Crusades

[Steve]

Hi all,
The Crusades seem to have been mentioned alot lately so i though id post this part of an article giving some more information about them.

Reinforcing popular stereotypes about the crusades, Scott’s politically correct, anti-Christian Kingdom of Heaven has been described by Professsor Jonathan Riley-Smith, one of the foremost authorities on the crusades, as “Osama Bin Laden’s version of history” which “will fuel the Islamic fundamentalists.”
The popular misconceptions about the crusades are that these were aggressive wars of expansion fought by religious fanatics in order to evict Muslims from their homeland, and force conversions to Christianity. Those who really believe any of that betray their ignorance of history.

A REACTION TO JIHAD

The crusaders were reacting to over four centuries of relentless Islamic Jihad, which had wiped out over 50% of all the Christians in the world and conquered over 60% of all the Christian lands on earth – before the crusades even began. Many of the towns liberated by the crusaders were still over 90% Christian when the crusaders arrived. The Middle East was the birthplace of the Christian Church. It was the Christians who had been conquered and oppressed by the Seljuk Turks. So many of the towns in the Middle East welcomed the crusaders as liberators.

Far from the crusaders being the aggressors, it was the Muslim armies which had spread Islam from Saudi Arabia across the whole of Christian North Africa into Spain and even France within the first century after the death of Muhammad. Muslim armies sacked and slaughtered their way across some of the greatest Christian cities in the world, including Alexandria, Carthage, Antioch and Constantinople. These Muslim invaders destroyed over 3,200 Christian churches just in the first 100 years of Islam.

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Rest of Article can be found at - http://www.frontline.org.za/articles/crusades_all_about.htm

Like to know your thoughts.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Great post. Thank you.

 

[Ryan2065]

Rest of Article can be found at - http://www.frontline.org.za/article...s_all_about.htm

Like to know your thoughts.

It is my understanding that the problem with the Crusades is not over how they were started, but what happened during them... All the raping and conquering cities that were not under the Turk's rule and what not. At least that was always my impression, correct me if I'm wrong...

 

[James the Persian]

It is my understanding that the problem with the Crusades is not over how they were started, but what happened during them... All the raping and conquering cities that were not under the Turk's rule and what not. At least that was always my impression, correct me if I'm wrong...

That's certainly our problem with the Crusades, particularly the 4th. And, of course, that everyone refers to them as Christian wars when they were, in fact, Roman Catholic wars only.

James

 

[Ryan2065]

http://www.sundayschoolcourses.com/crusades/#_Toc63601731


Here are the "bad things" done in the crusades (namely the 4th and the "Albigensian Crusades")

Easily the most shameful of all the Holy Land crusades, the Fourth Crusade ended with no gains in the Holy Lands, but it captured a small Greek town on the Adriatic Sea, and twice sacked Constantinople (!) The sharp-eyed reader will note that the original reason for the First Crusade was to come to the aid of the Eastern Church in Constantinople. Slightly over 100 years later, Crusader armies decimated it.

When the time came to transport the 30,000 man Crusader Army, the Crusaders had only half of the required fees. The Doge, always helpful, offered to let the Crusaders earn part of their passage by capturing a rival commercial city, Zara in Dalmatia. The Crusaders were successful in taking Zara (November 1202). It should be noted that the Crusaders did not have the backing of the Pope for this action, as Zara was a Christian city.

 

[Valjean]

Soldiers behaving badly -- what a surprise.

 

[James the Persian]

http://www.sundayschoolcourses.com/crusades/#_Toc63601731


Here are the "bad things" done in the crusades (namely the 4th and the "Albigensian Crusades")

When the time came to transport the 30,000 man Crusader Army, the Crusaders had only half of the required fees. The Doge, always helpful, offered to let the Crusaders earn part of their passage by capturing a rival commercial city, Zara in Dalmatia. The Crusaders were successful in taking Zara (November 1202). It should be noted that the Crusaders did not have the backing of the Pope for this action, as Zara was a Christian city.

I know nothing about Zara, but I'd hardly call that the worst event of the 4th Crusade - that goes hands down to the sacking of Constantinople, including the theft of relics (many still not yet returned) and the desecration of the Haghia Sophia. The 4th Crusade never even made it to the Holy Land. JPII apologised for what was done to the Orthodox Church in the 4th Crusade, which was very welcome, but the scars of that event run deep in some Orthodox communities, particularly the Greeks and if anything cemented the Schism, that was it.

James

 

[Ryan2065]

I know nothing about Zara, but I'd hardly call that the worst event of the 4th Crusade - that goes hands down to the sacking of Constantinople, including the theft of relics (many still not yet returned) and the desecration of the Haghia Sophia. The 4th Crusade never even made it to the Holy Land. JPII apologised for what was done to the Orthodox Church in the 4th Crusade, which was very welcome, but the scars of that event run deep in some Orthodox communities, particularly the Greeks and if anything cemented the Schism, that was it.

Oh, weird, my post was actually alot longer... not sure why it all didn't post here... There were a few other things that I quoted....

The Albigensian Crusade is another bad one..

The Albigensian Crusade (so named, because the French city of Albi was a Cathar stronghold), lasted for 20 years, from 1209 to 1229, led primarily by Simon de Montfort. The suppression of the Cathar heresy established new “standards” for ferocity for the Roman Church in dealing with its own flock. Perhaps the most famous example was on July 22, 1209, when the city of Beziers was sacked, with over 20,000 men, women and children killed by crusaders

Wholesale burnings of Cathars were carried out during the Crusade, including 400 burnt after the fall of Lavaur in 1211, and 94 burnt after the fall of Casses in the same year. It was against this backdrop that Pope Gregory IX instituted the Papal Inquisition in 1227/31. While the Albigensian Crusade had wiped out most of the Cathar strongholds, there were still heretics to be hunted down and burned – many of whom had gone into hiding during the years of the Crusade. Examples of post-Crusade slaughter of the Cathars include 183 burned in Montwimer (Marne) in 1239, and the burning of 215 Cathar perfecti (the Cathar priests) at the Castle of Montsegur in 1244 (sometimes referred to as the Massacre at Montsegur.)

