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The Real History of the CrusadesBy Thomas F. MaddenWith the possible exception of Umberto Eco, medieval scholars are not used to getting much media attention. We tend to be a quiet lot (except during the annual bacchanalia we call the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, of all places), poring over musty chronicles and writing dull yet meticulous studies that few will read. Imagine, then, my surprise when within days of the September 11 attacks, the Middle Ages suddenly became relevant.As a Crusade historian, I found the tranquil solitude of the ivory tower shattered by journalists, editors, and...

Crusade Propaganda The abuse of Christianity’s holy wars. By Thomas F. Madden, the author of A Concise History of the Crusades and coauthor of The Fourth Crusade, is associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri. November 2, 2001 8:00 a.m. ince September 11 the crusades are news. When President Bush used the term "crusade" as it is commonly used, to denote a grand enterprise with a moral dimension, the media pelted him for insensitivity to Muslims. (Nevermind that the media used the term in precisely the same way before the ...

An Interview with Professor Thomas Madden: Dispelling Myths About the CrusadesThe TFP's Crusade Magazine recently did an interview with accomplished medieval historian Professor Thomas Madden of St. Louis University, to dispel some common myths concerning the Crusades.  The text of this interview is transcribed below.1. Some authors contend the Crusades were wars of aggression against a peaceful Muslim world. What is your position in this matter? It is difficult to see how anyone familiar with the sources could make such a claim.  The original goal of the First Crusade, as it was annunciated in the papal call as well as...

Thomas Madden is chair of the history department at St. Louis University and author of: “A Concise History of the Crusades”, In October 2004 Zenit, the International News Agency, interviewed him. Madden: The following are some of the most common myths and why they are wrong.

On this day in 1095 Pope Urban II made a speech.The setting was the Council of Clermont in France.Urban, indeed all of Europe, was alarmed at the aggression of the Turks in the East, who had taken the Holy Land and were invading the Eastern Roman Empire. Urban therefore addressed the Council asking them to help their Christian brethren in the East. As Robert the Monk recorded, Urban put it, apparently, this way: “Deus vult!… God wills it!”Thus began the First Crusade.In another version of Urban’s history-shaping speech recorded by one Fulcher of Chartres, Urban also addressed corruption in the...

A new report by Britain’s Department for Education and Skills notes that an increasing number of schools are dropping the teaching of the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim students. The report, titled Teaching Emotive and Controversial History, also observes that many teachers are reluctant to discuss the Crusades because the lessons frequently contradict what is taught in local mosques... 30 non-Muslim children at an elementary school in Scotland were required to visit a mosque in Glasgow, where they were instructed to recite the shahada, the Islam declaration of faith, which states, “There is no god but Allah...

The House of Wisdom By Jonathan Lyons Bloomsbury / 272 pages / $26 Dust will never gather on Jonathan Lyons' lively new book of medieval history - the opening page of his The House of Wisdom cites a cleric scandalized by the Crusader ladies of Antioch and their penchant for the plunging neckline and the bejeweled merkin. If this is the Middle Ages, thinks the reader, bring it on! But this pleasure gradually gives way to another beguilement, to be found in Lyons' subtitle: "How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization." That phrase suggests a brave viewpoint for a historian nowadays,...

Note: The link above just refers to the book itself, not the article. ISBN is 0-89555-467-4 This quote is from the last chapter, and is intended to provoke discussion. The West has returned, and one might say that the work of Saladin was plainly undone. Now the future is as hidden from us as it was from those fathers of ourse who, barely three lifetimes ago, still feared the further advance of the East. But when we consider the major forces at work before our eyes, though we cannot conclude upon their results we can at least estimate their immediate...

WASHINGTON -- The Crusades may be causing more devastation today than they ever did in the three centuries when most of them were fought, according to one expert. Robert Spencer, author of "Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)" (Regnery), claims that the damage is not in terms of lives lost and property destroyed but is a more subtle destruction. Spencer shared with ZENIT how false ideas about the Crusades are being used by extremists to foment hostility to the West today. Q: The Crusades are often portrayed as a militarily offensive venture. Were they? Spencer: No. Pope Urban...

A TEXTBOOK widely used in Victorian high schools describes the Crusaders who fought in the Holy Land in the Middle Ages as terrorists, akin to those responsible for the September 11 attacks. The Year 8 textbook Humanities Alive 2 says that the Crusaders, like Muslim terrorists, "believed they were giving their lives for a religious cause". "Like the Crusaders ... they were told they would go straight to heaven when they died," the book says. "Those who destroyed the World Trade Center (sic) are regarded as terrorists. Might it be fair to say that Crusaders who attacked the Muslim inhabitants...

If there is one thing that everybody knows about the Crusades, it is that they were a Bad Thing. In the eyes even of most Christians, let alone others, the Crusades were a crime against humanity, one for which apologies are due, especially to Muslims. President Bush's early reference to the war on terror as a "crusade" was seen as a catastrophic blunder, justifying the accusations of Osama bin Laden and other Islamists who habitually refer to their enemies as "crusaders," with all the negative connotations the word now possesses. Condemnation of the Crusades is based on the premise that...

Within several centuries of Muhammad’s death in 632 C.E., based upon the “proto-jihad” campaigns he waged in Arabia, Muslim jurists and theologians formulated the institution of permanent jihad war against non-Muslims for the submission of the known world to Islam. The essential pattern of the jihad war is captured in the great Muslim historian al-Tabari’s recording of the recommendation given by Umar b. al-Khattab to the commander of the troops he sent to al-Basrah (636 C.E.), during the conquest of Iraq. Umar (the second “Rightly Guided Caliph”) reportedly said: [7] Summon the people to God; those who respond to your...

The Crusades: The truth makes a difference Christians obligated to keep alive the real facts of real history Nearly 250 people showed up at the John Paul II Center last week — double the number we expected — for a history lesson. They filled the seats, lined the walls and then spilled out of Rooms 123-125 and jammed the corridor outside. Why did they show up? They came to hear a talk about the Crusades. But why did they really show up? I think they wanted to recover something they sensed had been stolen from them: their memory. Anyone who...

With the possible exception of Umberto Eco, medieval scholars are not used to getting much media attention. We tend to be a quiet lot (except during the annual bacchanalia we call the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, of all places), poring over musty chronicles and writing dull yet meticulous studies that few will read. Imagine, then, my surprise when within days of the September 11 attacks, the Middle Ages suddenly became relevant. As a Crusade historian, I found the tranquil solitude of the ivory tower shattered by journalists, editors, and talk-show hosts on tight deadlines eager to...

• Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. • With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed's death. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt -- once the most heavily Christian areas in the world -- quickly succumbed. • By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. • The Byzantine...

<p>LONDON — Oscar-nominated director Ridley Scott was savaged by senior British academics yesterday over his forthcoming film, which they say "distorts" the history of the Crusades to portray Arabs in a favorable light.</p> <p>The $135 million film, which stars Orlando Bloom, Jeremy Irons and Liam Neeson, is described by the makers as being "historically accurate" and designed to be "a fascinating history lesson."</p>