Philosophy of the Medieval Knight-Monk Orders
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Regional History or Period History
Forum Name: Medieval Europe
Forum Discription: The Middle Ages: AD 500-1500
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=17666
Printed Date: 16-Apr-2024 at 19:31
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.56a - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Philosophy of the Medieval Knight-Monk Orders
Posted By: Arktos
Subject: Philosophy of the Medieval Knight-Monk Orders
Date Posted: 07-Feb-2007 at 11:35
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Hello everyone this is my first message in what i hope to be a fruitful experience here. I am a 20 year old college student fascinated by the knight-monk orders of the medieval West. What particularly interests me is the interpreation of Christianity to fit the martial idealism? Well, we know Jesus says “Do not resist evil” and “Turn the other cheek”, but Augustine explains these refer to the interior attitude, not to external actions; and the non-pacifistic character of Christianity is seen in the Romans Epistle, wherein Paul presents the ideal prince “who bears not the sword in vain, to punish evildoers.” So what I am basically interested in is the philosophical and ideological justifications and self-image of the knight-monk crusading orders. I have not been able to find much about this in the literature. There is J. Brundage, Canon Law and the Crusader, but that is rare and I cannot find much else. Would anyone be able to help me in this regard? Thansk in advance. |
Replies:
Posted By: pekau
Date Posted: 16-Feb-2007 at 02:09
I believe that European Christians generally did not follow the path to God, but merely used it for their own advantage. Knights were interested in profit and power. Some may have tried to be a hero, but with expensive armors, the food for both rider and horses, and the fact that they get paid from their kings or landlords made them corrupted. Furthermore, they are soldiers. They need to listen to their superiors and follow their orders to get paid, even if the order was Godless.
Monks were misguided sheeps. ------------- http://swagbucks.com/refer/Malachi"> 
Join us. |
Posted By: pekau
Date Posted: 16-Feb-2007 at 02:09
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By the way, welcome to AE. ------------- http://swagbucks.com/refer/Malachi">
Join us. |
Posted By: Denis
Date Posted: 16-Feb-2007 at 15:47
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I wouldn't say there is any Christian justifications for the use
of violence. However, there are certain political agenda's within the
bible which advocate the use of violence, in particular that evil man
Paul. It is interesting that when a Christian tries to justify the mass
murder in iraq, he often brings up references from the Bible which do
not come from the mouth of Christ himself.
------------- "Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing" Victor Hugo |
Posted By: pikeshot1600
Date Posted: 16-Feb-2007 at 18:32
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Arktos: Look for: Desmond Seward, The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders. Eric christiansen, The Northern Crusades.
William Urban, Teutonic Knights: A Military History.
Ask your professors also! Make them earn that salary.
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Posted By: pikeshot1600
Date Posted: 16-Feb-2007 at 18:36
Uh, excuse us all over the place, but I believe the mass murdering in Iraq is being done by Moslems, is it not?
The initiator of the thread asked about the medieval crusading military orders, not about Moslems in the 21st century whose heads are in medieval times. Don't politicize this.
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Posted By: John the Kern
Date Posted: 19-Feb-2007 at 13:42
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The orders were originally formed to protect Pilgrims to the Holy Land from Bandits and Muslim fanatics, however protection rackets are easy to extort and exapnd :), The Templars became exceedingly wealthy for example. the leaders could be said to fight for power, but i dare say a few of the warrior monks were very pious and sought to do the right thing. ------------- My peoples tale is written in blood |
Posted By: Denis
Date Posted: 19-Feb-2007 at 15:27
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Pikeshot 1600, Although I know very little about you other than you like to post lots of links to books every now and then, let it be assured that I think you are: A) Misinformed B) Naieve C) What I feared most, a Republican. If you want to talk with some common sense about this ridiculous assumption of yours by all means start a thread about it where you vile opinions can be squashed. Your the one politicising this with your Islamophobic nonsense at any rate. ------------- "Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing" Victor Hugo |
Posted By: pikeshot1600
Date Posted: 19-Feb-2007 at 15:35
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Denis:
You are right about one thing in that post: you know very little about me.
