Misconceptions of the Crusades

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
21

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]spiderman739 wrote:
Going on Crusade was ridiculously expensive. There are ledgers of accounts from the church at the time documenting money lent to lesser noblemen and how much the chrch paid to buy land etc off them. [/quote]

How much land did the church acquire?
[/quote]

The Church really did not acquire new lands through the Crusades. Noblemen laid claim to some, but in the end, it was all taken back. Any land claims made towards a Christian East were short lived. Even Constantinople, which existed at the onset of the Crusades, was eventually overtaken by the Turks by the end. Some small places like Malta, Sicily, and Crete were either kept or retaken by the Christian West.

In reality, the most significant effects to come out of the Crusades, other than extremely high debt, was a desire for Eastern products in the West.

22

[quote]BBriere wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]spiderman739 wrote:
Going on Crusade was ridiculously expensive. There are ledgers of accounts from the church at the time documenting money lent to lesser noblemen and how much the chrch paid to buy land etc off them. [/quote]

How much land did the church acquire?
[/quote]

The Church really did not acquire new lands through the Crusades. Noblemen laid claim to some, but in the end, it was all taken back. Any land claims made towards a Christian East were short lived. Even Constantinople, which existed at the onset of the Crusades, was eventually overtaken by the Turks by the end. Some small places like Malta, Sicily, and Crete were either kept or retaken by the Christian West.

In reality, the most significant effects to come out of the Crusades, other than extremely high debt, was a desire for Eastern products in the West. [/quote]

The Church really DID aquire new lands, just not in the Levant. The lands they aquired were in Europe. They bought them off of the crusader who needed to raise money to go on Crusade but paid a fraction of what they were worth.

As for an exact amount, I’m afraid I don’t know.

23

[quote]spiderman739 wrote:
The Church really DID aquire new lands, just not in the Levant. The lands they aquired were in Europe. They bought them off of the crusader who needed to raise money to go on Crusade but paid a fraction of what they were worth.

As for an exact amount, I’m afraid I don’t know.[/quote]

To me, that is something that stands out, and it would be interesting to find out how much land the church bought at a discount.

24

First you are going to have to clarify which crusades because it makes and enormous difference. The Albigensian was Christian against Cristians in France. The Baltic crusades were against Pagan heretics in the Baltics and also had nothing to do with Islam.

First crusade was a response to the Arabic conquest of Jeruselam from the Byzantine Empire. There were a ton of reasons for the Crusades. The Pope’s were alarmed at the Arabic conquests. The Pope’s also wished to lessen violence between Christian nations which was also the source of much of the wealth a noble could gather. The Crusades also distracted from the growing power and wealth of the Church it self and gave Christendom a common foe.

Pilgrims to the Holy Land were being harrased as they moved through the numerous Arabic lands, though the same could be said of the journey through Constantinople.

In the end though the Crusades were fought between two opposing forces primarily to expand their lands.

25

[quote]Kanada wrote:
It should be remembered that the Islamic empire at the time, which was primarilly concerned with attacking Byzantine land and playing a piracy game in the Meditteranean, had found itself conquered by its own periphery in the Turks. Further, the Crusades could not have been inherently anti muslim, for there were powerful muslim empires in Andalusi (Spain).

The pogroms against the Jews were perhaps the most heinous of the Crusaders actions, while the impetus for the attack can be blamed on dick cheney. Europe was still highly fragmented, and the Crusades served to sever the archaic eastern Roman empire from the revitalized West (in my view the Western Roman Empire will remain as long as the Pope exists. Now its called the EU.)

I think after the Crusades began, any pretense of uniting the church would have been abandoned as the insurmountability of the endevour became obvious. Rome couldn’t conquer the east, just like Germany can’t conquer Russia. The eastern church was untenable due to the isolated nature of its kingdom. Constantinople was purely a large city state[/quote]

Even though Europe was fragmented, Christianity was considered one religion with everyone being brothers. As well, anyone that touched Jews were breaking the canonical law which demanded Jews to be protected, which we can see that many Jews would be hid inside Bishop’s Cathedrals during the Crusades.

26

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]spiderman739 wrote:
Going on Crusade was ridiculously expensive. There are ledgers of accounts from the church at the time documenting money lent to lesser noblemen and how much the chrch paid to buy land etc off them. [/quote]

How much land did the church acquire?
[/quote]

Not a lot, what you have to understand is until ~650 A.D. the majority of Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East, Asia was land of Christians.

