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BeBro
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of the Krauts
Mar 2000
time: 06:19
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Agathon, I think you're overplaying the "dark" aspect of the middle ages a bit. That's a bit cliche, which came up during the enlightenment. No doubt elements of it are correct, but then there are differences between the dark ages and the high middle ages.
Also the character of the crusades changed. Esp. the first was mass movement as well as mass hysteria. Motivation may have been a lot of different things: naive belief as well as hope for a better life or simple greed, not to mention "bigger interests" of the pope, Italian trade cities like Venice or Genoa, Byzantines etc, etc.
Later crusades (at least those to the middle east) became much more "professional" war campaigns, often to win prestige for certain kings or emperors, "aggressions" if you will, but as such nothing special in those times, and not much different from other medieval wars.
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Imran Siddiqui
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The Potterverse
Jan 1970
time: 00:19
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A (somewhat) contrary opinion:
http://www.boston.com/movies/displa...y=movie&id=5694
quote:
However, the movie offers the extremely curious notion that, under the European conquerors of the First Crusade, Jerusalem was a shining, democratic city on a hill -- a kingdom of fair play and amicable relations between the differing faiths. It was a place where religious fanaticism has been conquered by social tolerance and where, Godfrey promises his son, ''You are not what you are born but what you have it in yourself to be."
That's right: Jerusalem is America. Or, rather, the ideological America of blue states and pious Hollywood producers. The openhearted Balian fits right in, befriending the leprous King Baldwin of Jerusalem (Edward Norton under a dime-store tin mask) and his adviser Tiberias (Jeremy Irons, playing a heroic variation on Scar from ''The Lion King"). All three want to preserve the delicate peace, as do the approaching Saladin and other Arab nobles before their hands are forced.
Against them are the foaming fundamentalists of either side, including Knights Templar Guy de Lusignan (Marton Csokas) and Reynald de Chatillon (Brendan Gleeson), the former sneering, the latter doing a mincing little dance in one scene as if he didn't know the cameras were rolling. The priests are even worse, urging the infidel slain without mercy, then suggesting a quick conversion to Islam when the chips are down. The Saracens have their fanatics as well, but at least they're well groomed, since the filmmakers are desperate to avoid even a hint of Arab-bashing.
Granted, this results in a refreshingly evenhanded portrayal of Muslims for a mass-market movie: As charismatically played by Massoud, Saladin is a past master of Middle Eastern detente. Something tells me evangelical Christians won't be quite as pleased. |
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Berzerker
I couldn't get your link to open, so what did this historian say besides claiming it was OBL's version of history?
Varied reasons, primarily the religious motive of re-taking Jerusalem because of its importance and to try and remove the middlemen profiting from trade between the west and the east. The Silk Road went right thru Muslim lands and Euros wanted more direct trade with the east. I suspect trade was the bigger reason and religion was just a tool to convince the people who'd die in the endeavor. |
Growing Turk power, attrocities against pilgrims, a plea from the Eastern Emperor, and a spiritual renewal in Europe.
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/1...st_crusade.html
2. Causes
A. Basic Causes
1. European society had survived the raids of the Magyars, Vikings, and Saracens, and its economy and society were recovering quickly. There was a new spirit of adventure apparent in the art, literature, an actions of the western Europeans. This was manifested at least partly in an increased popularity of pilgrimages -- journeys to visit distant holy places to worship there and view the relics of the saints. This was a religious activity, but the many of the pilgrims clearly enjoyed themselves like tourists in any age.
2. Europe was already in a period of expansion, and its capacity for war and conquest had grown during the years of fending off raiders from all direction. Most importantly from the standpoint of the crusades, the Italian city states had developed navies of merchant/fighting vessels that had seized control of the Mediterranean. They had reconquered Sicily and southern Italy from the Muslims, and there was a general sense that, like the Vikings and Magyars, the force of the Muslims was spent and that the way eastward lay open.
3. The spirit of religious reform that had led to the Investiture Controversy had been accompanied by an increase in popular spirituality. People were no longer to accept their religion passively; many wanted to participate actively and to do something positive in honor of their god.
