Four Myths about the Crusades

First Principles ^ | April 1, 2011 | Paul F. Crawford

[Antoninus]

Well, then Greeks were no more greedy and grasping than the Venetians, who, were perhaps the prime heavies inn this tragedy.

Of course, the Venetians were grasping and greedy, too. But they wouldn't have had their way if the Greeks weren't divided and fighting among themselves. They had a history of using the crusaders to do the heavy lifting of conquest while they marched into the liberated city afterwards.

I'm not defending the sack in any way. Only saying that it needn't have happened if the Byzantines had been stronger and acted more honorably.

Incidently, I learned on my first trip to Athens that the Parthenon was in good repair until about 1696 when a shell from a naval vessel ignited a store of ammunition in the building. The present ruin is the result of restacking all the pieces they could find afterwards.

Did they mention that it was the Turks who were storing ammunition there? Apparently, there's a pretty long history of Islam using "untouchable" places to store weapons.

[RobbyS]

I think the Greeks were surprised by the First Crusader victories, and of course suspicious that the Normans—their rivals—were among the leaders of the Expeditionary force. By rights the Crusaders ought to have been cut to pieces,as they went straight for Jerusalem instead of just taking cities the Greeks had just lost to the Turks. But by sheer grit and luck they were successful. Alliance are hard to manage, especially since no single leader directed the Crusading Army, and they were not about to put their forces under the Emperor.

[jjotto]

...few Americans know that not only were the Turks a European power but that they were by far the greatest Power, that their empire was as large as the old Roman Empire...

Yep. And few know the Turks sided with the losing side in World War I and lost the Land of Israel to the British. Muslim Ottomans had ruled Israel for 400 hundred years, and Egypt-based Muslims had ruled the area for several hundred years before that.

[Siena Dreaming]

And given space, one could append a long and bloody list, stretching back to the seventh century, of similar actions where Muslims were the aggressors and Christians the victims

I wish the author had given such a list.

[RobbyS]

Or that the Brits and the French song and danced both the Jews and the Arabs to gain their support against then Turks. The two allies then split the Arab lands in the fertile crescent between them. At the same time, they promised that the Palestinian mandate was to be the Jewish homeland. Except that the area east of the Jordan was sliced up and given to Prince Feisel’s family after they were bounced from the Holy Cities. Jews were excluded from this area and required to settle west of the Jordan. The Brits then began to discourage Jewish settlement because that upset the Arabs, at the same time allowing Arabs from the region to flock to the area. In 1900, the land had probably been less settled than in Abraham’s time, and my guess is that two out of three “Palestinians”have great-grandfathers who had been born elsewhere. But they have successfully sold the myth that they have lived there since the time of Mohammed. Judging just from Mark Twain’s book about his trip to the Holy Land, the place was largely a desert when he was there.

[tarawa]

Most of this I was already aware of, but it is nice to have it all in one place and in such a succinct and useful format.

[ChicagoHebrew]

It’s a freakin’ MOUNT... so any large amount of liquid would run off. How in the heck did this bumpkin become a Rhodes scholar?

You don't know your geography. Herod encased and surrounded the Temple Mount with large retaining walls. The end result is that, geographically, the Temple Mount is like a large fishbowl. There's no place for liquid to run off to.

[Cronos]

great article

In 1009, a mentally deranged Muslim ruler destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and mounted major persecutions of Christians and Jews.

He was soon deposed, and by 1038 the Byzantines had negotiated the right to try to rebuild the structure, but other events were also making life difficult for Christians in the area, especially the displacement of Arab Muslim rulers by Seljuk Turks, who from 1055 on began to take control in the Middle East.

This destabilized the territory and introduced new rulers (the Turks) who were not familiar even with the patchwork modus vivendi that had existed between most Arab Muslim rulers and their Christian subjects.

Pilgrimages became increasingly difficult and dangerous, and western pilgrims began banding together and carrying weapons to protect themselves as they tried to make their way to Christianity’s holiest sites in Palestine: notable armed pilgrimages occurred in 1064–65 and 1087–91.

from the article

[Cronos]

and this

In 1071, the Byzantines suffered a devastating defeat at Turkish hands in the battle of Manzikert. As a result of the battle, the Christians lost control of almost all of Asia Minor, with its agricultural resources and military recruiting grounds, and a Muslim sultan set up a capital in Nicaea, site of the creation of the Nicene Creed in a.d. 325 and a scant 125 miles from Constantinople

[cradle of freedom]

If Europe had been wealthier and more populated at the time things would have turned out differently.

[Tailgunner Joe]

bttt