 Obviously you don't like being disagreed with. Keep your head down.
Now, would you like to discuss or just throw darts at me?
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Posted By: Denis
Date Posted: 19-Feb-2007 at 16:56
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You made a post which has no basis in fact. Do you want me to counter a
ridiculous argument for the sake of it? If you wish, make a post about
'those darned terrorists' on another board, and I'll rip you to pieces
there. Its pathetic. Like reading straight from a neo-con message board. And shame on everyone who read his post, and said nothing. ------------- "Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing" Victor Hugo |
Posted By: Dawn
Date Posted: 19-Feb-2007 at 17:00
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I suggest that we go back to the topic at hand which is Philosophy of the Medieval Knight-Monk Orders before this get nasty ------------- |
Posted By: pikeshot1600
Date Posted: 19-Feb-2007 at 17:01
What on Earth are you talking about? What do the military crusading Orders have to do with 21st century Iraq?
What do they have to do with Republican neo-cons? Are you interested in discussing the thread topic, or is this a soapbox for you?
Perhaps others "said nothing" because nothing was called for.
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Posted By: pikeshot1600
Date Posted: 19-Feb-2007 at 17:04
Dawn:
No problem. I am more than ready to resume the thread topic. Surely others are as well.
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Posted By: Joinville
Date Posted: 19-Feb-2007 at 18:31
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I think the basics of how Medieval Christiniaty defined just wars is to be found in the writings of St Augustine.
The Internet Medieval Sourcebook (online texts) have a section on the Crusades with sources on the Military Orders. Should be useful. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1k.html ------------- One must not insult the future. |
Posted By: Denis
Date Posted: 19-Feb-2007 at 18:40
Such a gam. You're special, you deserve a  Were you drunk when you made your second post on this thread or something and forgot what you actually wrote? You cannot walk into a building throw a grenade and not expect a repercussion. To use a particularly daft analogy. ------------- "Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing" Victor Hugo |
Posted By: pikeshot1600
Date Posted: 19-Feb-2007 at 18:42
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Posted By: pikeshot1600
Date Posted: 19-Feb-2007 at 19:01
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[QUOTE=Joinville]I think the basics of how Medieval Christiniaty defined just wars is to be found in the writings of St Augustine. The Internet Medieval Sourcebook (online texts) have a section on the Crusades with sources on the Military Orders. Should be useful. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1k.html%5b/QUOTE - http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1k.html[/QUOTE ] It is difficult 800-900 years on to understand the attraction of vows of poverty and chastity, in combination with the privations of a military life far from home. The only thing I can equate to such things is a sense of threat, outrage and zeal that is mostly absent from modern life - in the West anyway.
In the 11th and 12th centuries, there surely were material considerations involved such as the lack of opportunity at home for younger sons of noble birth, and the prospect of lands and wealth in other places, but still the religious aspect cannot be overlooked. Why else would kings engage in crusading activity?
Another aspect of the crusading Orders is that of Iberia. The Reconquista there was a crusade much more to drive out an invader than it was to be an invader. Then as they developed, the Spanish and Portuguese military Orders were very important to the rise of exploration and the aggressive expansion of Europeans in the late 15th and the 16th century.
By the mid 16th century, those Orders had become like the GAR or the VFW - the members were shadows of their former selves. The decline of the Orders mirrors the decline of knights as the basis of military society. The Reformation and the rise of state entities deprived them of their vitality. Only the Turkish threat mitigated the decline, but even Christian state entities (France; the Dutch) made alliances with Turks and Moors as it suited their purposes.
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Posted By: Dawn
Date Posted: 19-Feb-2007 at 19:52
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Denis: I don't take kindly to being ignored. Please stay on topic and cut the insults. What you're on about has nothing to do with the topic and no place here. Consider yourself warned ------------- |
Posted By: Denis
Date Posted: 20-Feb-2007 at 08:34
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Dawn, I take it you didn't read his post when he said:
"Uh, excuse us all over the place, but I believe the mass murdering in Iraq is being done by Moslems, is it not?
