[SeekAndFind]

Here’s a helpful article describing the real history of the Crusades.

For those who feel that the article is too long, Here are some key facts:

* They were a defensive response to centuries of Muslim aggression.

* Attacking Jews was condemned by the Pope and never the purpose of a Crusade

* Crusaders for the most part were pious men who sacrificed a great deal to go on a crusade

* The real history of the crusades isn’t clean, and it’s a lot more complicated than the common misconception.

Historian Thomas Madden summarizes:

“So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression—an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.”

[warsaw44]

read

[MeganC]

Without the Crusades Europe would’ve been a Caliphate. Period.

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[Steve Van Doorn]

Islam's Sack of Rome of 846 AD was launched from Southern Italy and Sicily which was occupied by Islam until 1091 AD with help from the Vikings drove Islam out. The first crusade was launched on 1096 AD as a counter attack to help the Byzantine's fight Islam.

Three years after Italy removed the last Islamic base out of Sicily ending the +450 year Islamic reign the first crusade started. Similar with Spain in 1492 the year celebrated as the last year of the 781-year Islamic law in Spain.

[SES1066]

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
(Edgar A Poe - The Raven)

Instead of an obnoxious black bird, in this writer's case, it even more obnoxious and presumptive 'journalists' mining and minting guilt for daring to disrupt those halcyon days of Islamic Conquest and rule.

[Tennessee Nana]

The Crusaders ransacked and slaughtered non-Moslems all the way to Jerusalem and back..

especially the Jews and locals in Germany and other low country areas they passed through..

sometimes it was the strange new language, or a misunderstanding or just plain ruthlessness..

many “crusaders” never reached Jerusalem but decided they had already arrived when they got to an area somewhat different from their own...

and in Jerusalem anyone dressed starngly were identified as Sarasans and attacked accordingly...

and then there was that “Christ killers” thingy..

[Steve Van Doorn]

I subscribed to Real Crusades History on Youtube. This guy is fantastic here is an example:
Vlad the Impaler: Crusader Vampire?

[BwanaNdege]

My wife made extensive use of this book researching a paper for her Church History class last year. It is a really good read!

[RightGeek]

bump for later

[Berlin_Freeper]

Return to Mecca

[the_Watchman]

The Muslims had attempted a conquest of Europe long before the launching of the Crusades. Charles Martel defeated them at Tours in 732 AD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours

Tours is just barely in the northern half of France and just barely in the western half of France. So the Muslims had advanced well into the heart of Europe at the time.

[Alex Murphy]

The Fourth Crusade (1201-1204) ran aground when it was seduced into a web of Byzantine politics, which the Westerners never fully understood. They had made a detour to Constantinople to support an imperial claimant who promised great rewards and support for the Holy Land. Yet once he was on the throne of the Caesars, their benefactor found that he could not pay what he had promised. Thus betrayed by their Greek friends, in 1204 the Crusaders attacked, captured, and brutally sacked Constantinople, the greatest Christian city in the world. Pope Innocent III, who had previously excommunicated the entire Crusade, strongly denounced the Crusaders. But there was little else he could do. The tragic events of 1204 closed an iron door between Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox, a door that even today Pope John Paul II has been unable to reopen. It is a terrible irony that the Crusades, which were a direct result of the Catholic desire to rescue the Orthodox people, drove the two further—and perhaps irrevocably—apart.

Ping for later.

[jeffc]

We will be fighting islam with one hand tied behind our backs until the real truth of islam (politically incorrect for some reason...) is finally understood by the masses.

Why are The Crusades considered an unprovoked attack on islam? Why aren't the mooselimbs 4 centuries of attacks on Christendom not discussed? Why is it OK for the mooselimbs to assume any land conquered by them will always belong to them even if re-conquered by an opposing force (say the people who originally lived there)? Why don't people understand that islam is not a live-and-let-live "religion"?

Why is it called the religion of peace, when it is really the religion of submission?

[Antoninus]

Madden is one of the better Crusades scholars. In my opinion, the key to understanding them is to read the primary sources like this one:

[Sergio]

bkmk

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

From my reading of history, wasn’t the LAST CRUSADE the Spanish attack on England in 1588? The Spanish tried again a few years later and again failed to conquer England.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

The commonly misunderstood Crusades were used as a cudgel against Catholicism here until 9/11.

Then they disappeared, to be replaced by the commonly misunderstood Galileo affair.

This is progress.

[CodeToad]