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The Crusades,reasonable?

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  Quote Jagiello Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: The Crusades,reasonable?
    Posted: 11-Feb-2007 at 10:10

We all know what was the consequent of the crusades,but who was responisble for it?Was it fault of the turks,who denied passage for the christian pilgrims or just a european strike against the growing strenght of the arabs?

Please,it is not a debate for and against the crusades or christian vs. islam



Edited by Jagiello - 11-Feb-2007 at 10:14
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  Quote Batu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Feb-2007 at 11:23
Turks denied passage for christian pilgrims?no they didnt.they were just conquering Byzantines and other crusader cities(Edessa etc).see how innocent were theySmile
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  Quote xi_tujue Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Feb-2007 at 11:56
The crusades had not religious goal it was pure political.

The Turks had conquered Asia Minor the Goal was to win it back. It was just propaganda.

If it was they would have done this right after teh Arab expantion(Islamic conquest or the persian Caliphates.

None of them had conquered Asia Minor and suddenly The Turks conquer it.

Oh my God NO a crusade is launched
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  Quote Leonardo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Feb-2007 at 14:06
Originally posted by Jagiello

We all know what was the consequent of the crusades,but who was responisble for it?Was it fault of the turks,who denied passage for the christian pilgrims or just a european strike against the growing strenght of the arabs?

Please,it is not a debate for and against the crusades or christian vs. islam

 
 
Jagiello there are a lot of threads in Medioeval Europe dedicated to Crusades ...
 
It is true that after the conquest of Jerusalem in 1076 by Seljuk Turks there were accounts of persecutions by pilmgrims returning from Holy Land. But the the worst case of persecution against Christians in Holy Land was that of Fatimid caliph al-Hakim who in 1009 ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcre in Jerusalem and obliged a lot of Christians to abjure their faith.
 
 


Edited by Leonardo - 11-Feb-2007 at 14:08
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  Quote Adalwolf Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Feb-2007 at 14:50
Probably both. 
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  Quote Top Gun Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Feb-2007 at 14:51

the pope wanted more control by controlling jeruzalem the res who joined did it out of sheer land owning

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  Quote xi_tujue Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Feb-2007 at 16:29
Oh yeah forgot to say this the crusades was a reaction by the Christians but 2 what thats teh real question.

So the Christians are responsible if you catch my driftWink
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  Quote Reginmund Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Feb-2007 at 17:13
You know, the crusades are my main topic of history, and I'm currently writing a master thesis about them, but still I tend to stay away from threads on internet forums discussing them since I end up having to deal with the same misconceptions over and over.

As for who's responsible, you could say the Turkish conquest of Anatolia is the most direct cause, but the crusading movement was a result of developments taking place over hundreds of years, which I won't bother going through here.

Originally posted by xi tujue

The crusades had not religious goal it was pure political.


The Byzantines appealed to the West since the Turks were gaining control of Asia Minor, yes. The Byzantines did not, however, ask for a movement like the first crusade, which included not only knights and footsoldiers but also clergy, women, children, the elderly and sick. Byzantium expected contigents of mercenaries who could take hire in the army, as was usual, by this time Frankish cavalry had long been a part of Byzantine armies.

Still, to deduce from this that the Byzantines' motivation was purely political is meaningless when one considers the political and religious mentalities of the time. The politics of Byzantium were the politics of God, it was a theocracy with the Emperor on top - of the church too, and the armies fought with both their generals and their icons of saints. Add to this that any war against non-believers is more justifiable than war against Christians, and it becomes clear that Byzantium's reason for seeking help from the West was far more than just a political scheme, the very idea is anachronistic since they operated with no such clear division between the secular and spiritual.

