The Real History of the Crusades

crisismagazine ^ | April 1, 2002 | Thomas F. Madden

[norton]

Forgot to mention:
Good article
a little biased on the side of 'the church' but a good review nonetheless.

Recommend any reading into the Knights Templar.
Not always nice but cannot object to their motivations.
Subject yet today of rumors and discredit.

[norton]

"Pravoslavophobia (hatred of Orthodox Christians)"

I'll admit to being ignorant in at least some regards:
Where does this one come from???

[Bonaparte]

More on the Crusades...

[My Identity]

Some FR Threads on the Crusades:

The Real History of the Crusades
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/661560/posts
What really happened

The Battle over the Crusades
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/517546/posts
Myths, legends and anti-Catholic "histories"

The Crusades in the Checkout Aisle
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/665181/posts
More Nonsense from U.S. News & World Report

War has its Roots in the Crusades
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/549342/posts
U.S. drawn into conflict that began 1,000 years ago

Crusades: A defensive operation
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a37b3506b6e8a.htm
Historical and theological problems for apologists

[RightOnline]

"The one exception to Mongol victories was their defeat by Egyptian forces, but heck, the Crusaders also took a licking along the Nile!"

Actually, I thought it was the Turks that stopped the Mongols dead in their tracks. They were every bit the Mongols' equals in warfare.........and damned well knew it. Their first engagement (a nasty affair) ended in a draw, but it managed to halt the Mongols' advance. They never quite regained their momentum.

[Tokhtamish]

The reconquest of Jerusalem, therefore, was not colonialism but an act of restoration and an open declaration of one’s love of God.

The reconquest of Jerusalem was a massacre/sack of the Muslim and Jewish population that was recognized as savage even by medieval standards. Contrast it to Saladin's chivalrous, humane respect for Christians in Jerusalem when the city changed hands.

It did not take long for the crusading impulse to swing from a front where the demographic situation was hopeless (Palestine) to one where Western power could simply muscle over weak, fractured local powers (the Baltic, the Balkans, Spain). The only lingering legacy of the capital C Crusades is the occasional blonde Palestinian (Suha Arafat).

[Tokhtamish]

Actually, I thought it was the Turks that stopped the Mongols dead in their tracks. They were every bit the Mongols' equals in warfare.........and damned well knew it.

The Mongol superiority was in C3I. They could maneuver and control over wide distances with a skill that no other medieval army could match. The first defeat the Mongols suffered was not at the hands of the Turks. It was the Egyptian Mamelukes at Ain Jalut. Egypt specifically set about to create a body of elite heavy cavalry who could both outshoot Mongol horse archers and stand up to a Crusader charge.

[stuartcr]

"While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way."
What other kind of behavior would you expect from a people whose environment is a desert? Would you expect them to have the same religious beliefs as say, a Germanic tribe living in a forest at a higher latitude? Would you expect them to be like a a steppe nomad? Islam was born into a region with very little resources. You fight for water, you fight for food, you fight for a mate. Everything a desert nomad had, except maybe for some dates, he had to fight for and take. Winner lives, loser dies.

[VOA]

Thanks for the ping on this interesting article.

While some may doubt this article on the aspect of objectivity because the author
is from a Catholic-affiliated university and the article is from a Catholic-based journal,
I think it is good to look at the advisory board of the journal:

Advisory Board: James Q. Wilson, Paul Weyrich, Vin Weber, Peggy Noonan, William McGurn,
Eugene McCarthy, Paul Johnson, Alexander M. Haig, Edwin J. Feulner Jr.,
William J. Bennett, Richard V. Allen

Not a bad bunch...
James Q. Wilson, sociologist who spawned the "broken windows" theory of societal
distress, which Giuliani used to clean up New York City (before some terrorist hit on 9-11);
plus a number of other luminaries such as Weyrich, Noonan, Haig, and Bennett...
and even Eugene McCarthy (is this the old Democratic Presidential candidate?).

[Bonaparte]

I would bet it's the same McCarthy. As far as I know, he's still alive somewhere in Virginia.

[Bonaparte]

Thanks for the additional sources, MI.

[Utah Girl]

Ping for history.

[PeterPrinciple]

So it would seem that history does in fact repeat itself. HHHMMMMMMMMMMMmmm

Yes, but do we have enough Christians this time ?????

[weikel]

Good post I think bot religions had a lot of intolerant fanatics at that time but intolerant fanaticism is more intrinsic to Islam so the Crusaders should be viewed as heroes even if there conduct was not always noble( the 4th crusade was a particular example the Crusaders sacked Constantinople).

[Honorary Serb]

"Pravoslavophobia" comes from the word that means "Orthodox" in Serbian and other Slavic languages, "Pravoslav".

You should not consider yourself ignorant for not knowing the term, because it is only used by a few people--I believe that it was coined by Jim Jatras. However, the degree of hatred and prejudice against Orthodox Christians in general shown by the professional Serbophobes and Russophobes in our governing elites, and their academic hangers-on, deserves to have a term for it. (For example,when they associate the very laudable tendency of the Greeks to support the Serbs with a defect in the Orthodox charcter that overlooks "Serb atrocities", or they claim that Orthodoxy caused the Russians to become communist .)

[norton]

Thanks,
Is the 'slav' part associated with same sound as in 'slavic'?
Sounds like making yourself the benchmark for all around you; fairly common to some cultures/language groups I think.

[Honorary Serb]

Is the 'slav' part associated with same sound as in 'slavic'? Sounds like making yourself the benchmark for all around you; fairly common to some cultures/language groups I think.

In Serbian, "slava" means "glory". "Pravoslav" means "right glory" (or "right worship"), which is the root meaning of "Orthodox" in Greek as well.

The Serbian word for "Slavic" is "slovenska". This may well be related in its root to the Slavic (including Serbian) words for "word" and "glory". In that case, a "Slav" would not mean a "slave" (as some cheap Western linguists theorize) , but basically a noble human being, or a person who uses language. Many peoples in the world call themselves by names that basically mean "real human being" in their language, so this may have some truth to it.

In any case, at least we get away from the hokey "slave" theory, which has even been extended to say that the name "Serb" derives from the Latin "servus", whic means "slave".

[Korth]

Thanks.

[MarMema]

Good one thanks, Rebel.

[MarMema]

I'll admit to being ignorant in at least some regards: Where does this one come from???

James George Jatras. Do a google search for his name to read his writings.

Read his somewhat prophetic speech from 1998 here