A Crusades question

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This seemed like the best place to put this; apologies if it’s in the wrong area.

I’m in a history class, and for the honors project, I have to write a paper about an event in history (anywhere between 300 BC and 1500 AD) that revolves around the theme taking a stand. I was thinking I was going to write about the Crusades - as in, Catholics taking a stand against Muslim invaders. However, my history teacher says that’s backwards; according to her, “During the Crusades, Christians were called on by Pope Urban II to invade the Holy Lands, an area ruled by the Muslims. Most historians agree that it was the Christians that were the invaders in this situation.” - her words exactly. How should I respond to this?

I realize it’s probably a bad idea to try to fight this, but several students in my class have already discussed writing about Martin Luther and his fight against the Church, and I’d really like to be able to do something that puts the Church in a positive light. I’d appreciate any help, such as books or sources, that could help me fight this. Thanks.
 
Squips said:
This seemed like the best place to put this; apologies if it’s in the wrong area.

I’m in a history class, and for the honors project, I have to write a paper about an event in history (anywhere between 300 BC and 1500 AD) that revolves around the theme taking a stand. I was thinking I was going to write about the Crusades - as in, Catholics taking a stand against Muslim invaders. However, my history teacher says that’s backwards; according to her, “During the Crusades, Christians were called on by Pope Urban II to invade the Holy Lands, an area ruled by the Muslims. Most historians agree that it was the Christians that were the invaders in this situation.” - her words exactly. How should I respond to this?

I realize it’s probably a bad idea to try to fight this, but several students in my class have already discussed writing about Martin Luther and his fight against the Church, and I’d really like to be able to do something that puts the Church in a positive light. I’d appreciate any help, such as books or sources, that could help me fight this. Thanks.
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Remind your teacher that the Crusaders were recovering Christian land that had been invaded by Muslims. Also remind your teacher that the Pope was asked by the Christian ruler of Byzantium to help them repel the Muslim invaders.

I know you would like to defend the Church and put it in a positive light, as you said, but the Crusades are such a hot button that you may end up regretting your choice. It’s too bad because people need to know the truth about the Crusades, but they have hardened their hearts and closed their ears to this topic.

I would suggest doing your presentation on the Battle of Tours, the Battle of Lepanto or the Siege of Vienna. There isn’t as much prejudice about those battles and the Muslims are the obvious aggressors.
 
I think if you do a paper on the Crusades as you have mentioned you have to begin with two things :

Firstly you have to define which crusades you want to write about because there are many and they were in different circumstances. Perhaps you should specifically state the First Crusade.

Secondly you need to quickly set the scene by giving a brief history of Islamic expansion before the Crusade, taking over and destroying Christian communities and then you can describe the situation at the time of the First Crusade with the Byzantine Empire (what was left of it) being under attack, southern Italy and Spain being conquered and colonised, Rome having being sacked by Muslims about a century earlier, Christian pilgrims being attacked and Muslim pirates attacking southern European Christian communities and carrying off slaves to Muslim lands to be used as they saw fit.

Once you set the scene well with the facts then the rest of your paper can proceed easily from the perspective that the First Crusade was defensive in nature by a Christendom that had already lost 2/3 rds of its area (to Muslims and Vikings).

You might also want to include attempts by the Church to dialogue peacefully with Islamic forces and how those attempts were rejected.

Regards.

P.S. One way to show the destruction of Christian civilisation by Islam in the East is to mention how many bishops from the East (hundreds) were involved in the different Church councils before Islamic aggression and how many bishops were left afterwards to attend later Church councils (3 i think).
 
When is your paper due?
  1. do a search here on CAF for “crusades” … LOTS OF GOOD INFORMATION PREVIOUSLY POSTED
  2. youtube.com/watch?v=t_Qpy0mXg8Y
Fascinating subject.

There were TWO sets of Crusades … to the Holy Land … AND … to Spain.
 
Huge battles …

Lepanto … biggest naval battle ever.

Vienna … saved by Polish Army.

Tours … just south of Paris, France.

Not just the Crusades.
 
Ok…you may be right about the crusades. Your instructor doesn’t have the full picture. He/She has an old fashioned post-modern view that doesn’t acknowledge the complexity and nuance of history. The crusades were in fact an invasion of Christians into Musilm lands. However, the Musilms took those lands from Christians. In that case, you may want to write about the Christian resistance to Muslim invasions during the Jihads of the 600’s - 800’s – but that will be hard to find info on…and if you switch topics like this the teacher may think you are just trying to find an anti-Islam angle.

You may be able to find really good arguments and historical sources to back up your claim that the crusades were a stand against the spread of Islam – there is plenty of backup for it. BUT you will probably still get a bad grade. Teachers don’t like to have their ideas challenged or contradicted like this. Especially when you already broached the topic and they said no. Just trust me. You can do it if you want, but you might be better off trying a different tack.

