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The Church and Crusades. Isn't the history more complicated than people think?
The history of the Crusades and the Church's role is pretty controversial. On the one hand there were many atrocities committed in the name of God.
On the other hand you saw the rise of a code of chivalry among the Knights of Europe. Before the Knights were mercenaries hired by local lords to loot and plunder the countryside and peasants. During the Crusading Era you saw the rise of religious orders of Knights that took monastic vows. (i)The Order of St Lazarus centered on protecting lepers and setting up leprasariums for lepers. (ii)The Knights Hospitaller set up hospitals for the poor and sick, including non-Christian patients such as Muslims and Jews in the Holy Land.
The code of chivalry included these lines "To protect the weak and defenceless
To give succour to widows and orphans"
During this time period you also saw the rise of religious orders that rejected violence all together. So the Franciscans under St Francis of Assisi were strict pacifists. The Carmelites were a religious order in the Holy Land who were former Crusaders that rejected violence and Holy War all together for religious reasons.
5 Answers
- Anonymous4 years ago
Not controversial at all --
There was a call for military help from Byzantium for purely political power reasons which was miscalculated to lead to a massive religious violence wave which spilled from Europe through half the world.
It saw the ethnic cleansing of massive populations locally. For example -- Jewish communities that were established on the Rhine around 500 BCE were destroyed completely.
The institutionalization of previously sporadic violent ethno-religious bigotry and conspiracy stories to justify it.
And then spread into the Middle East.
None of the positives atributed to the Crusades needed the Crusades -- or were even really due to the Crusades.
Chivalry was based on originally Middle Eastern poetic traditions that entered the European conciousness via Jewish poets and troubadours,
some from the Jews of France (whose communities were then massacred by the Crusaders) and some of it through Al Andalus (Spain) -- where peaceful trade could have gotten far more cultural interface than won by the sword.
As for pacifism --
would you seriously tell a PTSD suffering vet who becomes a peace activist that he was better for having murdered the innocents he sees in his dreams every night?
We don't need an anti-massacree movement if we don't have the massacree to begin with.
As for pretty much all of the civilization generally atributed to the Crusades --
That was the Mongols --
and their trading colonies established in the Ukraine.
What did I miss?
Pilgrims could have traveled to the Holyland just fine without the Crusaders.
It would have been more peaceful,
and the knights could have faster and easier transfered to a kindliness model - from the start.
- Anonymous4 years ago
It's a lot more complicated than the question implies. Arab conquests began in north Africa in the 7th century. In a very short period of time (historically short not weeks months or years) they conquered parts of Europe (all of Spain) and invaded France before the West put some steel in its spine and pushed them back. The "Crusades" were actually a series of wars with Islam and the Catholic Church beginning in 1095 (I think or maybe 1099 I don't feel like looking it up. Figure the 12th century) initially in an attempt to wrest control back from the Muslims in Jerusalem which they took from the Christians. The idea that a bunch of peace loving Muslims were sitting around minding their own business when the evil Christians swooped down on them for no reason is absurd. In fact the Muslims won more of the Crusades than they lost. Claiming that it is impolite or offensive to mention the Crusades to a Muslim is like saying it is offensive to mention WWII to a Brit.
So yes, it is a very complicated subject. It is one of conquest and reconquest of gaining and losing. It is not the one-sided version fed to school children today. What is most notable is that Islam is still fighting the Crusades while the West moved on and developed a civilization.
PS DO NOT buy the BS story that Islam preserved Western culture after the fall of Rome. What actually happened is several Christian and Jewish Dhimmis (look that up) preserved it with some help from a couple of "not quite with the program" Arab scholars the Muslims tolerated because they were too valuable to kill. Texts written or copied in Arabic are not evidence that they were written or copied by Muslims.
