opportunity and called for a crusade. The European nobility's youngest sons, those bereft of land and power because they had older siblings who went first in the line of succession, saw this as a chance to acquire land and wealth, and as we know, the Holy Land ended up being fragmented and ruled by a number of such warlords. Though it is important to note that the Crusades were not driven only by cynical opportunists but sincere idealists as well.
Alexius did not expect to meet religious fanatics or righteous conquerors (and they did cause significant damage even as they traveled through Europe, animated as they were by their zealotry, leading up to the earliest recorded massacres of jewish populations in Europe). This lead to miscommunication and resentment, and other related accidents, including a massacre of the crusaders at the hands of the Turks, and eventually this would contribute in turn to a more widespread myth of Greek perfidy, which would contribute at least indirectly to the eventual fall of Constantinople. At least this is what I remember.
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On May 13 2012 06:06 corose wrote:
Was the OP written by FOX News?
I second Mango Chicken... that's really what this seems like.
The OP is so bare... could you at least cite where this information is coming from? Or having at least some more content?
I agree. A lot of what the OP said amounts to mere right-wing babble.
OP, thanks for starting a great topic of discussion, but your premise is incorrect. The conventional understanding of the crusades is not inaccurate in the least.
Enough false and myopic platitudes. Enough revisionist history.
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On May 13 2012 07:12 Vorps wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2012 06:06 corose wrote:
Was the OP written by FOX News?
I second Mango Chicken... that's really what this seems like.
The OP is so bare... could you at least cite where this information is coming from? Or having at least some more content? I agree. A lot of what the OP said amounts to mere right-wing babble. OP, thanks for starting a great topic of discussion, but your premise is incorrect. The conventional understanding of the crusades is not inaccurate in the least. Enough false and myopic platitudes. Enough revisionist history.
But you have no idea how boring non-revised history is!!
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On May 13 2012 06:55 SiroKO wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2012 06:26 Mango Chicken wrote:On May 13 2012 05:36 SiroKO wrote:On May 13 2012 05:18 Scootaloo wrote:
Although there are some arguments to redeem the crusaders not a lot of valid ones are actually named in the OP, which seems to try to educate people on a subject it knows very little about.
For instance the battle of Manzikert you reference, you forget to mention that the reason this battle turned out so badly was DUE to the European powers, mercenary armies where commonplace, and in this situation the Byzantine emperor used European Catholics for this purpose. However, halfway through the battle the Europeans backstabbed the Byzantines, taking their modern-day Greek holdings to form the Latin Empire (which collapsed soon after).
And what you forget to mention about the first crusade that could actually help your argument is that Saladin razed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1010, possibly the most important Church for all Christians based on Jerusalems significance to the Christians and the many pilgrimages that centered around it, this action had brought the Christians into a incredibly aggressive state of mind against the muslims (one could compare it with what would happen if modern day Christians razed Mecca), a sentiment easily abused by the Pope when he called for the Crusade in 1096, combined with regional conflicts, zealousness and wealth of the nobility that took part it is understandable that the French, Belgian and Norman rulers involved heeded the call.
At the end of the day though it's all powerplays, what you need to understand is that unlike the Muslims, which where under the rule of massive empires in the time period the crusader took place, Europe was in no such state of union, whereas the Sunni or Shiite Caliph could just summon massive armies from their vast lands the European states needed a leader they could all serve under to combine their forces, due to European feudal history and renewed religious significance, the only persons that could take this role was the pope and patriarch.
If you can look at history without projecting your own religious beliefs onto it it should be pretty clear that Crusades, Jihads or any other war that ever happened where just plays to increase power through whatever means was effective at that time, be it developing an understanding with the Pope/Caliph or just gaining more land to rule. You can always go deeper when talking about history. The intelligence lies in distinguishing what is necessary and what is not. Assuming someone doesn't know about something when he doesn't directly talk about it proofs you're not interested in a meaningful discussion but rather showing off your knowledge. Besides, it wasn't Saladin who razed the Holy Sepulcre in ~1010, since he lived in the XIIth century and led the Muslim army against the third crusade. Fuck man, feel free to address any of the opposing arguments to your initial OP AT ANY TIME. I don't think you understand the meaning of irony when the only post you've made discussing anything was probably some paraphrased cut and paste job you did in the OP, and then after that you've just come into this thread to take jabs at other people by vaguely referring to them as being "not interested in meaningful discussion" and then not actually rebutting anything that is said, leaving it to other people to do. You're a hypocrite. P.S. And occassionally throwing in one-liners like: "It wasn't Saladin who razed the Holy Sepulcre..." NO-ONE WAS TALKING ABOUT THAT. Nice try throwing in diversions to keep people off track and avoiding the main arguments. That's what I hate about Christians like you - when you're debating stuff like evolution occasionally you'll throw in lines like: "What about the Cambrian explosion?" And it's like, fuck, you're not actually interested in realising that you don't know shit compared to scientists, in this case, you don't know shit compared to people who have actually studied this in history, but you just keep trying to reach for more arguments in the hope that one of them will show Christianity in a good light and be like: "Aha! I finally caught you out with an anomaly which scientists/historians have yet to disprove!". I definitely don't want to debate someone who assumes that anyone complaining about the overly-biased modern view of the Christian Crusades must be a Christian Creationist. You're so full of certitudes and idiotic cliches as long as insulting. I'm humble, and recognize that I've a lot to learn, but certainly not from someone like you.
