Important new article on the Crusades

[John_Clements]

Sigh...Jeanry, it's time you take your own advice and go read some history books yourself. When you tell us that two experts on this who teach it, specilize in it, and have written books about it are all wrong while you who have "read books about it" know better, it's time to take a break. Please, no more generalizations and annecdotal assertions. Go read their works. Histroy is about study not emotionalism.

Be sure to include this little title on your list:
"Jihad in the West - Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Century." Paul Fregosi. Prometheus Books. 1998. ISBN 1-57392-247-1.

[JeanryChandler]

So, would you have preferred they all had just stayed home and waited?

John,

I've got nothing against attacking aggression, or even pre-empting it. I've never said anything against the Reconquista and in fact you'll notice I've posted recently on another thread in this very forum praising Charles Martel's victory against the Arab's at Tours.

As for citing ancedotes, those were directly from primary sources, and I listed the names of the sources.

Ultimately, the facts are what they are, and I don't think I've said anything here that can be refuted. We can debate all day about how to interpret them, that is a matter of subjective analyis. You know my position, reject it, enough said.

As for me having 'read a few books', neither you nor I are PhD's. You know perfectly well I could cite plenty of professors who support other opinions on the Crusades. I try to contribute in a positive manner to this forum especially on the subject of Medieval military history, which is something I have studied as an amateur my whole adult life. If my comments aren't welcome, I'll stay off your forum.

Sincerely,

Jeanry

[Gene Tausk]

Jeanry:

Respectfully, I really don't know why you see this article as "revisionism." There is a growing school of thought which is bringing back the long-standing idea that the Crusades were a response to Islamic imperialism. The article reflects this premise. Certainly the spread of Islam was alarming to the Christians of both Western Europe and the Byzantine Empire, and with good reason.

I am most certainly aware of the tragedy of the 4th Crusade, but as Stacy or John or someone has already said, the article addresses this sad situation. I tend to agree that the whole affair was probably planned by the Venetians, but once again the author states that this Crusade was a tragedy. I fail to see your point.

As for your arguments that Europe was not threatened by the Arabs or Persians...well, once again respectfully, if you put this group under the banner of Islamic Jihadists, then Europe was very much threatened by them. When Mehmet the Conqueror invaded Constantinople, he did so under the banner of Islam. However, the Turks were in a long line of Islamic invaders from the Arabs to the Moors to the Persians (read your histories of the Byzantines fighting the Persians).

As for your argument:

"It would have made sense to continue with the Crusade idea and smash the grip of the heathen mongols from the throat of the Christiain Russian people, if thats your belief.

Instead, the Europeans, led by the Teutonic Knights, launched Crusades against the Russians, who had to fight the Mongols simultaneously! (Read about Alexander Nevsky who won victories against both, as well as the Swedes) "

Respectfully once again, I believe you are in error. The Teutonic Knights did not set off to liberate holy places from the Russians. This was a series of conflicts rooted in the politics of the time not to mention the thousand-year old conflict between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, which believe me, still resonates today. You are mixing the Crusades with this series of campaigns, in which it does not belong.

Incidentally, Alexander Nevsky was a Mongol vassal.

Did the Crusaders live up to the values they professed? For the most part, no. However, this is addressed in the article as well.


David - you have WAY too much time on your hands! <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />


---------------&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;gene tausk
SFS
Study Group Leader - Houston ARMA Southside

[Filip Pobran]

Scholars have discovered that crusading knights were generally wealthy men with plenty of their own land in Europe.

well, i am convinced, because i know that when man has lot of money, he do not want even more money....

weekend warriors


i respect prof. madden's "prof.", but as many prof.s he could be wrong (i'm not saying that he is). the time and other prof.s will show if he is right or wrong. the theory itself is very interesting, expecially in this times.


i, personaly, will stick with the olde theory though

[William Savage]

This is a great article. I have been a fan of Prof. Madden's work for a long time, and have shared it with people whenever possible. It makes me proud to belong to an organization that not only makes this kind of effort to correct these longstanding misconceptions of our own history, but that is also willing to take a position unpopular in modern culture and be an unashamedly strong defender of the ideals of Western Civilization.

YES! i agree.

And id like to show your second post with the timeline to a couple of my highschool teachers.

good work Mr. Welch.

[Jeremy Martin]

The canabalisim is new to me(though not suprising in the least). Any reasons on why they did this? Did they need food or was it just tactical terror warfare?

Basicly I try not to take a moral stance on anything in history. Whatever someone might have done you can almost be assured that everyone else would happily do it right back to them.

Finding a 'good guy' by our standards is near impossible back in the day. Therefore I neither condemn or excuse anything done by either side in this conflict. They probably deserved each other.