The motivations of the West is another story, which is easily accessible in several well-researched books of recent publishing. I say this because I wish people would read up on this subject before they throw around claims that aren't validated in any serious history work of more or less recent date.
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  Quote xi_tujue Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Feb-2007 at 17:29
yeah right the Byzantines disliked the west untill that faithfull day in 1071. they sacked Constantinople (1207 i think it was) on there way . the only religious matter involved was The influenceon the territory wich is political
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  Quote pekau Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Feb-2007 at 18:09
It was all about power and wealth. Both sides justified their wants by claiming that it was God's will. I recall the interesting quote from the Kingdom of Heaven...
 
Saladin: Will you yield the city?
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Saladin: I wonder if it would not be better if you did.

     
   
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  Quote Praetor Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Feb-2007 at 02:01
Originally posted by Jagiello

We all know what was the consequent of the crusades,but who was responisble for it?Was it fault of the turks,who denied passage for the christian pilgrims or just a european strike against the growing strenght of the arabs?

Please,it is not a debate for and against the crusades or christian vs. islam


The strength of the "Arabs" (I assume you mean muslims? if not the seljuk turks and its splinter kingdoms were dominant in the area.) was declining and that of western europe growing that is why they were even able to launch such a venture.

 As for motivation well it largely depended on what position, much of the leadership that organized and led the crusade did it for political reasons (however as Reginmund has said there was little to no difference between religion and politics in there minds), primary amongst these was pope Urban himself who likely launched the crusades to gain popular support against his rival "pope" (thats right there were two popes at the time) who controlled Rome and the crusader commanders Baldwin and Bohemund are also suspect.

However I believe the great majority of common soldiers (and much of the leadership eg.Godfrey) were At LEAST partially motivated by religous zeal, there is more than enough evidence for this for instance the peoples crusades, the Childrens crusade/sLOL and the fanatiscism often displayed in battle etc.

As for the Byzantines: There was little reason for the crusaders to care about the Byzantines losing Asia minor, they didn't seem to care about the byzantines at all (in fact they seem to strongly dislike them) and besides the Crusaders attempted to conquer the "holy land" (Lebanon, Israel, Palestine etc) they never attempted to conquer Asia minor.

Finally the Crusades were not reasonable for the obvious reasons of hypocrisy, pointless deaths, cruelty and the fact that the very concept of a crusade is against the very teachings of Christ.



Edited by Praetor - 12-Feb-2007 at 03:36
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  Quote Aelfgifu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Feb-2007 at 07:15
Urbanus was probably as unholy as they come in popes, so I think we can safely say that there was indeed a solid dosis of politics involved... The Western Church was at this time in the middle of a reform the goals of which were (amongst others) to strenghten the hold of Rome over the clergy and the lay population all over Europe. The Crusades were a big help in achieving this...
 
As for personal reasons to go... Some indeed would have gone for religious beliefs, but a lot did not... Indeed I think we can rule out Baldwin of Fandres. He was known to immensely dislike the Church, probably due to his own experiences in a monastery (as a youngest son he was supposed to go into the church, but he walked out... ). People like Baldwin no doubt went in search of land. Godfrey of Bouilon might have the name of being more zealous, but he too ended up a lot better off than he was...
And Bohemund also was a younger son, as was Hugh of France...

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  Quote Maharbbal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Feb-2007 at 07:34
There are a few factors that haven't been mentioned:

The "Holy land" was caught in the midst of several wars during the 11th c., access to it WAS difficult. Little wonder the Christians wented to restore a form of security for their pilgrims.

It is also well known that many turned back to Europe after 1099. Does that say that those who stayed were greedy politicians and those who left holy warriors? No, but it indicates that there were several reasons and ways to go to the crusades.

Ultimately I found the all fuss a bit pointless:
Is a religious war more honorable than a political one?
Isn't religion strictly embedded in politics when it deals with hundreds of individuals?
Where is the problem with the crusades? Couldn't they be seen as one of these nomadic groups who every once in a while invade the region (the great Morrocan writer Ibn Khaldun did so in the 14th c. when he included them in the cyclical process called Muqaddimah).
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  Quote Jagiello Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Feb-2007 at 09:10

Finally the Crusades were not reasonable for the obvious reasons of hypocrisy, pointless deaths, cruelty and the fact that the very concept of a crusade is against the very teachings of Christ.

