Great review. Good Post.
Posted on 05/27/2005 6:04:41 PM PDT by Claud
Not quite three weeks after the film's release we can say one thing for sure: the First Crusade was much more successful than Ridley Scott's movie.
I was stunned to hear Islamic anti-defamation groups condemn Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven." The Muslims appear much nobler than the Christians in the film, and on the Christian side the only remotely sympathetic characters are at best agnostic. Jonathan Riley-Smith, an expert on the Crusades, described the movie as "rubbish" for just this reason - the film, he says, is "not historically accurate at all" in its depiction of "the Muslims as sophisticated and civilized, and the Crusaders are all brutes and barbarians. It has nothing to do with reality." More important than the film itself, though, is the history behind the Crusades themselves. Moviegoers who knew little of the period walked away with a distorted understanding of the Crusades that played into politically correct stereotypes.
Proper context for the Crusades must begin at the beginning, with the First Crusade (1096-1099). Yet - and here is the point - even the First Crusade was not the real beginning of the story. The real beginning came in the century following the death of Muhammad in 632. During that incredible hundred years, Muslims spread their religion by force throughout Arabia, and into the modern Middle East, including Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, as well as into Egypt, north Africa, and Spain. Further progress into Western Europe was stopped cold by Charles Martel and his Frankish warriors at the battle of Poitiers/Tours in 732.
It is easily forgotten that some of these territories had been heavily Christian when the Muslims took them over. No one today thinks of Syria and Egypt as Christian centers, but in the seventh century they certainly were. The ancient city of Antioch had been home to a school of Christian thought second only to that of Alexandria, and Egypt had been the birthplace of Christian monasticism.
At the battle of Manzikert in 1071 much of Byzantine Asia Minor was lost to the Seljuk Turks, a group of non-Arab Muslims who were influential in the Middle East during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Alarmed, the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus issued an appeal to the Pope in Rome, from whom the Eastern world had been estranged since the Great Schism of 1054. That pope, Gregory VII, much as he wanted to help, wound up having other fish to fry. It was Pope Urban II who issued the call for the crusade in 1095.
When the Seljuk Turks conquered Palestine in the early eleventh century they at first carried out atrocities against Christians, destroying churches and killing some of the faithful. Although this approach was soon abandoned, the internal divisions of the Seljuk Turks translated into instability in the Holy Land, where Christian pilgrimages to the city's holy places became perilous. Thus the crusade called by Urban would try to ease some of the pressure from the troubled Byzantines, but also set its sights on liberating the once-Christian Holy Land from the hands of the Muslims.
At no time did the crusaders come anywhere near Arabia, the heart of Islam, and yet most people seem to think that the Crusades were an attempt by wicked Christians to invade the Muslim world and convert its inhabitants to Christianity. To the contrary, the Christians engaged in no such forced conversion of Muslims - which would explain why, during the years following the First Crusade in which the Christians occupied Jerusalem, Muslims remained the overwhelming majority of the population.
In fact, if you had asked a Muslim as recently as the eighteenth century what the Crusades were, he would have had no idea what you were talking about. From the Muslim point of view the Crusades were such a minor affair that they were scarcely worth noting. It is largely thanks to historically recent Western guilt and hand-wringing that modern Muslims have become conscious of the Crusades at all.
None of this is an attempt to whitewash the truly despicable and inexcusable aspects of the Crusades. There were plenty of atrocities on all sides, though that is a wartime phenomenon that is not exactly unknown to the modern world. But to focus on these incidents, however cruel and however contrary to the Christian Gospel they were, in the absence of this contextual material is to miss the forest for the trees.
Thus it was that in 1095, with the assistance of no secular ruler, Pope Urban II called upon Western Christians to assist their Eastern brethren. Over the past two millennia, the Church's influence on our civilization - as I show in my new book, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization - has typically involved the pursuits of peace: the university system, the sciences, international law, economic thought, charitable work, the arts and architecture, and much more besides. But it also meant encouraging the Spaniards to wage a just war against their Islamic conquerors, and in the case of the Crusades to lend assistance to fellow Christians in the East who found themselves under a similar threat.
That, stated simply, is what the Crusades were about.
The Church provided pilgrim status for all who went, further increasing the chances that people would join up, because the Church would guarantee their lands. I'm not saying the Crusade was necessarily wrong---just that to portray it as ONLY a religious episode misses much of what was going on in Europe itself, and does not explain the timing. As you point out, other crusades were disasters.
There is NOTHING to whitewash. Our modern definition of "what" an atrocity is would clearly be different one thousand years ago. Sorry, burning people alive, ripping their limbs from their bodies was the normal course of punishment. These would not have been considered atrocities.
Although I haven't read his Medieval stuff, one of the profs at UCSB was known as nearly equal to White, Warren Hollister. Check him. And actually look at their work, not at what some moron webmaster says.
Fortunately, Ridley Scott condemned his movie to failure when he made a "R" rated movie that kept Orlando's 13 year old fan base from seeing it. No man worth his salt would accept 120 lb Orlando as a grown-up. Failure...assured.
I was hoping Bloom wouldn't be back for the Pirates of the Carribean sequel but unfortunately he will be.
Second, sitting here in my office, I'm not likely to come up with ANY "primary source" material from the 900s. If you can dig up that, you either are living in a castle in France, or are a fraud.
Third, White specifically did NOT say that the Europeans "had" the stirrup first---but that they first used it in shock combat, so apparently you haven't read his "critics" right or you haven't read him. I think Victor Hanson accepts White's interpretation of the Frankish use of the stirrup in this regard.
Fourth, I don't need to provide ANYTHING. The necessity for the "Peace of God" and "Truce of God" (or do you need "primary source documents" on those, too?) alone are sufficient evidence that there was widespread violence in common European cities, and that the Bishops of Aquitaine, among others, thought it necessary to do something about it from the ecclesiastical perspective.
