The year is 732 A.D., and Europe is under assault. Islam, born a mere 110 years earlier, is already in its adolescence, and the Muslim Moors are on the march.

Growing in leaps and bounds, the Caliphate, as the Islamic realm is known, has thus far subdued much of Christendom, conquering the old Christian lands of the Mideast and North Africa in short order. Syria and Iraq fell in 636; Palestine in 638; and Egypt, which was not even an Arab land, fell in 642. North Africa, also not Arab, was under Muslim control by 709. Then came the year 711 and the Moors’ invasion of Europe, as they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and entered Visigothic Iberia (now Spain and Portugal). And the new continent brought new successes to Islam. Conquering the Iberian Peninsula by 718, the Muslims crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into Gaul (now France) and worked their way northward. And now, in 732, they are approaching Tours, a mere 126 miles from Paris.

The Moorish leader, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, is supremely confident of success. He is in the vanguard of the first Muslim crusade, and his civilization has enjoyed rapidity and scope of conquest heretofore unseen in world history. He is at the head of an enormous army, replete with heavy cavalry, and views the Europeans as mere barbarians. In contrast, the barbarians facing him are all on foot, a tremendous disadvantage. The only thing the Frankish and Burgundian European forces have going for them is their leader, Charles of Herstal, grandfather of Charlemagne. He is a brilliant military tactician who, after losing his very first battle, is enjoying an unbroken 16-year streak of victories.

And this record will remain unblemished. Outnumbered by perhaps as much as 2 to 1 on a battlefield between the cities of Tours and Poitier, Charles routs the Moorish forces, stopping the Muslim advance into Europe cold. It becomes known as the Battle of Tours (or Poitier), and many historians consider it one of the great turning points in world history. By their lights, Charles is a man who saved Western Civilization, a hero who well deserves the moniker the battle earned him: Martellus. We thus now know him as Charles Martel, which translates into Charles the Hammer.

The Gathering Threat in the East
While the Hammer saved Gaul, the Muslims would not stop hammering Christendom — and it would be the better part of four centuries before Europe would again hammer back. This brings us to the late 11th century and perhaps the best-known events of medieval history: the Crusades.

Ah, the Crusades. Along with the Galileo affair and the Spanish Inquisition (both partially to largely misunderstood), they have become a metaphor for Christian “intolerance.” And this characterization figures prominently in the hate-the-West-first crowd’s repertoire and imbues everything, from movies such as 2005’s Kingdom of Heaven to school curricula to politicians’ pronouncements. In fact, it’s sometimes peddled so reflexively that the criticism descends into the ridiculous, such as when Bill Clinton gave a speech at Georgetown University and, writes Chair of the History Department at Saint Louis University Thomas Madden, “recounted (and embellished) a massacre of Jews after the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 and informed his audience that the episode was still bitterly remembered in the Middle East. (Why Islamist terrorists should be upset about the killing of Jews was not explained.)” Why, indeed. Yet, it is the not-so-ridiculous, the fable accepted as fact, that does the most damage. Madden addresses this in his piece, “The Real History of the Crusades,” writing:

Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. A breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins. For variations on this theme, one need not look far. See, for example, Steven Runciman’s famous three-volume epic, History of the Crusades, or the BBC/A&E documentary, The Crusades, hosted by Terry Jones. Both are terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining.

But what does good history tell us? Madden continues:

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War.... In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western [sic] Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.

[The Crusades] were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.

The reality is that in our modern conception — or, really, misconception — of the word, it is the Muslims who had launched “crusades” against Christendom. (In the true sense of the word, the Moors couldn’t be Crusaders, as the term means “those who are marked with a cross,” and the Muslims just wanted to erase the cross.) And like Martel before them, who ejected the Moors from most of southern Gaul, and the Spaniards, who — through what was also a Crusade — would much later wrest back control over Iberia, the Crusades were an attempt to retake conquered Christian lands. So how can we describe the view taken by most academics, entertainers, and politicians? Well, it is the Jihadist view. It is Osama bin Laden’s view. It is a bit like ignoring all history of WWII until December 8, 1941 — and then damning the United States for launching unprovoked attacks on Japan.