You know what you can do instead? You can still do it on the crusades, but narrow the scope a lot. The last crusader stronghold in the Holy Land was the town of Acre. It’s defense, the siege of Acre, is legendary in a way. Perhaps do a report on the province of Acre, and how it held out and took a last stand as the last crusader state.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Acre_(1291

If you do choose a topic like this, you’ll have to devote a substantial portion of your report to explaining and justifying the “crusader cause” so that the reader (teacher) will see it as taking a stand and not just a bunch of bullies over staying their welcome. Crusaders were interested in claiming holy sites and securing routes for pilgrims so they would be safe from bandits, etc, for example.

Edit: I never thought I’d see the phrase “old-fashioned post modern” so I’d like to coin it now. 🙂
 
Just to throw in my two cents: The Crusades are an issue that it is nearly impossible to find an objective view on. If you are Catholic, by definition you will take the stand that the Crusades are a good thing; if you happened to be Muslim, your view would be quite different. In school, the idea is not, or should not be at any rate, to take sides, but simply find out the facts and report them as they happened…if you can find any resources that are not slanted one way or the other. The idea of “putting the church in a good light” is understandable if you are a practicing Catholic, but understand that this isnt always possible to do. To acknowledge the errors of the church in its past, and present, isnt to degarade it but to point out flaws that should be corrected, or avoid being repeated.
Someone pointed out that there were many Crusades, some of which were not very nice. Ask the Albigensians!
 
Eric_Martin said:
Just to throw in my two cents: The Crusades are an issue that it is nearly impossible to find an objective view on. If you are Catholic, by definition you will take the stand that the Crusades are a good thing; if you happened to be Muslim, your view would be quite different. In school, the idea is not, or should not be at any rate, to take sides, but simply find out the facts and report them as they happened…if you can find any resources that are not slanted one way or the other. The idea of “putting the church in a good light” is understandable if you are a practicing Catholic, but understand that this isnt always possible to do. To acknowledge the errors of the church in its past, and present, isnt to degarade it but to point out flaws that should be corrected, or avoid being repeated.
Someone pointed out that there were many Crusades, some of which were not very nice. Ask the Albigensians!
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I agree with you totally. The jury is not out at all about the Crusades and the role of the Catholic Church in them.

Tradition has it that the Church was very much in error. New historians are presenting the Church in a very positive way.

I would add ask the Jews about their experiences. Too many were slaughtered to have a positive response.

I would encourage the Church to take a deep, hard look at the atrocities committed and take responsibility for its role. No one should paint the picture all black or all white. It will never be that.
 
Many years ago, my son wrote a paper about the Crusades, but it was from a different angle; one an ideologically anti-Crusades person can’t really get too upset about. Here’s the gist of it:
  1. At the time of the early Crusades, much of the Arab world was every bit as feudal as Europe was. The caliphate had broken down into feudal pieces, just as the Roman Empire had.
  2. By and large, the Crusaders who came to rule the land simply took over as feudal lords, displacing those who had fought against them. But the peasants remained on the land and essentially unmolested. Somebody had to do the farm work and the trading.
  3. Many of the Crusader leaders who became feudal lords over part of the land adopted Arabic dress and married Arab women.
  4. Many of the Arab lords were not dispossessed if they made peace with the Crusaders. They didn’t care who ruled in Acre or Jerusalem or Damascus or wherever, as long as they didn’t disturb the locals too much. They were content to rule their own domains, as feudal lords in Europe did. So, those who wanted to rule vast areas, like the Turkic Seljuks or the Turkic Mamluks in Egypt, were the Arabs’ enemies as much as they were the Crusaders’ enemies.
  5. Sometimes Crusaders and local Arab leaders formed alliances against other Muslim leaders, particularly those who posed a threat to their domains.
The Crusader era didn’t last very long, but one thing that the “usual” histories ignore is that the local Arabs got along with the crusaders a lot better than they did with the “mega” Muslim forces, like those of Timur, the Mamluks and the Ottomans, none of which were Arabs. The Crusaders could leave in the face of those terrible and powerful Turkic forces, and did. But the local Arabs couldn’t, and were crushed and oppressed for centuries by those forces.

The paper was very well documented, so I know the sources are out there. The paper wasn’t a defense of the Crusades as a “war on Islam”. It was about how the Crusaders and the local Arabs actually got along pretty well, and it was the Turkic hordes from Central Asia that wrecked both the Crusader states and the Arab world. But again, the Crusaders could go back to Europe. The Arabs couldn’t escape.
 
ComplineSanFran said:
I would encourage the Church to take a deep, hard look at the atrocities committed and take responsibility for its role. No one should paint the picture all black or all white. It will never be that.
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This has been done,especially by the most recent generation of Catholics, largely in response to the anti-Catholic prejudice taking root in secular education and the misusing of many historical events to attack the Church for anti-Catholic / then anti-Christian politics.

Those days are fast disappearing… Thank God.
 
It would be more straightforward to do your paper on the Battle of Tours. Not exactly the crusades but in the same vein and clearly an example of defense.
 
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