 

[Darkdale]

Just for the record, I did not find Kingdom of Heaven to be anti-Christian.

 

[Quiddity]

That's certainly our problem with the Crusades, particularly the 4th. And, of course, that everyone refers to them as Christian wars when they were, in fact, Roman Catholic wars only.

James

This makes it sound like you don't consider Catholics as Christians. But I doubt you mean that..:bounce

~Victor

 

[Popeyesays]

Hi all, <SNIP>


Like to know your thoughts.

That you're mistaking a Christian evangelical apologetic polemic for actual history.

Regards,
Scott

 

[Ryan2065]

This makes it sound like you don't consider Catholics as Christians. But I doubt you mean that..

Funny, I read what he said and got the message "The Crusades were not faught by ALL christians but by the Roman Catholics... How you translated that message into "Roman Catholics are not Christians" is beyond me...

 

[Quiddity]

Funny, I read what he said and got the message "The Crusades were not faught by ALL christians but by the Roman Catholics... How you translated that message into "Roman Catholics are not Christians" is beyond me...

Here let me paste it for you:
That's certainly our problem with the Crusades, particularly the 4th. And, of course, that everyone refers to them as Christian wars when they were, in fact, Roman Catholic wars only.

Tell me, where is the word ALL you inserted?
And how many Christian denominations do you think existed back then?

It's no big deal. I know he didn't mean that...

~Victor

 

[Popeyesays]

Funny, I read what he said and got the message "The Crusades were not faught by ALL christians but by the Roman Catholics... How you translated that message into "Roman Catholics are not Christians" is beyond me...

The Eastern and Syrian orthodox Christians were victims of the Crusades largely speaking.
When Jerusalem was threatened by the First Crusade the 30-40,000 Christians living there were expelled from the city. They functioned as native supporters for the Crusader army, showing them where water and timber could be found.

When the crusaders took the city, one of the first things they did was to imprison and torture the eastern priests to disclose the location of the "true cross". Then the eastern Christians were again expelled from the city. Between 20 and 30 percent of the Muslim defenders of the city were allowed to withdraw under the laws of parole, the rest were massacred whether they surrendered or not. Almost the entire Jewish population of the city was massacred men, women and children.

 

[Ryan2065]

Here let me paste it for you:
That's certainly our problem with the Crusades, particularly the 4th. And, of course, that everyone refers to them as Christian wars when they were, in fact, Roman Catholic wars only.

Tell me, where is the word ALL you inserted?
And how many Christian denominations do you think existed back then?

It's no big deal. I know he didn't mean that...

Just letting you know that what he said does not imply anything remotly like what you read =)

And there were more than one Christian denominations back then... To say that Christianity waged the Crusades is very wrong, as he pointed out... I don't know what plainer language he could have used? Lets put it this way... Lets say I say this....
The little league won the game.
Obviously a whole league cannot win a game... so lets change it.
Only the Cougars won the game.
Does this imply that the cougars are not part of the little league? Apparently accoridng to your logic it does...

 

[Doc]

Just for the record, I did not find Kingdom of Heaven to be anti-Christian.

I saw this movie as well and found it to be fair to both the Muslims and the Christians.

 

[James the Persian]

This makes it sound like you don't consider Catholics as Christians. But I doubt you mean that..:bounce

~Victor

No, I don't consider RCs non-Christian. The important word in my sentence was the last one - 'only'. All I meant was that I get sick of people trying to claim that Christianity is evil and violent, often the more fanatical Muslim apologists, because of the Crusades. Neither we nor the Oriental Orthodox were involved, except as victims. That's what I meant when I said that the Crusades were Roman Catholic wars only.

About the worst example of this sort of nonsense I've recently seen are the fanatical Muslims in Egypt referring to the Coptic church as a 'crusader church'. Just how historically cockeyed can you get? Of course, I don't think it's fair to tar modern Roman Catholicism with the brush of the Crusades either, especially given the apologies by the likes of JPII, but at least that position, indefensible though it is, has some basis in historical fact. Villifying all of Christianity for the abuses of one (at the time) comparatively small group does not. Hope that has made what I had thought quite clear even more so.

James

 

[Yerda]

The massacre of Jerusalem's inhabitants as well as the atrocities against the Jewish people of Europe were in defense? Not the greatest examples of Christian love I've heard.

 

[James the Persian]

The massacre of Jerusalem's inhabitants as well as the atrocities against the Jewish people of Europe were in defense? Not the greatest examples of Christian love I've heard.

No, I wouldn't call the Crusades defensive either. A defensive war would have been for the Empire that lost the lands to the Muslim invasion to have continued fighting to drive them back out again. The Crusades were an attempt by western Christians to conquer the Holy Land for the Roman Catholic church. The fact that they killed many Jews and eastern Christians as well as their Muslim rulers just makes the whole episode thoroughly appalling.

James

 

[Ryan2065]

No, I wouldn't call the Crusades defensive either. A defensive war would have been for the Empire that lost the lands to the Muslim invasion to have continued fighting to drive them back out again. The Crusades were an attempt by western Christians to conquer the Holy Land for the Roman Catholic church. The fact that they killed many Jews and eastern Christians as well as their Muslim rulers just makes the whole episode thoroughly appalling.

The Crusades were defensive in that they started because the Byzantine emperor asked for help from the Pope, so he sent a Crusade to help Byzantine. Then they transformed into something completely different...