Except you're not being humble (except for the last sentence where you wrote that you were humble). Dozens of people have come into this thread explaining to you why your OP is wrong, yet instead of admitting that the points you made were heavily biased and ill-informed, you've continued to hold to the view that Christians were just and that the opponents of your position haven't made their case. The fact that you felt it was your role to "shut down this argument that the Crusades were bad once and for all" in your OP instead of posting something along the lines of: "I'm interested in the Crusades, how do you guys feel about the following perspective?" Shows that your intention was anything but to give yourself a chance to learn.
Please feel free to inform us where did you learn the material in your OP? A history degree? A book on apologetics? A quick Wikipedia search? Hearing it from a pastor at a Church? What made you take the position that the Christians were the good guys, did you balance up the two sides of the argument after reading all the material and was there overwhelming evidence that the Muslims were the wrongdoers?
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On May 13 2012 07:00 procyonlotor wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote:
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.
This is an accurate summation of the primary actors' motivations. The Byzatines had been under pressure from the advancing Turks for a long time, and that is why Alexius requested help, mainly in the form of mercenaries and such, from the west. The Pope saw this an opportunity and called for a crusade. The European nobility's youngest sons, those bereft of land and power because they had older siblings who went first in the line of succession, saw this as a chance to acquire land and wealth, and as we know, the Holy Land ended up being fragmented and ruled by a number of such warlords. Though it is important to note that the Crusades were not driven only by cynical opportunists but sincere idealists as well. Alexius did not expect to meet religious fanatics or righteous conquerors (and they did cause significant damage even as they traveled through Europe, animated as they were by their zealotry, leading up to the earliest recorded massacres of jewish populations in Europe). This lead to miscommunication and resentment, and other related accidents, including a massacre of the crusaders at the hands of the Turks, and eventually this would contribute in turn to a more widespread myth of Greek perfidy, which would contribute at least indirectly to the eventual fall of Constantinople. At least this is what I remember.
Can we just talk about the idea that the Crusades were made up of mostly impoverished, land-hungry younger sons for a minute. That's actually one of the most common fallacies told about the Crusades. This all comes from a guy named Georges Duby, who is one of the most famous 20th century medieval historians. During his career, he wrote a massive analysis of the Burgundy region of France in which he noted the presence of a great many landless younger sons and he speculated that this could be the cause of the Crusades. This idea has seeped into the public consciousness as one of the major causes of the Crusades.
In fact, later Crusades historians have done studies showing that, in fact, most of the individuals who went on Crusades were not younger sons looking for land, but were in fact eldest surviving children and landholders. Keep in mind that going on a Crusade was an extraordinarily expensive enterprise which only the nobility of substantial means could generally go on crusade (at least until the development of a more structured logistical apparatus starting under Innocent III). Also, keep in mind that for most of the Crusaders, there was absolutely no way they could be at all certain there would be anything other than financial ruination at the conclusion of their journey.
It's not a big deal at all, but for some reason it really bugs me to see this argument being made over and over again when its simply not true.
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On May 13 2012 07:17 FaiL_SaFe wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2012 07:00 procyonlotor wrote:On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote:
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.