B.Intermediate Causes
Despite their growth, European society and economy were in a state of transition, and were unstable.
1. The aristocracy found themselves at relative peace, and were losing the importance they had enjoyed when they stood between Europe and its attackers. Their numbers were growing because there were no longer the losses in battle they had once sustained. They needed more land with which to endow their children and were beginning to fight with each other over the land that was available to them.
2. The kings were now working to reverse the decentralization that had been characteristic of the feudal age. They, and many who now looked to them for protection and leadership, wanted to reduce the privileges enjoyed by the aristocracy and transfer that power to the central governments of the kingdoms, and they wanted to ends the civil wars caused by the aristocracy and establish a greater measure of law and order.
3. The Church had split into eastern and western organizations in 1054, and the pope's wanted somehow to heal that split. They were involved in the Investiture Controversy and were looking for allies, such as the still-prestigious eastern Roman emperor.
4. Churchmen generally recognized the new spirituality of the age and wished that there were some way that the Church could build upon this and assume the moral leadership of Europe and the Europeans.
5. The middle classes were now aware of the profits of the eastern trade, and were searching for some way to bypass the middlemen of the eastern empire and to trade directly with the Muslims. They knew that they could become rich by cutting out the Byzantines and taking for themselves the profits that the Byzantine merchants had been making on trade with them.
6. The economic system was in a state of transition, with some districts specializing in some "industrial" crops to the point that they did not raise enough grain to feed themselves, and were doing so before the transportation and internal trading system had advanced enough to distribute consumer goods efficiently. So there were frequent local famines. At the same time, agriculture was improving so greatly in productivity that many people no longer had work. The peasants needed more food and more land to cultivate. In 1095, a famine and epidemic in northern France and the Lowlands was causing widespread misery and the lower classes were some miracle to deliver them.
7. Pilgrims returning from the Holy Land were bring home stories of the atrocities being committed by the Seljuk Turks, masters of the Levant, against pilgrims, and of the way in which they were desecrating the places holy to Christians. This caused great outrage, in part because the average western European was better acquainted with the Bible lands than any place other than their own villages and towns. The Holy Land was the Christians "other home."
C. Immediate Causes
Since their victory at the Battle of Manzikert (1071), the Seljuk Turks had been pressing towards Constantinople and were now actually within sight of the city.
Alexius Comnenus, the eastern emperor, needed reinforcement. A couple of years previously, he had seen a group of western knights under the command of Count Robert of Flanders and returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He had been impressed by their fighting ability and decided to try to hire about 1200 such warriors. he sent his request, and the reasons for it, to Pope Urban II.
Urban was pleased, since the Holy Roman Emperor had set up a rival "pope" as a manoeuver in the Investiture Controversy, but the eastern emperor had asked for help from him. He wanted to help, so, after a council held at Aurillac in France, he gave an impassioned speech to the laymen who had come to hear him. He said little about helping Alexius -- since the westerners did not like the Byzantines all that much -- and concentrated on the mission to free the Holy Land. He promised them the Church's blessing, the aid of god, and the certainly of being taking immediately into heaven for those who fell in the attempt.
The crowd was swept up in the call, and the cry of Deus vult! ("Gods wills it!") spread far and wide. Almost all classes and nationalities of Europeans responded in a movement far greater and more varied than Urban may have expected. It is unlikely that anyone realized how well this call suited the needs and predisposition of the Europeans of the time.
3. Consequences
Against all odds, the first armed pilgrimage to the Holy Land was successful, and the Christians captured Jerusalem in 1100. They benefitted from the disunity among the Muslims and set up the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Although it was only ninety years before the Muslims had reorganized and taken back most of what they had lost, the effect of the crusaders' success was great.
A heightened sense of confidence animated the Europeans and, with new influences from the East, culture and intellectual life flourished. Western Europe, so some historians hold, came of age.
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09-05-2005 23:41
Ned an I finally agree on something! 
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