History Moments (Crusades)

[Dragbag036]

I came across this while studying for a college course and thought it was a interesting read.

Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics.

So what is the truth about the Crusades? The Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression-an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity-and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion-has no abode. In traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.

With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed's death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt-once the most heavily Christian areas in the world-quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.

That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.

[x-factor]

Respectfully, I think you're just replacing one gross simplification with another.

The question "Were the Crusades offensive or defensive?" has no easy answer. In some senses yes, in some senses no.

There had been tension between the Muslim and Christian worlds since Islam broke out of Arabia under the first Caliphs. But by 1096 when the Pope called the Council of Claremont to announce the First Crusade it had been more than 350 years (thats close to ten lifetimes by the standards of the time) since the Muslim invasion of Western Europe was defeated at the Battle of Tours. This is not to say there existed a state of peaceful coexistence. Spain was still under Muslim rule and there was still fighting/raiding/skirmishing in parts of Italy but this was hardly an existential threat nor was it interpreted that way.

The proximate cause of the First Crusade was the Byzantine emperor's request to the Pope for aid following the loss of Nicea. He asked for some Catholic mercenaries to shore up the Byzantine defenses in Anatolia that were facing the Turkic tribes of Kilij Aslan. Pope Urban jumped on the opportunity to launch a continent-wide popular movement with the goal of seizing an entirely different set of territory which was under the control of an entirely different set of Muslims.

The personal motivation for an individual on Crusade had little to do with a sense of Islamic threat or brotherhood with non-Catholic Christians. (The Frankish Crusaders slaughtered Eastern Christians on more than one occasion and they allied with Muslims more than once as well.) For the most part they were seeking personal salvation and/or personal wealth, both of which where explicitly promised to them the Pope and the other clergy who rallied the Crusade.

The Pope's motivations in calling the Crusade can be debated too. Was he afraid of the armies of Islam? Did he care about recapturing the holy sites for spiritual value? Did he care about turning Frankish military culture away from the killing of other Christians and to something more productive (as he saw it)? Was he just trying to assert and broaden his temporal authority? Probably some combination of all of these.

My point is that if you want to understand history you need to see it in all its complexities and resist the temptation to simplify or romanticize it in any direction.

If your interested in learning more, I recommend The First Crusade by Thomas Asbridge as a starting point.

[Dragbag036]

Thanx, for the information, and your insight, as I am doing research for courses I have. I agree that I need to look at all aspects. Sometimes doing research
gathering thoughts from others help to stimulate a better outcome.

[longrange1947]

Population control?

[CPTAUSRET]

Originally Posted by longrange1947

Population control?

You might have something there!

[Peregrino]

X-factor - Good summation of the issues. (Lends some additional credibility to your "analyst" claims. ) Pity our bipolar world discourages critical thinking. I recently purchased "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam" for grins & giggles. Dragbag036's opening post reads like a quote from the intro. While I personally believe Islam vs. Western Civ is a "B&W" issue (with B&W solutions) the underlying causes of the cultural conflict are far more complicated - and worthy of exploration/understanding if we expect to survive, let alone win. Back to our "regularly shceduled thread" (Are We At War With Islam?). My .02

[x-factor]

Originally Posted by Dragbag036

Thanx, for the information, and your insight, as I am doing research for courses I have. I agree that I need to look at all aspects. Sometimes doing research gathering thoughts from others help to stimulate a better outcome.

For sure. Let me know if you want to chat about it some more.

Another really interesting book is The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Malouf from Lebanon. I think his commentary on the history really illuminates (both intentionally and unintentionally) some of the Arab world's pathologies.