Christendom Pushes Back
So now the year is 1095. Just as the Muslims had invaded Europe from the west in the days of Charles the Hammer, now they are pushing toward it from the east. And just as they had taken the Byzantine lands of the Mideast and North Africa in the seventh century, they now have seized Anatolia (most of modern Turkey), thus robbing the Byzantines of the majority of what they had left. The Muslims are now just a few battles away from moving west into Greece itself or north into the Balkans — the “back door” of Europe. Rightfully alarmed and fearing civilizational annihilation, Byzantine emperor Alexius I in Constantinople reaches out to a rival, Pope Urban II, for aid. Inspired to act, in November of 1095 the pope addresses the matter at the Council of Clermont, an event attended by more than 650 clerics and members of European nobility. On its second-to-last day, he gives a rousing sermon in which he appeals to the men of Europe to put aside their differences and rally to the aid of their brothers in the East. Here is an excerpt of the sermon as presented by the chronicler Fulcher of Chartres:

Your brethren who live in the east are in urgent need of your help, and you must hasten to give them the aid which has often been promised them. For, as the most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania [the Greek empire] as far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont, which is called the Arm of St. George. They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire. If you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impunity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them. On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ’s heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians.

In addition to this call, the pope articulates a second goal: the liberation of Jerusalem and other Mideast holy sites. The pope’s words are so moving that those in attendance are inspired to shout, it is said, “God wills it! God wills it!” The first crusade is born.

Modernity, the Middle Ages, and Myth
Yet, in modern times, much cynicism would be born. People just can’t believe that these medieval “barbarians” didn’t have ulterior motives. This brings us to the “ambitious pope” and “rapacious knights” bit, the 20th-century myths about 11th-century motivations. Let’s examine these one at a time.

First we have the notion that the Crusaders were imperialists. This is an understandable perspective for the modern mind, as the not-too-distant past has been one of a dominant West colonizing a world of backwaters. Yet this was a recent and relatively short-lived development. Do you remember how Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi considered the eighth-century Europeans barbarians? It was no different in the 11th century; Dar al-Islam was the burgeoning civilization. It was the imperialist force — and this wouldn’t change for another 600 years.

Next we have two myths that contradict each other; although, considered individually, they may seem tenable. One is that, despite the Crusaders’ purported religiosity, they were just seeking riches by the sword. The other myth is, they were so darn religious that they were seeking to convert Muslims by the sword. It seems unlikely that both could be true, and, as it turns out, neither is.

Today we like to say “Follow the money.” Well, if you followed it in the 11th century, it led right back to Europe. The reality is that most Crusader knights were “first sons,” men who had property and wealth — much to lose (including their lives) and little to gain. And just as the United States can drain the public treasury funding Mideast interventions today, medieval warfare was expensive business. Lords were often forced to sell or mortgage their lands to fund their Crusading, and many impoverished themselves. It also doesn’t seem that the average knight entertained visions of becoming “the man who would be king” in a faraway land, either. As Madden said in an October 2004 Zenit interview, “Much like a soldier today, the medieval Crusader was proud to do his duty but longed to return home.”

As for conversion, the Crusaders were warriors, not missionaries. They had no interest in converting Muslims; in fact, I doubt the notion ever entered their minds. They viewed the Muslims as enemies of God and His Church and a threat to Christendom, nothing more, nothing less. Treating this matter in a piece entitled “The Crusades: separating myth from reality,” Zenit cited medieval history expert Dr. Franco Cardini and wrote:

“The Crusades,” says Cardini, “were never ‘religious wars,’ their purpose was not to force conversions or suppress the infidel.” … To describe the Crusade as a “Holy War” against the Moslems is misleading, says Cardini: “The real interest in these expeditions, in service of Christian brethren threatened by Moslems, was the restoration of peace in the East, and the early stirring of the idea of rescue for distant fellow-Christians.”

Yet, whether or not the Crusades were religious wars, they certainly flew on the wings of religious faith. And when the Crusaders sought treasure, it was usually the kind that was stored up in Heaven. As to this sincerity of belief, Madden has pointed out that Europe is peppered with thousands of medieval charters in which knights speak of their deepest motivations, of their desire to do their Christian duty. Then, Professor Rodney Stark, author of the new book God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, tells us that while the knights were serious sinners, they were also serious about becoming more saintly. Anne Godlasky of USA Today quotes him as stating, “These knights did such terrible things that their confessors kept saying, ‘I don’t know how you will ever atone for this — why don’t you try walking to Jerusalem barefoot.’ And they would do it — they took their faith very seriously.” Moreover, when the Crusaders met with failure, Europeans embraced a characteristically religious explanation: They blamed their own sinfulness. Then, seeking to purify themselves, piety movements arose all across their lands. Perhaps this is why Oxford historian Christopher Tyerman has called the Crusades “the ultimate manifestation of conviction politics.”