You can say the same thing about pointles death and cruelty about each war and this will mean that all the wars were not reasonable,but at least isn't it a bit reasonable that the christians united for the firs time on such scale,just like the muslims did for some time and tried to free land which originaly were christian?(this doesn't mean i justify the cruelty and death,i only say it is something normal for every war and the crusades aren't exeption).
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  Quote Reginmund Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Feb-2007 at 14:57
Again, you're all approaching the crusades with an anachronistic outlook. You assume that if a holy war involves looting and conquest, then it becomes less religious and more secular, a view which scarcely would've been understood in the age of crusades. Whether or not a holy war was spiritually beneficial depended not on how much was looted, or how much land the leaders acquired, but on who was looted and conquered. If it was fellow Catholics, then absolutely, that was not a war sanctioned by God, however, if it was pagans, schismatics or Muslims it led to the remission of sins.

Therefore, to say that because f.ex. Bohemond used the crusade as a means of conquering lands for himself and his descendants, he was not religiously motivated, becomes meaningless. The one did not exclude the other, rather the opposite.

Originally posted by xi_tujue

yeah right the Byzantines disliked the west untill that faithfull day in 1071. they sacked Constantinople (1207 i think it was) on there way . the only religious matter involved was The influenceon the territory wich is political


I believe this is the first time I risk becoming "personal" on this forum, but I believe it's apparent to anyone with some knowledge of this topic that you have almost no basis to make any claims regarding it.

Btw., Constantinople was sacked in 1204, and even if one doesn't know this it takes two seconds to find out with the help of the internet.
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  Quote Zheng-ru Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Feb-2007 at 21:17
Originally posted by xi_tujue

The crusades had not religious goal it was pure political.The Turks had conquered Asia Minor the Goal was to win it back. It was just propaganda.If it was they would have done this right after teh Arab expantion(Islamic conquest or the persian Caliphates. None of them had conquered Asia Minor and suddenly The Turks conquer it.Oh my God NO a crusade is launched



Xi Tujue,

The goal was not always purely political. There was a great religious uprising in the years before the 12th century began. religious fervor was on the rise since many thought the world would end in 1000 (1000 is said to be a mysterious year in European affairs, according to Carl Stephenson) and that they must attone for their sins. That is why many cathedrals were built and the crusades were launched 95 years later. Politics was more of a motive in the less unified 2nd crusade and after.

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Edited by Zheng-ru - 14-Feb-2007 at 23:48
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  Quote Zheng-ru Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Feb-2007 at 21:18
Originally posted by Jagiello

We all know what was the consequent of the crusades,but who was responisble for it?Was it fault of the turks,who denied passage for the christian pilgrims or just a european strike against the growing strenght of the arabs?


Please,it is not a debate for and against the crusades or christian vs. islam




Which crusade? The first was quite different from the second and even more different from the fourth.
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  Quote Zheng-ru Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Feb-2007 at 21:22
It seems to me as though the crusades (or the means of how they were carried out, e.g. the massacre of Jerusalem's inhabitants by Godfroi de Bouillon in the first) were contrary to the Christian beliefs taught by Jesus.
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  Quote Roberts Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Feb-2007 at 02:18
Originally posted by Zheng-ru

It seems to me as though the crusades (or the means of how they were carried out, e.g. the massacre of Jerusalem's inhabitants by Godfroi de Bouillon in the first) were contrary to the Christian beliefs taught by Jesus.


Actually whole modern Christianity is contrary to the teachings of Jesus.Wink


Edited by axeman - 13-Feb-2007 at 02:19
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  Quote Akolouthos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Feb-2007 at 02:40
Originally posted by axeman

Actually whole modern Christianity is contrary to the teachings of Jesus.Wink
 
Explain, if you would. I do not agree with your assertion if it is taken literally, and in its utter simplicity.
 
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