Were they justified and what the crusaders did right?
By our present day way of thinking, most of what was done by everyone a thousand years ago was at least partly wrong. So the answer to the question here would be no; but on the other hand, it was the Moslems who had conquered large Christian areas, thus precipitating what we call the Crusades. Actually, it is just the Christian counter-offensive that gets called "the Crusades."
By that logic, it was Britain and France that "did wrong" in WW2 by resisting the Nazis--but only by that standard.
Yeah it really depends on who you ask and which crusade, doesn't it?The major Crusades might start with a "good" intention such as protecting pilgrims but often the Crusaders mainly pillaged whatever they came across.
First Crusade - Rhineland massacre, sack of Antioch (killing the inhabitants indiscriminately)
Fourth Crusade - Sack of Zara, which paid for transportation and would lead to the Sack of Constantinople in 1204
That's not what I said, but if you believe what you wrote here...sure, you're entitled.
You quoted it, how did you not read it?I didn't quote you. In fact, I didn't even read your post.
Like it or not, you DID quote me in your post. See post #3 again if you doubt that.
And certainly don't mention the number of Christians the Muslims killed.In light of John eighteen - thirty six I believe a 'crusade' would be better trying to save souls through the gospel than destroying them through armed conflict. Not to mention the many Christians that the crusaders killed.
And certainly don't mention the number of Christians the Muslims killed.
I find it odd that Western Christians have adopted the Muslim rhetoric to disparage Catholicism, rather than try to look at this dispassionately. Would you agree that these were wars and not religious campaigns? You are right that Urban used religion to fire up the Western Europeans; but how else was he to convince them to abandon their own lands and fund campaigns against the Muslims in some remote region of the Middle East. You seem to start with the assumption that there were just a bunch of peaceful Muslims living in the Middle East and that the Crusaders were these barbaric conquerors. This ignores the incursions of the Seljuk Turks. I also find it odd that you do not acknowledge the existence of a Byzantine Empire. If there was no Byzantine Empire, then who lost the Battle of Manzikert that resulted in the appeal of the Emperor for help.As Westerners--total outsiders, we usually have a very bizarre and screwy view of the Crusades and the lands they took place in. This thread shows that very well. The real history is not that "Islam conquered Christian lands". The lands under contention were Christian, but the Christians therein were looked upon as heretics and schismatics by the Crusaders. They weren't "real Christians". The conflicts were not two-sided, "Islam" vs. "Christianity". The Crusades began as a three-sided conflict.
Originally, the contention was between the Rashidun Caliphate and the Roman Empire. In the West, these are usually wrongly called the "Islamic Empire" and the "Byzantine Empire". The Byzantine Empire never existed, actually, but that's a different matter.
In any case the Rashiduns conquered the Levant, Egypt, etc. from the Romiosini. This was in the 7th century AD, centuries before the Crusades. From that point on, all those lands were held by the Rashidun, Ummayad, and Abbasid Caliphates, then to the Seljuk Empire, in succession. While there were Christians in those lands, they were not "Christian lands" in the sense of having recently been conquered.
Fast-forward to AD1095. Emperor Alexios I Komnenos was at war with the Seljuks over Anatolia. Alexios had been currying favor with Pope Urban for some time. He sent an appeal for Urban to obtain Western mercenaries to help with this purely political war vs. the Seljuks. It was a matter of territory for the original participants.
Time for an aside: By this time, Western and Eastern Christian hierarchies had formally severed ties for about 50 years. To the east were the many Patriarchs of Alexandria, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, etc. To the west was Rome, alone. There was no longer any single "Christianity" in any organizational sense, and theology had also diverged at least to some extent. However, on a purely political note, Emperors and Popes had no problem dealing with each other.
The Pope of Rome decided to take advantage of the appeal to improve his own status in the West. So he invented the Crusade. This fired up a lot of Westerners, they gathered together, and started the whole mess.
It was never a conflict between "Christianity" and "Islam". It was a foreign invasion by the Ferengi (Franks--Westerners) of lands that had never been theirs in the name of a "Christianity" that was not practiced on those lands. Those territories had been ruled by nominally or devoutly Muslim rulers for centuries. Any conflict over those lands by the local leaders was purely political in nature.
The West invented a religious fig leaf to cover the nakedness of simple foreign adventurism and local politicking.
This will clear it up for you and most of the posters here. It's actually quite fascinating:Were they justified and what the crusaders did right?
This was addressed to another poster. At least you are willing to look into the history of this instead of throwing rocks from the sidelines. As far as the when and where, I would start in the 700's and go till 1683 when the last siege of Vienna was repelled. Though truthfully this did not end Muslim aggression and we could go right into the Ottoman empire after that and keep going until today; but that is such a nonsensical amount of time, maybe we should center on only one part of this history.How many? Sources? Citations? When was this? Where was this?
This was addressed to another poster. At least you are willing to look into the history of this instead of throwing rocks from the sidelines. As far as the when and where, I would start in the 700's and go till 1683 when the last siege of Vienna was repelled. Though truthfully this did not end Muslim aggression and we could go right into the Ottoman empire after that and keep going until today; but that is such a nonsensical amount of time, maybe we should center on only one part of this history.