We should also note that the Crusaders didn’t see themselves as “Crusaders”; the word wasn’t even originated till the 18th century. They viewed themselves as pilgrims.

Having said this, it would be naïve to think that all Crusaders’ worldly endeavors were animated by heavenly thoughts. Some say that Pope Urban II might have hoped he could regain control over the Eastern Church after the Great Schism of 1054. It’s also said that Urban and others wanted to give those militant medieval knights someone to fight besides one another. As for those on the ground, the Crusades involved a motley multitude encompassing the regal to the rough-hewn, and it is certain that some among them dreamt of booty and betterment. Yet is this surprising or unusual? People are complex beings. Within a group or even an individual’s mind, there are usually multiple motivations, some noble, some ignoble. Charles the Hammer might have very well relished the glory won on the battlefield, for all we know. But it would be silly to think that was his main motivation for fighting the Moors. Likewise, if the Crusaders were primarily motivated by covetous impulses, it was the most remarkable of coincidences. For those dark urges then manifested themselves just when a Christian emperor appealed for aid, just when Europe again seemed imperiled — and after 400 years of mostly unanswered Muslim conquests.

Into the Mouth of Dar al-Islam
But however great the Europeans’ faith, the first Crusade was a long shot. The soldiers had to travel on foot and horseback 1,500 miles — traversing rivers, valleys, and mountains; braving the elements; dealing with hunger and thirst and whatever unknowns lay ahead — and then defeat entrenched Muslim forces. And the endeavor had gotten off to a rather inauspicious start: An unofficial Crusade comprising peasants and low-ranking knights had already departed — only to be massacred by the Seljuk Turks.

So, now, it is August 15, 1096, and the official Crusader armies depart from France and Italy. Arriving in Anatolia many months later, they lay siege to Muslim-occupied Nicea; however, Emperor Alexius I negotiates with the Turks, has the city delivered to him on June 1, 1097, and then forbids the Crusaders to enter. They then fight other battles against the Muslims on the way to their next objective: the great city of Antioch. It is a must-win scenario; if they do not take it, they cannot move on to Jerusalem. The siege continues for seven and a half months, during which time the Crusaders are hungry, tired, cold, and often discouraged; Antioch’s formidable walls seem an impenetrable barrier. On June 2, 1098, however, they are able to enter the city with the help of a spy. It is theirs.

Yet the Crusaders soon find themselves besieged and trapped in Antioch with the arrival of Muslim relief forces. Nevertheless, they manage a break-out on June 28, defeat the Turks, and, after a delay caused by internecine squabbling, move south to Jerusalem in April 1099. Starving after a long journey, they arrive at the Holy City on June 7 — with only a fraction of their original forces. Despite this, Jerusalem will not pose the problems of Antioch, and they capture it on July 15.

The First Crusade successes give Christendom a foothold in the Mideast for the first time in hundreds of years with the establishment of four outposts known today as “Crusader states.” They are: the County of Edessa and the Principality of Antioch, founded in 1098; the Kingdom of Jerusalem, founded in 1099; and the County of Tripoli, founded in 1104. Perhaps the tide has finally turned in Christendom’s favor.

But it was not to be. It was still a Muslim era, and more Crusades would be launched in the wake of Islamic triumphs. In fact, there was a multitude of Crusades — if we include minor ones — lasting until the end of the 17th century. However, it is customary to identify eight major Crusades, dating from 1096 through 1270, although this does omit many significant campaigns.

Great passion for a second Crusade was sparked when the County of Edessa was overcome by Turks and Kurds in 1144. Led by Kings Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany and advocated by St. Bernard, it was an utter failure. Most of the Crusaders were killed before even reaching Jerusalem, the campaign did more harm than good — and Muslim power continued to grow.

Because of this, Madden writes, “Crusading in the late twelfth century … became a total war effort.” All are asked to answer the call, from peasants to patricians, either by devoting blood and treasure to the defense of Christendom or through prayer, fasting, and alms to make her worthy of victory. Yet these are the days of the great Muslim leader Saladin, and in 1187 he destroys the Christian forces and takes one Christian city after another. And, finally, after almost a century of Christian rule, Jerusalem surrenders on October 2.

