brainless_fps_player said:
First of all, I don't actually believe this, I was just trying to get attention. I am curious, however, to see how much people actually know about the crusades because a lot of people 'round my end (Scotland) know surprisingly little.
So, escapists, tell me what you think you know about the medieval crusades. Who knows. Perhaps we'll all learn something.
I said Morally Good.
I had ancestors (on the French side) who fought in The Crusades, I'm descended from an Arch Duke and a lot of my ancestors were knights and stuff. There are records in my family Geneology of one ancestor commanding 30 lancers during The Crusades, as well as some boring receipts for provisioning castles and such (simply proving ownership at the time and the like).
At any rate, I've slammed a lot of things my ancestors have done, but this isn't one of them. I spent some time learning about the subject due to the family history, and ironically it's one of the things that got me into games like D&D.
It's not surprising given current politics that people think The Crusades were immoral or wrong, as we mostly learn about it from people that want to present them badly due to wanting us to sympathize with The Middle East and derail tensions since it's a big deal for them (and this has been going on since before the current war).
At any rate, The Crusades started because pilgrims travelled accross the world with great danger and expense to visit sites holy to Chrisitianity, Islam, and Judaism . The Koran apparently even has sections written about respecting "men of the book" who are those of other religions holding the same sites as sacred.
What happened was the Muslims got on a kick about how they should not have to share these holy sites with "infidels" and should keep The Holy Land entirely for themselves. They rounded up all the pilgrims and tortured and killed them, leaving their bodies hung up and displayed up and down the roads to Jerusalum.
When word got back to Europe about what had happened, there was outrage both religious and temporal, remember a lot of the people who were killed were nobles and very wealthy just to have made the trip.
Europe pretty much put aside it's differances, rallied under The Catholic Church and decided to liberate The Holy Land while getting payback for those who were killed.
The problem with most of the Crusades that were military actions was simply logistics. The boats of the time period were not the "pirate ships" and military vessels most people think of, but very primitive in comparison. Making the trip from Europe to The Middle East was extremely dangerous and the arrival wasn't even guaranteed. As many, if not more people died getting to and from the war as did in actual combat.
In the actual Middle East when they arrived, The Crusaders pretty much decimated the "fierce warrior culture" of the Muslims, to the point it was pretty embarassing which has a lot to do with why they continue to be so upset about it. Each military crusade ultimatly failed because of logistics and the problems with reinforcing and resupplying the troops. A Crusader could literally kill hundreds of Muslims, but when one went down there was noone to reliably take his place. Being in the back yard of a hostile culture with seemingly limitless fanatics to throw into the war, no amout of strategy, tactics, or martial prowess was going to see a lasting victory without reliable supply lines.
The Muslims *DID* win some victories, especially during the time of Saladin, but again most of that mostly came down to being able to absorb insane losses combined with logistics.
In the end the staggering cost of fighting these wars, combined with purely temporal (material) concerns lead to an end of the serious Crusades. Europe again fragmented, and attempts by Popes to get things going again (since having everyone united under a religious cause benefitted them) more or less failed. While it was slow in coming, a lot of people believe that the end of the Crusades was sort of what heralded the very beginnings of the so called "Age Of Reason" and the gradual decrease in the overall power of The Church in Europe.
Groups like "The Knights Templar" were multi-national orders of knights tasked with protecting Pilgrims in The Holy Land and given what amounted to overall authority (even over kings and high nobles who were bringing armies) to the Forces in The Middle East. When the wars ended, you wound up with these guys who were super powerful politically due to the authority they were given, operating outside of the context of which that authority was given. These guys became very rich, very powerful, and doubtlessly extremely decadent leading to a lot of the stories about them. In reaction to the religious nature of the war and the failure of The Cruades the stories about Satanism wouldn't surprise me if they were true. Apparently from some things I read the whole reason why the Templar were wiped out was political, none of the rulers wanted to deal with them, especially seeing as they had a tendency to get in the way of pesky things like national wars and trade due to them being placed outside of that order.
Allegedly the reason why "Friday The 13th" is unlucky is that to kill the Templars military commanders were given sealed orders to open on that date, with the orders being to take their troops and kill off The Templar. This was done in this fashion to prevent The Templar from knowing the attack was coming and to catch them by surprise. One of the most powerful and influential groups the world had ever seen was pretty much decimated overnight.
-
At any rate, I'm rambling, and it's been a while since I've seriously read up on this stuff, but that should be the gist of things.
I say the conflict was moral largely because Europe didn't start it, contrary to how things are typically presented. Without a clear threat to have caused the unification there never would have been Crusades. Once the conflict actually started, there was plenty of slaughter and atrocities, especially seeing as this was motivated by revenge and Justice, especially in the beginning. Needless to say some noble bringing troops was not just going to be motivated by duty to The Church, but because he probably had family members killed there on pilgrimage.
GOD WILLS IT!! My opinion: there is NOTHING good about the crusades.
