Crimes of Crusaders

Message Share Topic Printable Version Google Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Windows Live Yahoo Bookmarks reddit Facebook MySpace Newsvine Furl Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic

Originally posted by Constantine XI

Originally posted by Orval

hi 

can someone help me? i'm looking for some text about the crimes the crusaders of Godrfied of Bouillon did on ther way to the holyland.
thnx 
grts from Belgium

This is one of the great problems in reconstructing history, how to judge morally actions which occurred in a time and place far removed from our own. As I asserted in the thread on Basil II Bulgarslayer, what we may today consider a crime was back in the medieval period considered typical and common practice. Can you clearly define for us what you mean by a "crime"?

As CXI rightly said it is impossible to measure the deeds of the Crusaders by current ethical standards.
But as the defenders of the Crusades then and now understood them as a Holy War fought on behalf of Christianity against the heathen Muslims, maybe it's possible to judge them by the contemporary ethics of the religion they allegedly set out to defend. 
And then there are two possibilities, either the ethics of the Medieval Christianity allowed them mass-slaughter of innocent civilians, as done during the conquest of Jerusalem and Constantinople, or the massacre of Muslim hostages in Acre ( to namely only the possibly best known atrocities), or the Crusaders contravened the ethical code of Medieval Christianity and thus acted against their own moral standars. 
And then their deeds could be called a crime, not only by modern and enlightened standards, by also by the laws of the Christian Medieval society.