The loss of the Holy City inspires the Third Crusade. Led by storybook figures such as England’s King Richard the Lionheart, German Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, and France’s King Philip II, it is sometimes called the Kings’ Crusade. Yet it is no fairytale affair. Frederick’s army quits the campaign in 1190 after their aged German leader drowns while crossing a river on horseback, and King Philip leaves after retaking the city of Acre, owing to continual friction with Richard. Despite this, the English King is undeterred. Displaying brilliant leadership and tactical skill, he fights his way south, taking on all comers, and eventually recaptures the Holy Land’s entire coast. Yet the crown jewel, Jerusalem, eludes his grasp. Believing he would not be able to hold it (since most Crusaders will be returning home), he must swallow hard and settle for what he can get: an agreement with Saladin to allow unarmed pilgrims unfettered access to the city. Richard then returns home and never sees the Holy Land again, dying from a battle-related wound sustained in Europe in 1199.

While the passion for Crusading remained strong in the 13th century and the Crusades were greater in scope, funding, and organization, they were lesser in accomplishment. There would be no more Richard the Lionhearts. Mideast Christian lands would slowly be overcome. And Jerusalem would never again be in Crusader hands. In fact, by 1291, the Crusader kingdom had been wiped off the map.

The Next Crusades Battle: 
The History Books
Because the Crusades ultimately failed to achieve their objectives, they are typically viewed as failures. And this brings us to a common Crusades myth. It’s said that those medieval campaigns are partly to blame for anti-Western sentiment in today’s Middle East, but this is nonsense. The reality is, as Madden told Zenit, “If you had asked someone in the Muslim world about the Crusades in the 18th century he or she would have known nothing about them.” This only makes sense. Why would the Crusades have been remembered? From the Muslim perspective, they were just routine victories — like so many others — events that would just naturally fade into the mists of time. What in truth is partly to blame for Islamic anti-Western sentiment is 19th-century pro-Western propaganda. That is to say, when England and France finally started colonizing Arab lands, they wanted to rubber-stamp imperialism. To this end, they taught Muslims in colonial schools that the Crusades were an example of an imperialism that brought civilization to a backward Middle East. And, not surprisingly but tragically, when imperialism was later discredited, the Crusades would be discredited along with it. Muslims would start using the false history against the West.

But there are many Crusade myths. For example, some would characterize the campaigns as anti-Semitic. Yet, while there were two notable massacres of Jews during the Crusades, there is more to the story — as Madden also explained in the Zenit interview:

No pope ever called a Crusade against Jews. During the First Crusade a large band of riffraff, not associated with the main army [the aforementioned “People’s Crusade”], descended on the towns of the Rhineland and decided to rob and kill the Jews they found there.... Pope Urban II and subsequent popes strongly condemned these attacks on Jews. Local bishops and other clergy and laity attempted to defend the Jews, although with limited success. Similarly, during the opening phase of the Second Crusade a group of renegades killed many Jews in Germany before St. Bernard was able to catch up to them and put a stop to it.

This obviously adds perspective. In every war there are rogue forces that commit transgressions. Why, the United States had the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam and Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Yet, to echo Madden on this count, it would be unfair to claim that the goal of American forces was to, respectively, murder innocent civilians or commit sexual abuse.

There were other Crusader sins as well. In the Second Crusade, the warriors foolishly attacked Muslim Damascus, which had been an ally of the Christians. Worse still, the Fourth Crusade saw the sacking of Constantinople itself — occupied by the very eastern Christians the Crusades were designed to protect — after the Crusaders helped an imperial claimant gain the Byzantine throne and then were refused the aid he had promised them as a quid pro quo. In response, the pope at the time, Innocent III, condemned the attack (and he had already excommunicated the Crusade). Nevertheless, the damage was done. The act widened the Great Schism of 1054 to perhaps irreparable proportions.

Yet, again, perspective is necessary. Medieval armies didn’t have modern discipline or rules of engagement, and they were, above all, medieval. You could not have put hundreds of thousands of men in the field during the course of centuries in that age without writing some dark chapters. Really, though, you couldn’t do it in the modern age, either.