The initiator of the thread asked about the medieval crusading military orders, not about Moslems in the 21st century whose heads are in medieval times."
That is the ignorance I was tackling. I already asked him to create a thread to defend his mind bogging ignorance. ------------- "Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing" Victor Hugo |
Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 20-Feb-2007 at 08:39
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Denis, take the advice. Don't go on. ------------- 
Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
Posted By: Denis
Date Posted: 20-Feb-2007 at 09:57
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I give up. Maybe I'm the only person here who dislikes seeing ignorance like that displayed and not challenged. ------------- "Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing" Victor Hugo |
Posted By: TheOrcRemix
Date Posted: 21-Feb-2007 at 18:52
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chill ------------- True peace is not the absence of tension, but the presence of justice. Sir Francis Drake is the REAL Pirate of the Caribbean |
Posted By: Adalwolf
Date Posted: 21-Feb-2007 at 18:56
Denis, do you have ADD? Did you forget what you wrote? Your the first one who mentioned Iraq. ------------- Concrete is heavy; iron is hard--but the grass will prevail. Edward Abbey |
Posted By: Denis
Date Posted: 22-Feb-2007 at 05:42
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He is the one who made the post about the 'darned terrorists'. ------------- "Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing" Victor Hugo |
Posted By: pikeshot1600
Date Posted: 22-Feb-2007 at 08:42
Please re-read the post, Denis. Where was anything said about 'darned terrorists?'
If you misquote people and hijack threads on AE you will get into trouble. Just some advice.
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Posted By: pikeshot1600
Date Posted: 22-Feb-2007 at 08:43
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Does anyone want to discuss the crusading military Orders?
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Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 22-Feb-2007 at 10:20
Yes. ------------- "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" S. T. Friedman Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true' |
Posted By: Top Gun
Date Posted: 22-Feb-2007 at 10:50
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yes are those insults against the templars justified ------------- |
Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 22-Feb-2007 at 11:14
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Which ones?
------------- "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" S. T. Friedman Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true' |
Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 22-Feb-2007 at 14:03
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would all suggest this site for any and all interested specificaly in the Templars. http://www.templarhistory.com/ - http://www.templarhistory.com/ and http://www.knightstemplar-uk.co.uk/ - http://www.knightstemplar-uk.co.uk/ I neither critique, commend or condone but they are usefull in gaining information. ------------- "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" S. T. Friedman Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true' |
Posted By: pikeshot1600
Date Posted: 23-Feb-2007 at 09:07
The demise of the Templars reflects in a way the end of the Crusades. With the fall of Acre, 1291, there could be no more pretense of Europeans recovering the Holy Land.
For some of the Orders, that originated because of the crusading efforts in the Levant, there was less reason to exist. For others (St.John, Hospitalers), there was still purpose. And the Orders in Spain and Portugal, and in east Europe were still viable.
The Templars had amassed wealth and become rather exclusive and aloof from other nobility and also somewhat from the Papacy. The need of France's king for money, and the collusion of the puppet Pope (in Avignon) was a confluence of interests that caused the end of Templar influence, 1307.
The charges of heresy and all that were mostly trumped up.
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Posted By: Top Gun
Date Posted: 23-Feb-2007 at 10:00
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ok I read it in an magazine where I was thinking what an stupid magazine ------------- |
Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 23-Feb-2007 at 11:16
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Pikeshot has provided you a key to the problem of unlocking the riddle. And he is correct, if you want to know why the Templar demise was promulgated, look at the extremely close relationship between the then King of France, Phillip the Fair and his hand picked Pope and close friend, Pope Clement V.
This coupled with their legendary near autonomy, from secular control, granted by the establishing papal bull, reference their order, (Which provided a basis for the amass of wealth and power.) is the key....
best
CV ------------- "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" S. T. Friedman Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true' |