But that's just my useless opinion. You can continue ignoring me now. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

Oh, interesting article as well. I can see both Jean's and John's points as valid, in their own way. And as soon as I get my time machine up and running I'll come back and tell you which one is righter.

[William Savage]

yeah they were all starving.

And i think its important to sort out the good and the bad, history is our greatest teacher.

[david welch]

The canabalisim is new to me(though not suprising in the least). Any reasons on why they did this? Did they need food or was it just tactical terror warfare?

Just remember, it might be an interesting fact, but it doesn't support anything. It's a "red herring"... it is irrelevant to the discussion and leads to a false argument.

You can test it if you want to. Try this first.

"The crusaders committed cannibalism, therefore the muslims were the good guys."

Now, try it this way. It is believed there was fairly wide spread cannibalism by the Russians during the siege of Leningrad. Therefore the Nazi were the good guys.

Does it work for you?

David Welch
ARMA East Tennessee

[Craig Peters]

David,

I don't think the cannibalism is irrelevent or a red herring. I doubt Jeanry is trying to claim that Muslims are the good guys because of it. Rather, I think he's indicating that Dr. Madden let the Crusaders off a bit too lightly when he neglected to mention this fact in his article. I think that's a fair assertion to make.

[david welch]

Really? I thought the whole point of his argument was that the crusades were not defensive, because some of the crusaders committed atrocities.

[Craig Peters]

David,

If you look at what Jeanry wrote, the idea of the crusades not being defensive and that the Crusaders attrocities are under represented are two seperate ideas in two seperate posts. I don't see any indication of "a because b" in the manner that you've indicated.

[Casper Bradak]

I don't want to get involved here, but the cannibalism material is commonly available in published excerpts from the chronicles of the time. Some Franks were starving, and they were forced to cook and eat one or two of the dead. They heard that the Saracens got wind of this, and began to boil the dead bodies about the perimeter (even though they no longer ate, or needed to eat them). Phychological warfare. And it worked, because it not only frightened the Saracens, but it added to Jeanry's "medieval times were a living hell ruled by the ignorant" hypothesis. <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />
At any rate, it neither qualifies as an atrocity, nor even a slip of manners. A necessary last-resort for survival in which none were harmed and no excesses taken.

[JeanryChandler]

Mr Bradak, Mr. Welsh, please feel free to put whatever spin you like on historical events, but please leave my name out of it. I'll make you a deal, I wont write any more distubringly politically incorrect posts to any of your forums, and you guys can quit putting words in my mouth or assigning spurious positions to me. Sound fair?

Jeanry

[Andrzej Rosa]

I'll make you a deal, I wont write any more distubringly politically
incorrect posts to any of your forums

I wouldn't want it. I like reading you, for example.

My feelings about the matter (not enough knowledge on my part for an opinion,
so just feelings).

I'm fairly ignorant about all those Crusades, which can be a good thing in a
way. I was not subjected to "decades of revisionism" as far as I know. I
read the article with a kind of open mind, just to learn more.

It smelled bad.

Jeanry is quite convincing, on the other hand and I thank him for a list of
sources, some of which I'll definitely read.

Islamic invasion...
This thing seems to be making sense if you put all Islam together, as
something united. I doubt it somehow.

Let's put it the other way. Turks were justified to attack Byzantium because
Christians attacked Moors in Spain.

Maybe I do not understand something, so feel free to clarify.

Regards.
P.S. Call me barbarian, but what Crusaders did with dead people means
nothing to me. War is war, dead are dead already. They feel nothing and I
do not feel much for them too.

[TimSheetz]

INteresting discussion as a whole... but I think we need to keep two separate discussions...

1. The point of the article as I saw it was that the thing that got the crusades rolling was Muslim expansion by force. Therefore when the call went out, folks responded.

Now like anything dealing with humans, human nature screws it up and you have all the wrong reasons for individuals going added tot mix.

2. The OTHER topic is the CONDUCT of the forces. Soldiers and commanders behaving badly does not change the reasons WHY the crusades started. It may muddy the water so it is easier to sell one side as the initiator depending on whose bad behavior you are talking about.

Atrocity in this era is standard.

As far as cannibalism... I'd eat you and you whole family if it kept me in fighting trim. Tough crap, these sort of wars back in the day were all about collateral damage and that is just the way it was. I am not saying it is right or wrong, I am just saying that that is the way it was.


SO, 1 - crusades touched off by muslim expansion - yes.

2 - bad things happened. Yes. (though I will add that in a time where barabarism and atrocity were standard, muslim forces often stood out as exceptioanlly gifted here.)

Tim