This is an accurate summation of the primary actors' motivations. The Byzatines had been under pressure from the advancing Turks for a long time, and that is why Alexius requested help, mainly in the form of mercenaries and such, from the west. The Pope saw this an opportunity and called for a crusade. The European nobility's youngest sons, those bereft of land and power because they had older siblings who went first in the line of succession, saw this as a chance to acquire land and wealth, and as we know, the Holy Land ended up being fragmented and ruled by a number of such warlords. Though it is important to note that the Crusades were not driven only by cynical opportunists but sincere idealists as well. Alexius did not expect to meet religious fanatics or righteous conquerors (and they did cause significant damage even as they traveled through Europe, animated as they were by their zealotry, leading up to the earliest recorded massacres of jewish populations in Europe). This lead to miscommunication and resentment, and other related accidents, including a massacre of the crusaders at the hands of the Turks, and eventually this would contribute in turn to a more widespread myth of Greek perfidy, which would contribute at least indirectly to the eventual fall of Constantinople. At least this is what I remember. Can we just talk about the idea that the Crusades were made up of mostly impoverished, land-hungry younger sons for a minute. That's actually one of the most common fallacies told about the Crusades. This all comes from a guy named Georges Duby, who is one of the most famous 20th century medieval historians. During his career, he wrote a massive analysis of the Burgundy region of France in which he noted the presence of a great many landless younger sons and he speculated that this could be the cause of the Crusades. This idea has seeped into the public consciousness as one of the major causes of the Crusades. In fact, later Crusades historians have done studies showing that, in fact, most of the individuals who went on Crusades were not younger sons looking for land, but were in fact eldest surviving children and landholders. Keep in mind that going on a Crusade was an extraordinarily expensive enterprise which only the nobility of substantial means could generally go on crusade (at least until the development of a more structured logistical apparatus starting under Innocent III). Also, keep in mind that for most of the Crusaders, there was absolutely no way they could be at all certain there would be anything other than financial ruination at the conclusion of their journey. It's not a big deal at all, but for some reason it really bugs me to see this argument being made over and over again when its simply not true.
That's a very interesting point to make and certainly a good description of the later crusades - being run by kings and their vassals. But does it apply to the First Crusade as much? Think about it, the primary actors in the First Crusade weren't the first-born sons of nobles, and maybe they were trying to gain acclaim and riches for themselves that wouldn't be otherwise available to them. But in later crusades the kings of Europe were running the show, so it makes sense that they would insist on taking the biggest nobles with them - they could raise arger armies, had fought together before, and powerful rivals weren't being left behing to forment dissent in the homeland. There's also the pilgrimage aspect of the later crusades, and who would need more forgiven, the minor son of a noble, or the noble himself who killed rivals, fought monks and disobeyed his king when it suited him?
Each crusade had a different composition due to the aims and the motivators behind them. I would be really interested to see if this older concept applies more to the First Crusade than others.
Also to the man from Portugal who has dismissed every other opinion than his own simply because he is from Portugal and we aren't - can I ask what would move us beyond being armchair historians? What would allow us to talk and debate the Crusades? Well done for completing a basic education in history from your schooling, because I've never heard of a national curriculum in history that is biased and shows that country in an overly favourable light. Can I ask what level of education will you accept for us to talk on this? I mean, I have a degree in history, we had someone else mention their PhD was on this topic. Are we allowed to have an opinion? Or do we have to be from Portugal itself? If so, I need to talk to an awful lot of eminent mediaeval historians and let them know they don't know what they are talking about, because they weren't there, man.
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Just imagine a foreign rable of hungry manic religious peasants mixed in with mercenaries looking for bounty and their next pay and arogant nobility and their bodyguards. What would they do in Constantinopel if you let them in. Most of them don't even speak your language. Your city has food women and gold erverything a tired soldier wants.
Can you think of the type of mindset of the common man in medieval times. People die of horrible deceases like the plague and bad harvest and childbearing. Your malnourished brain emediately believes it when a preacher tells you God is angry with the Christians because you let the muslims take your holy city. Superstition and symbolism was very important then. They believed in an interventionist God. What is the life of a heathen worth if the lives of Christians is so fragile. May you fall on the crusade you are saved and enter the kingdom of God releaving you of your sinners misserable earthy life.
Kings hope to strenghten their position by filling their coffins by plunder, taxation of new traderoutes and favour with the pope affirming your ligitamacy. This is more profitable then continuing waging war once in a while with neighbouring European royals. It gives a legitamate reseason to cooperate with old enemies without loosing face or credibility. You are less likely to get stabbed in the back if your ally is also far away from home surrounded by enemies.
The pope ceases the oppertunity to reduce Muslim influence and expansion. It reduces the infighting in Europe and enlarges his power. An external common enemy unites.