27

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]spiderman739 wrote:
Going on Crusade was ridiculously expensive. There are ledgers of accounts from the church at the time documenting money lent to lesser noblemen and how much the chrch paid to buy land etc off them. [/quote]

How much land did the church acquire?
[/quote]

Not a lot, what you have to understand is until ~650 A.D. the majority of Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East, Asia was land of Christians. [/quote]

You’re right in that the Church really didn’t acquire much new land, but most of Europe was not Christian until around 900AD. Charlemagne even feuded with Saxons who were at the time pagans. The Saxons in turn converted and feuded with the Wends from Poland. Eastern and Northern Europe were the last to turn Christian around the time Harald Fairhair converted Norway in the 900s.

28

[quote]JoeGood wrote:

First crusade was a response to the Arabic conquest of Jeruselam from the Byzantine Empire. There were a ton of reasons for the Crusades. The Pope’s were alarmed at the Arabic conquests. The Pope’s also wished to lessen violence between Christian nations which was also the source of much of the wealth a noble could gather. The Crusades also distracted from the growing power and wealth of the Church it self and gave Christendom a common foe.

[/quote]

Kind of. In Pope Urban’s speech and in letters he wrote, there is very little reference to Jerusalem itself. Alexus was worried about the encroaching Seljuks and wanted help. Urban saw this as a golden chance to have the Emperor owe him one. He uses language like “liberate the eastern churches.” ,“liberating Christianity [Lat. Christianitatis]”, “the Asian church”. In Urbans mind, the crusade was supposed to be a military expedition. The reality was somewhat different.

The majority of people that went on crusade were peasants who were looking for a way of cancelling out any sins. To them, taking back Jerusalem was the ultimate goal. Nothing else mattered. It was more the priority of the people than Pope Urban himself. That’s not to say he was against the idea, it just wasn’t his chief aim.

29

[quote]BBriere wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]spiderman739 wrote:
Going on Crusade was ridiculously expensive. There are ledgers of accounts from the church at the time documenting money lent to lesser noblemen and how much the chrch paid to buy land etc off them. [/quote]

How much land did the church acquire?
[/quote]

Not a lot, what you have to understand is until ~650 A.D. the majority of Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East, Asia was land of Christians. [/quote]

You’re right in that the Church really didn’t acquire much new land, but most of Europe was not Christian until around 900AD. Charlemagne even feuded with Saxons who were at the time pagans. The Saxons in turn converted and feuded with the Wends from Poland. Eastern and Northern Europe were the last to turn Christian around the time Harald Fairhair converted Norway in the 900s. [/quote]

Yes correct on the Europe thing. I have a tendency to forget about the barbarians. Although they wrote one of the most awesome things about the Catholic Church. In a letter they complained “they even take care of our poor” when referring to the Church’s conversion tactics.

30

[quote]spiderman739 wrote:

[quote]JoeGood wrote:

First crusade was a response to the Arabic conquest of Jeruselam from the Byzantine Empire. There were a ton of reasons for the Crusades. The Pope’s were alarmed at the Arabic conquests. The Pope’s also wished to lessen violence between Christian nations which was also the source of much of the wealth a noble could gather. The Crusades also distracted from the growing power and wealth of the Church it self and gave Christendom a common foe.

[/quote]

Kind of. In Pope Urban’s speech and in letters he wrote, there is very little reference to Jerusalem itself. Alexus was worried about the encroaching Seljuks and wanted help. Urban saw this as a golden chance to have the Emperor owe him one. He uses language like “liberate the eastern churches.” ,“liberating Christianity [Lat. Christianitatis]”, “the Asian church”. In Urbans mind, the crusade was supposed to be a military expedition. The reality was somewhat different.

The majority of people that went on crusade were peasants who were looking for a way of cancelling out any sins. To them, taking back Jerusalem was the ultimate goal. Nothing else mattered. It was more the priority of the people than Pope Urban himself. That’s not to say he was against the idea, it just wasn’t his chief aim.
[/quote]

We have to remember that pilgrimages were usually armed pilgrimages because of the lack of law in the land. It is also something to remember that even though it was a military expedition, these were individuals going as well as it was considered a holy thing to go to these lands in pilgrimage and would be to take back the land that was taken from their “Christian Brothers.”

