crusades

[Bobby_A.Greene]

How can we look at the Crusades? The same way we can look at World War 2.

There is absolutely no comparison. World War 2 was not holy! The six Holy Crusades were designed to beat back the infidels who captured and tortured Christian pilgrims to the Holylands, and to release Jerusalem from infidel occupation. The six Holy Crusades succeeded in preventing the spread of this fanaticism any further than southern Spain.

For an informative history of the Holy Crusades, please visit:

newadvent.org/Cathen/04543c.htm

And for the Catholic use of the term ‘infidel’ please visit:

newadvent.org/Cathen/08002b.htm

 

[hlgomez]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shenango
How about massacring in upwards of 40,000 civilians (Jews, Muslims & Eastern Christians) when the Crusaders got to Jerusalem? And that was just to kick things off. That’s not bad enough?

Hi Shenango,

Could you cite a reference or source for that “40,000” figure? Also, which of the six Holy Crusades did Christians massacre “40,000 civilians”? Was the 40,000 spread throughout all six Holy Crusades? And how many civlians where massacred by the infidels who illegally captured Jerusalem and invaded north Africa and southern Spain?

Where is Shenango? I need to know the answer.

Pio

 

[Booklover]

hlgomez:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shenango
How about massacring in upwards of 40,000 civilians (Jews, Muslims & Eastern Christians) when the Crusaders got to Jerusalem? And that was just to kick things off. That’s not bad enough?

Where is Shenango? I need to know the answer.

Pio

Hi Pio! That 40,000 business is another of the myths used to demonstrate the evil nature of the Crusades! I’m quoting from one of the articles from a link from another poster.

"Is is certainly true that many people in Jerusalem were killed after the Crusaders captured the city. But this must be understood in historical context.

The accepted moral standard in all pre-modern European and Asian civilizations was that a city that resisted capture and was taken by force belonged to the victorious forces. That included not just the buildings and goods, but the people as well. That is why every city or fortress had to weigh carefully whether it could hold out against besiegers. If no, it was wise to negotiate terms of surrender.

In the case of Jerusalem, the defenders had resisted right up to the end. They calculated that the formidable walls of the city would keep the Crusaders at bay until a relief force from Egypt could arrive. They were wrong. When the city fell, therefore, it was put to the sack. Many were killed, yet many others were ransomed or allowed to go free.

By modern standards this may seem brutal. Yet a medieval knight would point out that many more innocent men, women and children are killed in modern bombing warfare than could possibly be put to the sword in one or two days. It is worth noting that in those Muslim cities that surrendered to the Crusaders the people were left unmolested, retained their property and were allowed to worship freely.

As for those streets of blood, no historian accepts them as anything other than a literary convention. Jerusalem is a big town. The amount of blood necessary to fill the streets to a continuous and running three-inch depth would require many more people than lived in the region, let alone the city."

Hope this helps!

Vickie

 

[jaydog77]

Bobby A. Greene:

There is absolutely no comparison. World War 2 was not holy! The six Holy Crusades were designed to beat back the infidels who captured and tortured Christian pilgrims to the Holylands, and to release Jerusalem from infidel occupation. The six Holy Crusades succeeded in preventing the spread of this fanaticism any further than southern Spain.

I disagree (and so do liberated death camp survivors!), WW2 was holy! And just. Necessary. And thank God, won decisivly.

And I agree with why Christians fought the crusades, maybe rereading my post…?

 

[jaydog77]

LtTony:

Do you think collectively Islam is sorry for the fact that it helped enslave and sell the blacks sent to pick cotton and tobacco in the US?​

As I implied earlier, I neither beat myself up over the Crusades nor hold Islam responsible. So I feel your pain, jaydog.
Off topic Re slavery: I was told on whyislam.org that the Africans or Arabs who sold people to the slave traders were unaware of the horrible conditions American slaves endured. According to whyislam, slaves were more like servants over there, treated with kindness. It is a rare, rare thing when a poster owns up to unacceptable behavior.

Of course whyislam.org says that. And I guess owning another human being is okay then since we sure fooled them muslims! I think that French Nazi collaberators said the same thing when helping the SS round up Jews for the death camps. “I thought they were just relocating them!”

Maybe they can also answer whyislam has slavery STILL in africa and the middle east. And I’m not talking about wives/daughters either.

 

[Shadowcry]

Didnt Jp ll apologize for the crusades ?