Was it a just war? Nations and cultures evolve sometimes to usurp another. There can always be a justification thought up afterwards. So the question is folly. 99% of wars are started over resources. We wouldn't be interested in Iraq without the oil. About Afghanistan because of rare metals. Sudan attacks Dafur because of oil. Cenral Africa the Kony ploy. Rare metals again. Ruanda civil war was the perceived privilegde of a tribe over another. Envy over resources. Religion is only a device to direct and channel people for the big game.
Ultimately the knowledge picked up during the crusades led to the renaisance. Most of the classic knowledge was preserved by Islamic scholars. They also expanded the knowlegde of chemistry, math and architecture. European scholars started to study their history again.
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On May 13 2012 07:53 Sanctimonius wrote:Show nested quote +On May 13 2012 07:17 FaiL_SaFe wrote:On May 13 2012 07:00 procyonlotor wrote:On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote:
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.
This is an accurate summation of the primary actors' motivations. The Byzatines had been under pressure from the advancing Turks for a long time, and that is why Alexius requested help, mainly in the form of mercenaries and such, from the west. The Pope saw this an opportunity and called for a crusade. The European nobility's youngest sons, those bereft of land and power because they had older siblings who went first in the line of succession, saw this as a chance to acquire land and wealth, and as we know, the Holy Land ended up being fragmented and ruled by a number of such warlords. Though it is important to note that the Crusades were not driven only by cynical opportunists but sincere idealists as well. Alexius did not expect to meet religious fanatics or righteous conquerors (and they did cause significant damage even as they traveled through Europe, animated as they were by their zealotry, leading up to the earliest recorded massacres of jewish populations in Europe). This lead to miscommunication and resentment, and other related accidents, including a massacre of the crusaders at the hands of the Turks, and eventually this would contribute in turn to a more widespread myth of Greek perfidy, which would contribute at least indirectly to the eventual fall of Constantinople. At least this is what I remember. Can we just talk about the idea that the Crusades were made up of mostly impoverished, land-hungry younger sons for a minute. That's actually one of the most common fallacies told about the Crusades. This all comes from a guy named Georges Duby, who is one of the most famous 20th century medieval historians. During his career, he wrote a massive analysis of the Burgundy region of France in which he noted the presence of a great many landless younger sons and he speculated that this could be the cause of the Crusades. This idea has seeped into the public consciousness as one of the major causes of the Crusades. In fact, later Crusades historians have done studies showing that, in fact, most of the individuals who went on Crusades were not younger sons looking for land, but were in fact eldest surviving children and landholders. Keep in mind that going on a Crusade was an extraordinarily expensive enterprise which only the nobility of substantial means could generally go on crusade (at least until the development of a more structured logistical apparatus starting under Innocent III). Also, keep in mind that for most of the Crusaders, there was absolutely no way they could be at all certain there would be anything other than financial ruination at the conclusion of their journey. It's not a big deal at all, but for some reason it really bugs me to see this argument being made over and over again when its simply not true. That's a very interesting point to make and certainly a good description of the later crusades - being run by kings and their vassals. But does it apply to the First Crusade as much? Think about it, the primary actors in the First Crusade weren't the first-born sons of nobles, and maybe they were trying to gain acclaim and riches for themselves that wouldn't be otherwise available to them. But in later crusades the kings of Europe were running the show, so it makes sense that they would insist on taking the biggest nobles with them - they could raise arger armies, had fought together before, and powerful rivals weren't being left behing to forment dissent in the homeland. There's also the pilgrimage aspect of the later crusades, and who would need more forgiven, the minor son of a noble, or the noble himself who killed rivals, fought monks and disobeyed his king when it suited him? Each crusade had a different composition due to the aims and the motivators behind them. I would be really interested to see if this older concept applies more to the First Crusade than others. Also to the man from Portugal who has dismissed every other opinion than his own simply because he is from Portugal and we aren't - can I ask what would move us beyond being armchair historians? What would allow us to talk and debate the Crusades? Well done for completing a basic education in history from your schooling, because I've never heard of a national curriculum in history that is biased and shows that country in an overly favourable light. Can I ask what level of education will you accept for us to talk on this? I mean, I have a degree in history, we had someone else mention their PhD was on this topic. Are we allowed to have an opinion? Or do we have to be from Portugal itself? If so, I need to talk to an awful lot of eminent mediaeval historians and let them know they don't know what they are talking about, because they weren't there, man.