With all these failures and missteps, we may wonder why Europeans continued Crusading well beyond the 13th century’s close. We may ask, was it worth the blood and treasure? Yet the answer boils down to one word: survival. The threats to Europe mentioned earlier would not remain theoretical. The Muslims would extinguish the Byzantine Empire — and Constantinople would be renamed Istanbul. They would cross into the Balkans, and their descendants would clash with Christians there in the 1990s. The Ottoman Turks would capture the Italian town of Otranto in 1480, prompting the evacuation of Rome. The Ottomans would occupy what is now Hungary for 158 years. And, in 1529 and 1683, they would reach the gates of Vienna.

Yet the tide would finally turn against Dar al-Islam. The Ottomans would lose the Battle of Vienna in 1683, and, more significantly, Europe was blossoming. It would outpace the Muslim world technologically, and in its march toward modernity, the Christian “barbarians” would become the burgeoning civilization. In fact, they would become dominant enough to forget how recent their time in the sun is — and how, perhaps, it almost never was.

So, were the Crusades really a failure? Sure, there was no Charles Martel and Battle of Tours, no Duke of Wellington at Waterloo; there was no history-changing engagement where we could say, ah, that is where we slew the dragon or “this was their finest hour.” And they accomplished none of their stated goals. But the Crusades era might have constituted a “holding action,” a time when Christendom was pushed toward the abyss and, outweighed and wobbling, pushed back. Of course, this isn’t the fashionable view. But it is easy today to characterize those medieval warriors any way we wish; they are no longer around to defend themselves. But had they not defended the West, we might not be troubling over the past at all — because we might not have a present.

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Lee Gonzales said:

	Saint Martel- the Hammer The Church should canonize Charles Martel. Martel used his army to save Christendom. Martel made it possible for Saint Bonaface to Christianize Germany.
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February 04, 2010
Votes: +11

Timmy said:

What about America? If Christians of prior ages had not fought back against the Muslims and Islam had overrun Europe there would be no America today as the Christians who founded it would have been Muslims and whatever colonizing they would have done would have been as Muslims imposing Sharia. The brainwashing of the modern liberal is so strong that they would probably just say that the world would be a better place today had Christians not founded America. Truly it is amazing that any discussion of Islam brings on immediate and repeated attacks on Christianity for the Crusades. Even if academia has failed our civilization and people have been brainwashed there is no excuse for anyone of even average intelligence and normal curiosity to at this point have figured out the truth about history with regard to Islam and Christianity. I view anyone who repeats the same old tired lies about the Crusades with utter contempt for the absolute total fool that they are.

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February 05, 2010
Votes: +8

Thomas Paine said:

Christianity and The New World Order Thank you for this well written piece, and putting Christian motives in their rightful place. I would blame the Muslims today for rewriting history if they were more powerful. However, I believe it is the NWO, those who are promoting New Age Religion like the Bahai Faith. (Actually their goal is to eliminate all religion). Like Hitler used the Jews to rally the Christians to allow his bidding, today the NWO uses the Muslims to passify us once again, creating an acceptable enemy until they have full control.

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February 05, 2010
Votes: +2

Mikey Pinkie-Rings said:

We cannot predict what would have been, assuming God's place... I submit to you that we cannot validly state that the outcome of the Crusades would naturally lead to the Americas being civilized by Muslims. God has His own timing and influence on history. It is true that Muslims may have reached our shores, but that doesn't explain what would have happened. What bothers me about this train of thought is the kernel of Manifest Destiny that is laced through it. Today, we are faced with a similar challenge. Do we as Americans keep in place our empire or do we admit that we have over reached our proper role in history? I suggest that a close reading and understanding of the Constitution would lead us to bring our troops home quickly. Not only would we be stronger, but we would anger fewer people worldwide. A respect for the limitations imposed by the Constitution should lead us to remember that self-aggrandizement aside, our job should be to protect our own now rather than to fight monsters abroad.

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February 05, 2010
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Timmy said:

putting aside miracles If we put aside the possibility of genuine miracles on the part of God, had Islam conquered Europe then it is certain there would be no America. If the remnants of Christianity had escaped Europe and tried to found America they wouldn't have had the power or resources to defend it. Had Islam been present in America at the time of the founding then there is zero percent chance that the Constitution for a free people as it was created and written could have been approved as Islam, plain Islam, not radical Islam, stands in direct eternal opposition to the Constitution and the freedoms that it grants. The only real purpose of Islam is the expansion of sharia law worldwide. It involves permanent war to achieve that goal. It includes the use of terror going all the way back to Muhammad to subdue the frightened populations. The real irony, the tragedy, is that the current generations of the West blinded by absurd liberal distortions of history and doctrines of multiculturalism are welcoming Islam with open arms into the same lands their ancestors once fought so bitterly to defend from Islam. The West is committing suicide and we are living through it.

