Posted on 08/16/2013 12:04:25 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Islam and its raiders/pirates basically destroyed trade in the Med. But to claim that this in and of itself destroyed all trade across Europe seems a bit of a stretch. Riverborne and land routes were still available, if a lot more expensive.
During the period in question, the Vikings were ravaging north and west Europe, the Saracens were attacking from the South, and the Magyars were attacking from the East.
Each of these groups penetrated so far into the Continent that it brings up the possibility of their actually bumping into each other. In fact, it's probable, since we know some of the Viking raids penetrated into the Med.
Magyar raids penetrated into central Spain, western France, and southern Italy. They really got around. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kalandozasok.jpg
IOW, the decline of trade and civilization was not due solely or even necessarily to Islamic aggression.
The narrator’s voice really puts me off. Sorry.
Really, the Jews in Arabia??
Never heard of such.
Very popular topic.
I have to point out Islam was the worst of these groups and they controlled the seas raiding at will.
When Rome controlled the seas and roads they were relatively safe for trade.
yeah in the last year he has been over acting. he is a little pompous but he present very interesting information
From my reading of history, wasn’t the LAST CRUSADE the Spanish attack on England in 1588? The Spanish tried again a few years later and again failed to conquer England.
The commonly misunderstood Crusades were used as a cudgel against Catholicism here until 9/11.
Then they disappeared, to be replaced by the commonly misunderstood Galileo affair.
This is progress.
You may be right. And Islam got started a good deal earlier than the Vikings and Magyars, whose attacks may very well have been made easier by the general decline of Europe.
And without the Crusades, Europe would have succumbed to Islam.
History can be complicated.
The Crusades were a minor blip in Muslim history, peripheral in both time and space.
MUCH more central to Muslim history of the time were the Mongol conquests.
From before 5000 BC straight thru to the Mongol invasions of the 1200s what is now Iraq was continuously a thriving home of civilization.
Conquerors rode thru, raped and pillaged and destroyed irrigation works. The surviving peasants always rebuilt them.
The Mongols rode thru, raped and pillaged, destroyed the irrigation works, and then killed all the peasants. The area has never recovered.
Similar stories apply in Iran, Central Asia, etc. Muslims didn't take well to pagan Mongol rule, and the Mongols didn't handle resistance well.
Will see if I can sit thru it. :)
It was generally called the "Great Eastern Crisis" part of which was the Herzegovina Uprising of 1877. In which 200,000 christian were fugitives as a result the Ottoman Empires Jizya tax increases. Christians were still considered to be Dhimmi or second class citizens under Islamic rule. This spread into the Serbo-Turkish War.
It was only logical for the Austria-Hungary to stop the war at the boarders.
After Austria took over the area this caused issues with Serbia you know the rest of the story.
I understand your point but it is similar to Serbia attacking Austria when their real that was Islam. Philip II was an idiot
Thanks for the ping!
It was 9/11/1683 at the gates of Vienna that the polish army shown up at the point everyone knew Ottoman Empire was going to be stopped.
The other was October of 732 the Battle of Tours
Charles Martel (the Hammer)
These two events should be similar to our 4 of July for all of western civilization
Quite literally the simultaneous persecution of heretics by the Byzantines against the Ghassanids and the Persians against the southernmost tribes in their territories opened the highway to Islam. The loot to be gotten did the rest. The Ghassanids simply switched horses.
Islam would today be an obscure tribal religion based solely in the Saudi peninsula, but for Christian persecution.
Basically our own in house fighting always seems to get the best of us. As an example, If Serbia didn't attack Austria over a dispute of Ottomans territory we may not have had WWI or WWII. I doubt Austria would have been able to hold the territory for very long and Serbia could have taken it then.
Philp II attacking England because he didn't get the support he really should have had.
France siding with Germany after being invaded then François Darlan attempting to give the Germans their fleet. In the Battle of Mers-el-Kébir, Battle of Dakar and a few others battles. There were more vichy french volunteers then there were free French forces early in the war. This always amazed me how a country could side with their invaders.
I honestly don't understand any of it.
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