Posted on 02/27/2012 12:07:26 AM PST by DeaconBenjamin
Christians in the Middle East could use a Pope Urban II these days...
“[A]n account written in high style, full of subtlety and hidden meanings — many of which have remained hidden and unidentified since she wrote the text” is open to divergent interpretations. And I don’t think Byzantium is considered to have been in “a healthy position” at this time either. Where does the author think the phrase “Byzantine” politics came from? Fratricidal brothers and plots upon plots are the modern image of Byzantium.
But it is important to see that even after the schism, the East and West Churches could still work together, even if the alliance was undermined from within by worldly ambition.
The Jeaus bloodline or Davidic bloodline. All the Royal Houses of Europe are of the bloodline.
Back then Primo Genitur had created a large number of Royals who had titles but were landless.They thought that because of their bloodlines they had claims to these lands thru-out the Levant.
Commoners participated because the Pope promised them entry into heaven.
Even today most people consider Steve Runciman's 3volume history of the Crusades to be the authority on the Crusades. The first volume covers the first Crusade and ends with Templers being pushed into the sea.
Spain and southern France had been lost through incompetent defense.
I have visited 3 Crusader sites but didn’t need to go to the Middle East to do so: Karytaina and Chlemoutsi in Greece (built by the Franks after they took Greece from the Byzantine Empire in the Fourth Crusade) and Zadar in Croatia (attacked by the Fourth Crusade at the behest of the Venetians although it was ruled by a Christian ruler, the king of Hungary).
I think we are already in a modern day Crusades. The Muslims fired their first shot on September 11th. Its a modern day Christendom versus Moslem. This time instead of spears it will be bullets and bombs.
To quote the “War Scroll”, “The Sons of Light of Against the Sons of Darkness”. The Sons of Light(Chirstendom) and the Sons of Darkness(Muslim).
Stephen of Bloise fled the siege, to the shame of his wife - the daughter of William the Conqueror. He returned and hoped to do better. The letters between him and his wife are a historic treasure.
William the Carpenter - called that because of the way he used an axe to cleave flesh fled also - and Tancred (later Prince of Galilee) the cousin of Bohemund was sent to bring him back.
The Doge of Venice had the last laugh on Constantinople and the Crusade impulse they had unleashed.
Sorry. The first rule of historical research is NOT to take any source uncritically.
You flunked History 101.
You also flunk FReeper 101. We don’t take things uncritically here. Ask Dan Rather.
Just because you want to believe that the crusaders behaved nobly at the climax of the First Crusade and that the massacre is a myth does not mean that it is so.
And I suppose that you think that the crusaders' sack of Christian Constantinople in 1204 never happened either.
You just flunked reading 101. I said the “massacre” was greatly exaggerated. That the blood did not flow in the streets. That’s the current consensus of historians. I read them. There was a sack. Not as Fulcher described it. If you take every chronicler as telling the literal truth with no critical analysis at all
you
are
a
dupe.
And you would still be wrong.
There was a sack. Not as Fulcher described it.
Oh, I guess the fact that he was there and saw it first hand doesn't lend any credibility to his account.
Are you dense or just willfully ignorant.
Any intelligent person knows that eyewitness accounts can vary. Historians’ rule no. 1 is to evaluate all sources critically.
Calling me names doesn’t change the fact that you are the one violating the basic FR principle: evaluate things critically.
All I said is that most historians do not take Fulcher literally. They have discovered Muslim eyewitness sources that contradict him.
They are just being historians. You are being obstinate.
In post #34, you were the one who called me a dupe, pal.
All I said is that most historians do not take Fulcher literally. They have discovered Muslim eyewitness sources that contradict him.
Complete BS. Please point out these new Muslim sources that paint the Crusaders as nice guys after they captured Jerusalem.
And you did not answer my question about the sack of Constantinople, which undermines your whole silly assertion.
Dupe is not a name. It describes behavior.
Read Jonathan Riley Smith, “Rethinking the Crusades,” First Things, 101 (March 2000, 20-23 (www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0003/opinion/riley-smith.html)
and the half-dozen books he’s written. Then read Thomas Madden’s half-dozen books. You’ll find contemporary Muslim accounts that report that about 1/3 the number killed in the sack as compared to accounts written long after the events. You’ll find all the citations in these two historians’ books. They are two of the world’s leading crusade experts.
But your mind is made up. Enjoy your tunnel.
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