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February 05, 2010
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Philip Damon said:

	Nice!! Excellent article! Thank you!
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February 05, 2010 | url
Votes: +4

Jews killed in the First Crusade, Lowly rated comment [Show]

Paladin said:

	Jillian Jillian, the author addressed those massacres very clearly. It does help to actually read an article you want to critique, you know.
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February 06, 2010
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Timmy said:

Jews killed by Muhammad As Jillian may have found out by now the circumstances surrounding the death of the Jews in the Crusades were not what most people think and repeat every chance they get and every time the topic of Islam comes up. Another topic that not enough people understand is how Muhammad and Islam have treated Jews. Too many people excuse Islamic anti-semitism based upon the false notion that Jews have taken Islamic land. There were Jews in ARABIA when Muhammad started Islam and HE KILLED ENTIRE TRIBES OF THEM - but or course he saved the women for sex or slavery and also saved the children for future use, but the men, well they all had their head cut off and their property taken. And in case someone is really really missing the point about Islam and the Jews - there are no Jews in Arabia any more, just what Hitler wanted for Germany. In fact, it was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (a Muslim) who egged Hitler and his henchmen on in developing and putting into use their so-called final solution, a job that many Muslims are still hoping to finish to this day. The Koran itself says that the Muslims will "defeat" the Jews as part of their end times vision.

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February 06, 2010
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Jillian said:

	Replies to Paladin and Timmy Paladin - the article addresses the issue in order only to whitewash it. Timmy - you are right
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February 06, 2010
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Timmy said:

Islam is whitewashed not the Crusades Jillian, the author does not whitewash anything, he merely explains what happened. If anything is whitewashed it is the history of Islam. The West spends all their time obsessing over the Crusades and all of the millions and billions of atrocities that the evil vile filthy verminous "whites" have committed throughout their entire existence on the face of the earth while ignoring altogether the true evil done by and in the name of Islam from the time of Muhammad all the way through to the current day. This sort of perverted world view is resulting in the West committing suicide by allowing Islam to spread in the West and not defending their own Judeo-Christian civilization since they now believe their evil history means there really is nothing worth defending.

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February 06, 2010
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ciccio said:

Crusaders and the Jews The crusades did bring about the first waves of anti-semitism in Europe and it had very little to do with religion. All these young lords who went to battle may have been rich, but in land, cattle and woods, cash was a rarity. Usury had for long been outlawed by the church, giving a 5% mortgage was considered usury. Jews had historically been proscribed from owning property and many guilds and they had no prohibitions against usury as it was then called, a very mild and benevolent form of today's banking system. Money was gold and most of the goldsmiths of the day were Jews. The most essential stuff for a crusade, apart from the horse and sword was cash, these lords went to the Jews and pawned their real wealth for hard cash. Very few of them came back with cash, an even larger number did not come back at all so the Jews wealth multiplied tremendously. That did not sit well with those that owed the money, hence the hatred of the Jews. It is very easy to love and feel compassion for the poor and treat them with justice, it is a different story when the oppressed are rich. In all, the Crusades and the Muslim rape of the east had a very beneficial result for Europe. The Muslims had cut off trade with the east, the fabulous silk road was no more. Because the entire story of the East was 99% heresay, it was far more fabulous in story than reality and all of Europe set of in search of it. Since the land route was blocked, they went by sea. America was only discovered because because the Sultan was sitting in Istanbul.

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February 06, 2010
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Timmy said:

banking and the Crusades I don't know that Jews were involved, but it is an interesting side note that banking evolved to get money to the Crusaders in the Holy Land. It was actually the Knights Templar who managed it along with the rest of their support role to the Crusades. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar Although the primary mission of the Order was military, relatively few members were combatants. The others acted in support positions to assist the knights and to manage the financial infrastructure. The Templar Order, though its members were sworn to individual poverty, was given control of wealth beyond direct donations. A nobleman who was interested in participating in the Crusades might place all his assets under Templar management while he was away. Accumulating wealth in this manner throughout Christendom and the Outremer, the Order in 1150 began generating letters of credit for pilgrims journeying to the Holy Land: pilgrims deposited their valuables with a local Templar preceptory before embarking, received a document indicating the value of their deposit, then used that document upon arrival in the Holy Land to retrieve their funds. This innovative arrangement was an early form of banking, and may have been the first formal system to support the use of cheques; it improved the safety of pilgrims by making them less attractive targets for thieves, and also contributed to the Templar coffers.