31

what was this children’s crusade business? Vague recollections of some kind of disastrous expedition.

32

[quote]kamui wrote:
i often wonder what would have happen if, instead of defending our Levantine States in the Holy Land and sacking Constantinople, we had really protected the Silk Road against the Turks.

[/quote]

we didn’t have to protect the Silk Road from the Turks, the Mongols were in control of it at the time.

33

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]spiderman739 wrote:

[quote]JoeGood wrote:

First crusade was a response to the Arabic conquest of Jeruselam from the Byzantine Empire. There were a ton of reasons for the Crusades. The Pope’s were alarmed at the Arabic conquests. The Pope’s also wished to lessen violence between Christian nations which was also the source of much of the wealth a noble could gather. The Crusades also distracted from the growing power and wealth of the Church it self and gave Christendom a common foe.

[/quote]

Kind of. In Pope Urban’s speech and in letters he wrote, there is very little reference to Jerusalem itself. Alexus was worried about the encroaching Seljuks and wanted help. Urban saw this as a golden chance to have the Emperor owe him one. He uses language like “liberate the eastern churches.” ,“liberating Christianity [Lat. Christianitatis]”, “the Asian church”. In Urbans mind, the crusade was supposed to be a military expedition. The reality was somewhat different.

The majority of people that went on crusade were peasants who were looking for a way of cancelling out any sins. To them, taking back Jerusalem was the ultimate goal. Nothing else mattered. It was more the priority of the people than Pope Urban himself. That’s not to say he was against the idea, it just wasn’t his chief aim.
[/quote]

We have to remember that pilgrimages were usually armed pilgrimages because of the lack of law in the land. It is also something to remember that even though it was a military expedition, these were individuals going as well as it was considered a holy thing to go to these lands in pilgrimage and would be to take back the land that was taken from their “Christian Brothers.”[/quote]

Sure they were armed but the peasantry were not an official part of the crusade and left for the Holy Land well ahead of the proper crusade army. Being dirt poor and with bugger all to take care of before leaving, they just up and left. There were no logistics in place to deal with them between Europe and the Middle East. And without the protection of the crusade army, lots of them met with a rather grisly ending.

34

huh ?

the Crusades started in 1095.

at this time, the Caliphate controlled the trade between Asia and the West and the Silk Road had been weakened by the rise of islamic turks in Central Asia.

the Mongols didn’t took control of it before the end of the 13th century. they tried to renew trade with the West around 1280, after the last Crusades.

35

[quote]spiderman739 wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

[quote]spiderman739 wrote:

[quote]JoeGood wrote:

First crusade was a response to the Arabic conquest of Jeruselam from the Byzantine Empire. There were a ton of reasons for the Crusades. The Pope’s were alarmed at the Arabic conquests. The Pope’s also wished to lessen violence between Christian nations which was also the source of much of the wealth a noble could gather. The Crusades also distracted from the growing power and wealth of the Church it self and gave Christendom a common foe.

[/quote]

Kind of. In Pope Urban’s speech and in letters he wrote, there is very little reference to Jerusalem itself. Alexus was worried about the encroaching Seljuks and wanted help. Urban saw this as a golden chance to have the Emperor owe him one. He uses language like “liberate the eastern churches.” ,“liberating Christianity [Lat. Christianitatis]”, “the Asian church”. In Urbans mind, the crusade was supposed to be a military expedition. The reality was somewhat different.

The majority of people that went on crusade were peasants who were looking for a way of cancelling out any sins. To them, taking back Jerusalem was the ultimate goal. Nothing else mattered. It was more the priority of the people than Pope Urban himself. That’s not to say he was against the idea, it just wasn’t his chief aim.
[/quote]

We have to remember that pilgrimages were usually armed pilgrimages because of the lack of law in the land. It is also something to remember that even though it was a military expedition, these were individuals going as well as it was considered a holy thing to go to these lands in pilgrimage and would be to take back the land that was taken from their “Christian Brothers.”[/quote]

Sure they were armed but the peasantry were not an official part of the crusade and left for the Holy Land well ahead of the proper crusade army. Being dirt poor and with bugger all to take care of before leaving, they just up and left. There were no logistics in place to deal with them between Europe and the Middle East. And without the protection of the crusade army, lots of them met with a rather grisly ending.[/quote]