The race riots comparison is absurd. The "peace of God/truce of God" are plenty to prove the point. I await your evidence.
I'm not familiar with Lynn White and I'm not a medievalist, but I wholly share Antoninus' suspicion.
White's argument is raising a red flag for me right off the bat. First of all, overpopulation, which is a concept straight out of modern socialism, and something that sounds extremely anachronistic coming out of the mouth of an 11th century pontiff. Urban *may* well have been concerned about sending young men overseas to "keep them busy", but if he was it was concern for the peace in Christendom and not to "thin out" the population. I doubt very much that this concern was even in Urban's mind--unless I see, as Antoninus reasonably requested, some solid documentary evidence to support it.
I've seen in my own studies (American colonial history), how routinely modern scholarship mauls the primary sources to coerce a modern economic theory out of nonexistant historical data. So with all due respect to White (whose work I admit to having never read), I remain extremely suspicious.
"But if you are hindered by love of children, parents, or of wife, remember what the Lord says in the Gospel, `He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me', 'Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.' Let none of your possessions retain you, nor solicitude for you, family affairs. For this land which you inhabit, shut in on all sides by the seas and surrounded by the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your large population; nor does it abound in wealth; and it furnishes scarcely food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder and devour one another, that you wage war, and that very many among you perish in intestine strife.' Empasis mineThe theory isn't as unsupported as it first looked, but I'm still going to retain some suspicion and here's why.
Urban's sentiments are an overt appeal to the Franks to "let none of your possessions retain you": your life is hard, your land unproductive, and it can barely sustain all of you. He first directly appeals to their piety and then adds these few practical reasons too. This is no internal plan of Urban's to thin out Frankish Europe--this is an exhortation for the nobility to not be hindered by the comfortable attractions of their family estates and wealth.
Also, fast forward to the end of the speech:
Whoever, therefore, shall determine upon this holy pilgrimage, and shall make his vow to God to that effect, and shall offer himself to him for sacrifice, as a living victim, holy and acceptable to God, shall wear the sign of the cross of the Lord on his forehead or on his breast. When, indeed, he shall return from his journey, having fulfilled his vow, let him place the cross on his back between his shoulders. Thus shall ye, indeed, by this twofold action, fulfill the precept of the Lord, as lie commands in the Gospel, 'he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. Emphasis mineI'm sure Urban understood that to occupy the Holy Land, knights would have to remain there, but here at the end of the speech is all the language of pilgrimage: to *return home*, the vow having been accomplished. If his idea had been to "thin out" the Frankish kingdom, the pilgrimage idea would have been rather counterproductive--there would be more forceful language about *settling* the place. A passage or two seems to come close to that:
Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulcher-, wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves. That land which, as the Scripture says, `floweth with milk and honey' was given by God into the power of the children of Israel. Jerusalem is the center of the earth ; the land is fruitful above all others, like another paradise of delights. This spot the Redeemer of mankind has made illustrious by his advent, has beautified by his sojourn, has consecrated by his passion, has redeemed by his death, has glorified by his burial.But elsewhere, Urban says:
"And we neither command nor advise that the old or those incapable of bearing arms, undertake this journey. Nor ought women to set out at all without their husbands, or brother, or legal guardians. For such are more of a hindrance than aid, more of a burden than an advantage. Let the rich aid the needy and according to their wealth let them take with them experienced soldiers. The priests and other clerks, whether secular or regulars are not to go without the consent of their bishop; for this journey would profit them nothing if they went without permission. Also, it is not fitting that laymen should enter upon the pilgrimage without the blessing of their priests.No non-military personnel, no women save those acompanying relatives, no prelates or laymen without permission. Again, emphatically NOT the language of a call for mass migration, but rather of pilgrimage and religious duty.
Again, just to be clear, I really would have to read White's argument rather than responding half blind here. But the idea here (all too typically for modern historians), seems to miss the mark in a fundamental way by overemphasizing economic explanations in places where very different forces were at work (in this case, piety). It's clear to me at least that for Urban, the "overpopulation" argument was not a fundamental aspect of the Crusades but an attempt to head off the Franks' very natural objections to leaving their estates.
Great review. Good Post.
No, "Overpopulation" was NOT just a modern concept, especially in the Middle Ages where they lacked modern fertilizers and even a steel plow. The Romans had had a direct experience with "overpopulation" when the farmers, who lost their lands to the plantations, flooded Rome and demanded free bread.
first, Urban well understood that many knights would never return.
Second, whether he said so or not, it was clear that if they found suitable lands and a nice lifestyle in the Holy Land, many of them would remain and call for their families. It was the same as used to occur in Rome when Rome conquered a province. He didn't need to say, "Now, I want all of you to take your wives, servants, kids and GO."
Third, I think he knew the impact of his words would be picked up elsewhere, as, indeed, was the case. For example, the "children's crusade" did not, as far as I know, take the sons and daughters of well-to-do Europeans, but the urchins and street kids. Certainly this was not viewed as a tragedy, even though anyone witnessing this knew the fate of these kids.
I think sincerely Urban and others DID expect many knights to return home---but the opportunities (for faith and commerce) opened by the Crusades would likely draw off still others. Remember the goal was not to leave the Holy Land a smoking hulk, but a prosperous, vital region that was reclaimed from the Muslims.
Of course. I'm not claiming it wasn't a factor, just that it was a very minor factor if any, and a factor directed primarily toward encouraging the Frankish nobility rather than some sort of papal population control. What is irresponsible (and undocumented) is to suggest that Urban believed if the Crusade failed, oh well, at least he had thinned out the knights.
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