 

[Hospitaller]

jaydog77:

Of course whyislam.org says that. And I guess owning another human being is okay then since we sure fooled them muslims! I think that French Nazi collaberators said the same thing when helping the SS round up Jews for the death camps. “I thought they were just relocating them!”

What about the Palestinian Nazis who actively encouraged the Holocaust?

 

[Shadowcry]

The crusades never prevented the caliphate from invading Europe.

Charles Martel stopped them from invading France and the walls of Constaninople prevented from going through Turkey.

 

[Hospitaller]

Shadowcry:

The crusades never prevented the caliphate from invading Europe.

Correct. Their main signifacence in military terms was that they *forestalled *said invasion for quite some time, buying breathing space for Christendom to develop their military organization, technology and know-how to the point where they could resist full-scale invasions, or at the very least, cut them off and confine them to various regions.

 

[sainted]

Let’s ponder the fact that had it not been for the fanatical muslims atrocities and aggression in spreading their ideology, there would have never been a ‘crusade.’ It follows that if islam was confined in the desert for the desert dwellers there would be no need of a ‘crusade’ and the word itself wouldn’t exist.

In the light of that I conclude that it was purely defensive. I also hope that the muslims stop pointing their finger at us when it comes to this, when unknowingly 3 fingers are pointing at them. Instead of accusing us they should ask themselves, ‘who started the crusade?’

 

[MaggieOH]

I have been reading the comments on this thread. From the historical point of view, I believe that we have to be careful about accepting historical revisionism which is all the rage these days. Personally, I do not accept the idea that there is a need for an apology for the Crusades.

As far as Jerusalem is concerned it must be remembered that the Muslims attacked and murdered thousands of Jews before the Crusaders were dispatched to the Middle East. The Pope of the time called a Holy War because the Holy Lands were in jeopardy because of the Muslims. Christians and Jews were being murdered by the Muslims. Anyone who did not submit to Muslim rule was murdered. The Koran itself states that anyone who does not submit is an infidel and must be killed.

The Holy Lands belong to the Jews and the Christians and not to Islam. The Muslims do not belong there.

At the same time I do not believe that we need to apologize for the Spanish Inquisition because we need to understand the politics behind the decision to create and Inquisition. The Jews who were targeted by the Spanish government of the time were not “saints”. They were guilty of financing the Muslims in their efforts to invade Europe. At the time that the decision to make the inquisition took place, Spain was in danger of being overrun by the Moors.

It is not a well-known fact that the people who were subject to the Spanish Inquisition consisted of Jews who had converted to Christianity so that they could gain political power and who had then participated in an “unbaptism” ceremony. In the minds of the people of the time these people deserved to be punished for what they had done.

We are in no position to judge the situation. It is not my intention to agree or disagree with everything that happened during the period.

The same goes for the other Inquisitions that took place prior to the Spanish Inquisition. It must be remembered that there are revisionist historians who have grossly exaggerated the figure of those who were killed. The figure is in fact very low when you compare the numbers who died at the hands of the Nazis, Russians, Chinese and Vietnamese communists, as well as the Pol Pot regime, Mugabe, and the list goes on.

One has to understand the nature of the difficulties of the period. Yes, there was a need to do something about the heresies of the time. These heresies were far worse than the Protestantism of Martin Luther and Jean Calvin. The spread of Catharism (e.g. Albigenses) was a threat to Christianity. The Cathars claimed to be Christians but they were dualists and they had some rather unusual habits that could not be condoned by the Christian world. They were also anarchists and they were causing a lot of civil unrest.

The Inquisitions served to root out the heresies of the period, and at the same time they protected people who were being unjustly accused by their neighbours. I do believe that people tend to ignore the fact that there have always been those people who would dob on their neighbours out of spite. It is true that one inquisitor in Germany took advantage of his role to murder one of his neighbours, and the Pope relieved him of his duties as an Inquisitor. Is there a need to apologize to anyone for the misdeeds of this person? No. He was punished for what he did. We do not have to be concerned about such ancient history.

It is also true that Prince Frederick of Germany was a maverick when he set out on one of the crusades and the Germans were responsible for the deaths of innocent people as they travelled to the Holy Land. They acted without the authority of the Pope. Do we have to apologize for the actions of this German prince who had acted in this manner? No.

Likewise, I believe that we have to be aware that the Muslims are out to create new history by distorting the facts concerning the Crusades. It was the Muslims who were doing most of the murdering, not the Crusaders. I do think that we need to go back to the source documents where they can be found and not trust anything that comes from a propagandist source.

There is no need to apologize for the Crusades as far as I am concerned. On the other hand we can readily admit that a renegade group of Crusaders went too far and exceeded the authority that was given to them.