Very true here. I think that might be one thing a lot of people are unfamiliar with is that the many pilgrimages were not made by military soldiers but by unarmed peasants. Traveling such long distances in those days was anything but easy. It would take upwards of a year or more because the peasants only mode of transportation was walking. Once they left the confines of their own home town, they were in foreign territory. There were no French, German, Italian, Spanish, etc. Laws were often arbitrary and ousiders were not welcomed with open arms. Lawlessness was common on the roads since there was no real way of policing it. Carry enough food and water was extremely difficult. There were very few places to stop along the way to sleep, bathe, wash clothes, get medical treatment, etc. If you made it to and from the Holy Lands, you could consider yourself extremely lucky. So many peasants tried to travel along with the Crusader knights.

36

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]spiderman739 wrote:
The Church really DID aquire new lands, just not in the Levant. The lands they aquired were in Europe. They bought them off of the crusader who needed to raise money to go on Crusade but paid a fraction of what they were worth.

As for an exact amount, I’m afraid I don’t know.[/quote]

To me, that is something that stands out, and it would be interesting to find out how much land the church bought at a discount.[/quote]

Mate, I have tried looking for more info but, alas, cannot find it. I remember seeing it as a footnote somewhere but don’t recall any figures. I wil keep searching though, have no fear :wink:

37

I’ve just read through this good intelligent thread and enjoyed the knowledge(Apart from the random comment about the Pope and the EU. Hilarious!)

I’m sceptical around much of recorded history, especially medieval and super especially pertaining to the church. Hence, any reports of a particular figure’s motivation should be held at arms length at least due to it’s undoubted editorial nature. But I suppose that’s by the by. good discussion.

38

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

Not a lot, what you have to understand is until ~650 A.D. the majority of Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East, Asia was land of Christians. [/quote]

[quote]BBriere wrote:

You’re right in that the Church really didn’t acquire much new land, but most of Europe was not Christian until around 900AD. [/quote]

I should have been more specific, I wasn’t referring to new/unconquered/foreign lands, what I meant was how much actual land they acquired, like your property is the church, and I’m your neighbour, and you got me all psyched up to go out crusading, but I’m poor as fuck, so you’re like hey, I’ll buy that plot(at a discount) and send you on your way. In other words I’m talking about them possibly being deceptive in order to acquire more land for the church from donated money. Hope that’s more clear.

39

[quote]MattyG35 wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:

Not a lot, what you have to understand is until ~650 A.D. the majority of Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East, Asia was land of Christians. [/quote]

[quote]BBriere wrote:

You’re right in that the Church really didn’t acquire much new land, but most of Europe was not Christian until around 900AD. [/quote]

I should have been more specific, I wasn’t referring to new/unconquered/foreign lands, what I meant was how much actual land they acquired, like your property is the church, and I’m your neighbour, and you got me all psyched up to go out crusading, but I’m poor as fuck, so you’re like hey, I’ll buy that plot(at a discount) and send you on your way. In other words I’m talking about them possibly being deceptive in order to acquire more land for the church from donated money. Hope that’s more clear.
[/quote]

I don’t think it was a matter of being deceptive as a way of getting land, they genuilnly wanted a crusade for most of the reasons mentioned previously. The idea of a crusade was being talked about before Pope Urbans time, specifically Pope Gregory VII and after the Battle of Manzikert. Doesn’t mean they were against profiting from it where possible ;).

40

Claude Levi Strauss explains better what i had in mind when i said our history would have been vastly different if we had directed our forces along the Silk Road rather than to the Holy Hand.

in the last pages of Tristes Tropiques :

“Today, it is behind Islam that I contemplate India; the India of Buddha, prior to Muhammad who - for me as a European and because I am European - arises between our reflection and the teachings which are closest to it. The hands of the East and the West, predestined to be joined, were kept apart by it.
The West should return to the sources of its torn condition: by way of interposing itself between Buddhism and Christianity, Islam islamized us when, in the course of the Crusades, the West let itself be caught in the opposition to it and thus started to resemble it, instead of delivering itself - in the case of the inexistence of Islam - to the slow osmosis with Buddhism which would christianize us even more, in a sense which would have been all the more Christian insofar as we were to mount beyond Christianity itself. It is then that the West has lost its chance to remain woman”