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February 06, 2010
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mack said:

	... And that's part of the problem of today's PC history lessons ... people actually use Wiki as a source!!!
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February 06, 2010
Votes: -5

Timmy said:

Wikipedia Wikipedia contains plenty of good information. It is fine to quote it on a forum rather than retype everything. Are you saying that the information about the Knights Templar is a lie? Are you suggesting that it was "Jews" and not the Knights Templar who handled the banking for the Crusaders? If not then your post is sort of idiotic. When it comes to Islam, and the Crusades, the point is that what you get at Harvard, at the "best" schools in the West - is all politically correct lies. They have whitewashed Islam to the point that Western Civilization is now populated by people who are not even capable of knowing that they need to defend their civilization from Islam in the way that the Crusaders did.

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February 06, 2010
Votes: +7

ciccio said:

Wiki is right to a point It took quite a few crusades for the poor fellow soldiers of Christ ect. ect. to build up to the organization they eventually became and they eventually took over the entire banking for the crusades. They too were too big to fail which is why France, in partnership with the Pope "nationalized" them, after which all the talk of the wicked ways of the bankers came out. History does have a habit of repeating itself. Despite that, the Templars did not advance cash, they only transferred or guaranteed it. The origin of their massive wealth was twofold,their vow of poverty, Knights joining pledged their estate to the order and the high mortality rate of the participant who very often did not live to cash their letters of credit. I entered this debate because I have studied the history of the period, not the Saudi financed one that has been introduced since 1970 but the real one and I was pleased to see the much maligned truth being espoused for once.

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February 06, 2010
Votes: +5

Alice said:

	So, the Jews lose again... This is ridiculous! We have been decimated over and over again and it seems that any excuse will do. When Jesus comes back, will He excuse it all?
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February 08, 2010
Votes: -3

Timmy said:

Alice... Don't know what you are referring to exactly but it is interesting how "the Jews" and "banking" come up as a supposed excuse for the actions of the ruffians killing Jews in the first Crusade. If they were supposedly resented for setting up the financing for the first Crusade then it was really too soon for the Crusaders to use that as an excuse to kill Jews on the first Crusade. But really the Bible itself tells us that God's people will be singled out for attack, that is nothing new, not to excuse it, but it is that mankind resent God, and therefore the Jews, his people on earth. But the real problem today is that most Jews fail to see Islam as the true threat to them and continue to focus on Christians as the main threat. If history was taught straight it would be clear to all that Islam has been and is a bigger enemy of the Jewish people than Christianity is or ever was.

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February 08, 2010
Votes: +3

Arvizu said:

... Excellent article. It clarifies the times during which my forefathers lived. In what is present day Spain, in the Basque region of Arbizu, Navarre, my family shield describes direct involvement in the Second Crusade to defeat the armies of Islam. Not only did Islam set out to conquer land but to subject it's inhabitants to annihilation. And even now, this very same threat exists in our world today. How long will the flag of freedom fly in America? As long as those who love freedom stand to defend it.

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February 18, 2010
Votes: +4

Aleks said:

How Romantic Seriously, making a moral appeal for the crusades is rather untenable. Yes Islam was a threat to Europe but the handling of that was hardly admirable. Raping and Pillaging were commonplace in every crusade pretty much nullifying any religious pretense. Also the article ignores that the Pope hardly was the big backer of the crusades. The pope got on board with the early ones but even once it was obvious that faith was a distant third in their intentions the Pope couldn't stop them. At that point the church began its own crusade against any non Roman Christians sacking Alexandria, Zara, and Constantinople, and then sending William the Conquerer to England under the pretense that English and Irish Christians didn't exist even though there is massive documentation and archaeological evidence of their existence prior to the 2nd century. Playing with swords in mom's basement is fun; then you realize the medieval period was not simply complicated but largely western infighting in the midst of foreign attacks. Something America should take note of today.

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February 26, 2010 | url
Votes: -5