Posted on 05/03/2005 6:34:27 PM PDT by pissant
On February 11, 1847, the Scala opera house in Milan, its stage fitted out with fantastic arabesque ogees, onion domes and filagree fretting (representing the harem at Antioch), echoed to wild applause at the premiere of Verdi's I Lombardi alla prima crociata (The Lombards on the First Crusade).
It was not so much the music that wowed the opera-goers, but the identification of Jerusalem, occupied by the cruel Saracens, with Milan, occupied by the cruel Austrians. Lombard nationalists saw themselves as Crusaders.
That was, obviously, an absurd projection of modern values on to a creaky historical framework. But it was no more absurd than Sir Ridley Scott's new film set in 1186, just before the Third Crusade. Kingdom of Heaven follows the fortunes of Orlando Bloom (Legolas in The Lord of the Rings) as a blacksmith's son handy with a sword in defence of Jerusalem.
Teen audiences who cheered on Legolas as he slaughtered hundreds by the bow in the vast battles of Middle Earth, are invited in Kingdom of Heaven to conclude that nothing is worth fighting for. Bloom's character, Balian, surveying a massacre in the Holy Land, declares: "If this is the kingdom of heaven, then God can keep it."
Sir Ridley explains: "Balian is an agnostic, just like me." Yet there were no agnostics in the 12th century. That might sound ridiculous, but the word "agnostic" is a 19th-century invention (1869), just like the word "homosexual" (1892). There were sex acts between men in the Middle Ages, just as men and women doubted their faith, but neither fact defined a personal ideology.
Sir Ridley's problem is that he links agnosticism and tolerance as joint forces of good in his film, and he makes true believers - either Muslim or Christian - baddies. That is an impossible historical pill to swallow. And - groan - the Knights Templar (with their baggage from The Da Vinci Code and The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail) become the "Right-wing or Christian fundamentalists of their day", in Sir Ridley's words.
"If we could just take God out of the equation," says Sir Ridley, like John Lennon in Imagine, "there'd be no f---ing problem." A more realistic view of history requires less retrospective fantasy and more brain work. It means forcing our heads round to see what motivated men and women centuries ago. Try thinking the unthinkable - that the Crusaders were right, and that we should be grateful to them.
The First Crusade won back Jerusalem (pro sola devotione, "for the sake of devotion alone", in the idealistic terms in which it was launched) from Muslim control in 1099, not as an isolated incident but as part of a centuries-long effort to roll back the map of territory overrun by warlike Islamic expansionism since the seventh century.
The jihad of Mohammed's followers first won the Arabian peninsula (killing or subjugating Jewish and Christian rulers and tribes) and its programme had no end but the conquest of the whole world under unified Islamic rule. There was no tolerant agnosticism there.
In response to this unparalleled strategy of aggression, the main "Crusade" developed not in the Holy Land but in Spain, taking nearly 800 years to expel the Moorish invaders. It was as if the French Resistance struggled for centuries to throw off German rule. Amid the confused warfare even the cultured but short-lived Caliphate of Cordoba (929-1016) was hardly the garden of peaceful co-existence generally supposed.
It takes no great counter-factual leap to see what would have happened if Crusaders had not fought back. Gibbon for once got it right when he imagined a Muslim England where "the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet".
That, you might think, need not be so bad. But we wouldn't now be complaining how boring the election is. There would be no election and no free press in which to complain.
In Kingdom of Heaven, Saladin is portrayed as a gent, and so he was in a way. Saladin, a Kurd (belonging to an Indo-European language group, and no pan-Arabist), ruled the Islamic empire from Egypt. His prime success was as a general slaughtering Crusaders (as at Hattin, July 4, 1187); the Christian princes he captured were held hostage and sold for a ransom.
As a fighting man, Saladin was a mirror image of the ideal of the Christian knight. It is possible to reject cynically the very possibility of chivalry in a warrior. The Monty Python school of history paints any knight as a murderous mercenary.
The truth is that medieval Europe was a martial civilisation, which the Church futilely attempted to guide into the way of peace. But we are heirs to that martial civilisation. A knight is a fighting man. Sir Ridley Scott was dubbed with a sword.
The movie's history is poor, but, then again, so is this reviewer's.
Good repudiation of Scott's anti-Christian view of Christians defending themselves. (And who would believe Orlando Bloom as a soldier, anyway?)
Have you read that and do you recommend it?
So much for religious zealotry - it was and is all about conquering and control, not faith.
I have and I do!
Not difficult reading and it puts things in historical perspective that is often lacking.
The battle continues to this day. Except Europe has no ability to defend itself. They ride on America's coattails once again.
I like your post.
Fortunately, America will stand against the tide.
You are correct. The Muslims have been attempting to take over the world from the beginning and the Crusades were a part of what has kept them from having Europe until now. I find another interesting historic battler of Islam to be Vlad the Impaler. Kinda rocky history for a family there... totally off the wall human being... but he did fight the Islamic hoards.
Thanks so much!! I'm on my way over to Amazon to buy it.
I was excited to see a movie bout the Crusades. But it sounds like politically correct garbage. I shall avoid it.
Thanks for the recommendation. Sounds like something I need to pick up too.
Orlando Bloom is almost sort of...effeminate.
It was interesting, but ends right before the time of the movie. A good resource if you are looking for information on the 1st Crusade or why the Crusades started.
Hey, I like that!
I particularly like an oldie but a goodie, Runcimans three-volume history.
Another good one is by Zoe Oldebourg, who was quite a fine historical novelist, but her straight history is first-rate.
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