Crusaders and Jerusalem

01/17/10 | Ryde

[Ryde]

Freepers: I happened to be reading my grandson's college text on the Middle East. Now I know that the crusades were a bloody affair--but all wars are bloody. In an age where there were no firearms, warriors often ended up fighting nose-to-nose and covered in each other's gore. Now according to the text, no more than 12,000 crusaders made it to Jerusalem in total--1,500 men in armor. Then they fought their way over the walls--were repulsed once--and then had to fight their way uphill to take the city. So, when the capture occurred, there could not have been a whole lot of crusaders left uninjured. Yet, the language used is that the crusaders massacred the entire city. I am skeptical. What say you?

[zerosix]

They didn't all get killed, many "converted" rather than die but their families remembered their real faith; others who "left" rather than "convert" returned and still others emigrated.

Not everyone who now lives anywhere has spent generations in the same place.

[Verginius Rufus]

The Muslims first gained possession of Jerusalem in 637, when the Patriarch Sophronius surrendered the city on terms to the caliph Umar--the Christians were not slaughtered or forced to convert. The caliph visited Jerusalem but refused to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre lest his followers insist on turning it into a mosque.

Christians continued to be able to visit the holy places...I believe the first problems were centuries later with certain fanatical Muslim leaders who caused problems for Christian pilgrims. Then the Byzantines were defeated by the Turks at Manzikert in 1071 and the Byzantine emperor looked to the West for help. Pope Urban II made the recovery of Jerusalem rather than aiding the Byzantine emperor the main goal.

[justa-hairyape]

One of the worse city sieges was when the Mongols sacked Baghdad.

[Ryde]

Thank you, this was a very interesting exchange. So much for my applying logic to military matters!

[pacific_waters]

The record is a bit confused but there is no indication that every Jew and Muslim was killed.

“There the Saracens assembled and resisted fiercely all day, so that the whole temple flowed with their blood. At last the pagans were overcome and our men seized many men and women in the temple, killing them or keeping them alive as they saw fit. On the roof of the temple there was a great crowd of pagans of both sexes, to whom Tancred and Gaston de Beert gave their banners [to provide them with protection] .

[Brugmansian]

Let's not forget either that Muslims sacked Rome and looted the Basilicas of Saint Peter and St Paul two and a half centuries before the first crusade was launched. Couple years later, Muslims returned and were turned back by a Christian fleet at the battle of Ostia.

The prisoners taken in that battle were forced to help build the Leonine Walls which stand around the Vatican today.

[Captain Kirk]

I was merely commenting on an absolute statement which was simply not true, the millions of Christians in the Islamic world (many practicing in ancient churches) still attest to that.

[SunkenCiv]

Ping!