As far as my understanding goes this still applies to the First Crusade. Most crusader knights were expected to pay their own way to the Holy Land. As a result, it generally took considerable means to be able to pay for the trip (or to have sufficient holdings to pawn of sell some or all of them for the cash necessary), means which tended to be beyond most younger siblings who were dependent on the generosity of their elder brothers or some other patron. This is especially true because knights were generally expected to bring with them a retinue of their own soldiers. This is not to say that there were no younger brothers among the Crusaders, because clearly there were however in contrast to the historical mythology they were not the reason for the First Crusade, nor did they make up as significant a portion of the Crusade as one might think based on that assumption.
It is, a somewhat incomplete picture of the Crusade as a whole but if you look at the leadership of the First Crusade the only significant figures to be in a position of even some semblance of authority who was not either the eldest or the eldest surviving son in their family was Hugh of Vermandois and Baldwin of Bouillon. Hugh was the brother of King Philip I of France (and keep in mind that the Kingdom of France in the late 11th century was a shadow of what it would become, although the same could be said of nearly all the monarchies of the period) and even then he was the Count of Vermandois and a fairly significant landholder in his own right. Baldwin was the younger brother of Godrey of Bouillon and eventually ended up becoming Count of Edessa then King of Jerusalem, mostly through his own initiative and blind luck.
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Why oh why do I read these threads... falsehoods and vitriol abound.
Maybe instead of arguing about it here, everyone should go read some books on it. If you think that takes too much time than you shouldn't be discussing it in the first place. Obviously one book is not enough; all scientists and historians are human beings and have something called "bias".
Also, one should not mistake how people leading a religion do and what the religion teaches. People would be wrong to blame Christianity itself for Papal greed, as there is no line of doctrine endorsing any such thing. Again, people are imperfect and fallible.
Go read some books.
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War rarely has just one instigator. Horrible shit happens in war every single time. The end.
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But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
As a history student at the Utrecht University I have to add that people sometimes forget that the crusades weren't exclusively aimed at the Middle East, but that there were crusades going on in Eastern Europe as well. What this adds is that with these included the whole picture becomes a lot more complex and sophisticated than just "religion"; there are different reasons for everyone involved, in this case at least combination of religious fanaticism, a quest for wealth, a case of overpopulation and ofcourse a great deal of political influence, and there is probably another dozen or so smaller incentives for the crusades. Trying to pinpoint the crusades on 1 or 2 reasons just doesn't work out.
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On May 13 2012 08:24 Introvert wrote:
Why oh why do I read these threads... falsehoods and vitriol abound.
Maybe instead of arguing about it here, everyone should go read some books on it. If you think that takes too much time than you shouldn't be discussing it in the first place. Obviously one book is not enough; all scientists and historians are human beings and have something called "bias".
Also, one should not mistake how people leading a religion do and what the religion teaches. People would be wrong to blame Christianity itself for Papal greed, as there is no line of doctrine endorsing any such thing. Again, people are imperfect and fallible.
Go read some books.
But mate why would I read a book WHEN I OBVIOUSLY ALREADY HAVE A OPINION BASED ON WIKIPEDIA AND MY LIFE MATE? BOOKS ARE FOR NERDS AND TAKE TOO MUCH TIME MATE!
/Sarcasm aside, pretty much this. I suggest if you want to get more facts read some (proper) book(s!). What you're seeing here is a mix of facts / ideas without much if any supporting evidence.
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What a coincidence that one of the only guys on TL who advocate the right-wing xenophobic party in the French election gives us this bit of balanced education on the history of Islam vs Christianity.
This, seriously:
On May 13 2012 00:42 Kukaracha wrote:Useless post and thread, does not belong in the "General" section but in blogs at best. The OP is a poorly understood and strongly biased restranscription of a Wikipedia article. A short list of Siroko's shortcomings : - What he says can only be applied mostly to the first crusade,
- Only mentions wars against muslim powers even though crusades were also waged against christian lands, like Toulouse in France,
- Brushes off the fourth crusade as unimportant, although it essentially destroyed the Byzantine Empire and thus allowed a later Ottoman conquest,
- Considers Europe as a unified continent under the christian banner even though any glimpse at any history book suggests otherwise,
- Compares short muslim incursions in France with the establishment of catholic kingdoms in today's Israël,
- Ignores the political dimension of any of these conflicts, where religion sometimes didn't even matter (an example being the alliance of France and Syria against Egypt).
So when Siroko says that : Show nested quote +They were called by the Pope and several European leaders with the goal of fighting Islamic expansionism It is false. This is false too (crusaders themselves brought the Byzantine Empire to its knees). Show nested quote +this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it. Also wrong, as said earlier crusades were directed towards christians too. I find this post very upsetting. I feel as if a child was trying to teach me German ontology.
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EPT