 

[Hospitaller]

Nice post, Maggie.

 

[sainted]

Me too Maggie I think it sums it all up!!

 

[JFT]

MaggieOH certainly put it more eloquently than I could have. Also, less hysterically, if I be permitted to say so.

 

[cestusdei]

Didn’t meedo mention Constantinople? How did it become muslim? Not voluntarily. They butchered and raped thousands. It was a islamic crusade against Christians. I await their apology.

 

[Jayda]

after islam conquered half of the christian roman empire land

do you think the crusades was an aggressive venture?

or was the crusade a counter attack on islam hence defensive?

hola,

the crusades are very misunderstood and twisted to villify the Church… the reason for them was that the Muslim ruler destroyed all the Churchs (including the Sepulchre) and killed all the Christian pilgrims, so the eastern emperor asked for help from the Western world… the plan was that a small force would go and that palestine would be restored to byzantine rule with Jerusalem controlled by the Pope, so that Christians would no longer be persecuted.

Instead what happened was that every warlord in the west went to the east, there was a mass exodus of people from europe, the papal legate and head general died very early and the crusaders deliberately did not report this, and the warlords did not submit to the authority of Rome… they wouldnt give Jerusalem to the Pope, refused to accept the bishops he sent to act as patriarchs instead electing their own, and they created a kingdom for themselves…

the Church cannot be blaimed for this, they mutineed against the Holy See and mistreated the muslims jews and even Christians who lived there because they were bad people… none of these things were what the Holy Father commanded them to do, they even broke St. Augustine’s rules of war, which are the Churchs. it is very clear if you compare the actions of the crusader knights when they were under the control of Adhemar (the papal legate) and the instant surge in their abusive behavior (and subsequent drop in punishment for this) that happened after he died…

groups who hate the Church have tried to use tie their actions to the Church as a smear campaign, they do this with the Spanish inquisition too (which answered to and was staffed by the crown of Spain, not the Church)… it is all just black legend.

the crusades as the Holy Father called christianity to were justified and necessary because the muslims were persecuting Christians far worse than they had in the past… but what happened instead was not what the Holy Father called for.

Dominus Vobiscum

 

[Jayda]

Didnt Jp ll apologize for the crusades ?

hola,

no this is a misconception… the Holy Father apologized for the sins the catholic crusaders had committed. he did not apologize for the “the crusade,” the crusades were necessary to stop muslim aggression but certain sins crusaders committed were not what the Church commanded…

see this article

que Dios te bendiga

 

[Valke2]

At the same time I do not believe that we need to apologize for the Spanish Inquisition because we need to understand the politics behind the decision to create and Inquisition. The Jews who were targeted by the Spanish government of the time were not “saints”. They were guilty of financing the Muslims in their efforts to invade Europe. At the time that the decision to make the inquisition took place, Spain was in danger of being overrun by the Moors.

It is not a well-known fact that the people who were subject to the Spanish Inquisition consisted of Jews who had converted to Christianity so that they could gain political power and who had then participated in an “unbaptism” ceremony. In the minds of the people of the time these people deserved to be punished for what they had done.

As a Jew, I found this post both inaccurate and highly disturbing.

First Jews were forcibly converted, then when they were suspected of not being true christians, they were tortured and some burned. First came the campaign to force the jews to become conversos. Then came the inquistion to get rid of the conversos.

Jews did offer money… to the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. In exchange for the revocation of the decree calling for the expulsion of all Jews from Spain. It was rejected.

It is more than ironic to accuse Jews of bringing on the Inquision upon themselves (which is what this post does) when, in fact, one of the motives for the Inquisition – or at least a very suspicious benefit – was the confiscation of property from the accused.

These two paragraphs of Maggies post represent revisionist history at its worst.

 

[Valke2]

Regarding the Spanish Inquistion, the decree establishing it, only mentioned Jews. Professor B. Netanyahu:

“The royal decree explicitly stated that the Inquisition was instituted to search out and punish converts from Judaism who transgressed against Christianity by secretly adhering to Jewish beliefs and performing rites and ceremonies of the Jews. No other group was mentioned, no other purpose indicated - a fact that in itself suggest a close relationship between the creation of the Inquisition and Jewish life in Spain. Other facts, too, attest to that relationship.”

 

[Jayda]

hola,

the inquisition was very bad… but that was not the Church that was the Spanish crown… it is a vicious anti Catholic stereotype that the Church is responsible for this.

que Dios te bendiga