Who says the crusades were "Christian"? I feel they were a horrible tragedy. Why would Christians need to conquer Jerusalem? Jesus said his kingdom was not of this world. Christianity has no Mecca, no physical location on earth to "defend or exalt."
Larry Sites answered:
From the America OnLine encyclepida:
As religion touched nearly every facet of medieval life, people of all classes journeyed to shrines, or places of religious
interest. The hallowed place might be the grave of a martyr, or a church that sheltered the relics of a saint. These journeys were called pilgrimages. Travel was hard, but discomfort was even welcomed as a kind of penance. The pilgrim who could not afford a horse plodded on foot, aided by a staff. The typical pilgrim garb was a cloak, girdled by a cord, and a brimmed felt hat.
Every country had its favorite shrines, but the great shrine for all Christians was the Holy City, Jerusalem. Even though the Holy Land had been held by the Arabs for centuries, Christian pilgrims had been unmolested. When the Holy Land fell to the _eljuk Turks in the 11th century, they persecuted pilgrims.
Christian Europe then vowed to win the Holy Land from the Turk "infidels." Pope Urban II declared in 1095, "God wills it. Christ Himself will be your leader when you fight for Jerusalem." On that command he sent forth Europe to fight a series of religious wars called the Crusades.
From my own research:
Prior to the 1st crusade, the Roman Empire was divided into 2 christian areas, roughly France/Germany/Spain/Italy headed by Pope Urban II and the Byzantine Empire, an area around Constantinople under Alexius. (if I remember correctly, the 2 divisions of christianity came about over a petty dispute about if it was ok or not to have icons in church.) "A great offensive against the Moors was still being waged by the Christian princes of Spain, and the church had aided enlistment for the holy cause by an offer of special indulgence-the promise to the recruit that whatever penance he had accumulated would be wholly or largely remitted. Under a similar blessing the conquest of Sicily was being pushed" page 228 of Stephenson's _Mediaeval History_. The rest of Europe was in conflict with the various kings trying to expand/maintain power.
In 1095 Urban went to France where he held council of clergy and nobility at Clermont. "There Urban, a Frenchman speaking in the vernacular to a French audience, delivered his epoch-making appeal. The Turks, he reminded his hearers, had but recently, after almost destroying the Byzantine Empire, seized the holy places in Palestine. What a nobile work it would be to rescue the Lord's sepulcher from their foul hands! And who should assume this most sacred obligation if not the Franks-a people long distingused for purity of faith, and a people famed beyond all others for prowess in arms? Here, crowded in by sea and mountain, they inhabited a country that hardly produced enough food to support them; there, on the contrary, lay the Promised Land of Israel, 'flowing with milk and honey.' Let them cease from their
murderous wars and dissensions. Let them rather join in one blessed enterprise, to wrest from the infidel the lands defiled by his presence, knowing that God would grant them not merely a rich earthly reward but also imperishable glory in the kingdom of heaven. So Urban concluded, and the entire assemblage, we are told, shouted as with one voice, 'Dieu le veut-God wills it!'" page 229 Ibid.
Gathering crusaders in Germany first fell upon "the infidel among us", Jews in the Rhine valley, thousands of whom were dragged from their homes and hacked to death or burned alive.
"Every crusader, together with his family and all his possessions, was brought under the protection of the pope and, by a plenary indulgence, he was assured of immediate entrance into paradise if he died in the course of the war". "Crowds of ill-armed persons, without adequate funds or competent leadership, started on a mad pilgrimage... the majority on rashly advancing into Asia Minor, were killed by the Turks". page 230 Ibid.
The organized army was commanded by the French, including Hugh, count of Vermandois; Robert, duke of Normandy and Stephen, count of Blois, the last 2 representing the king of England. Also Robert, count of Flanders. The neighboring house of Boulogne sent Eustace, Baldwin and Godfrey, who had been appointed by Henry IV to the undesirable duchy of Lower Lorraine. Also Raymond, count of Toulouse, Bohemund, son of Robert Guiscard. Bohemund was unquestionably the best general. Merchant shipowners of Genoa and Pisa helped. They left in 1096 by various routes to converge on Constantinople where Alexius had promised to furnish money, provisions and more troops. Alexius had problems enrolling chiefs for his service. He would not provide for futher progress untill they did homage to him for whatever lands conqured.
In June 1097, Nicaea fell and was given to Alexius who then diverted his forces to the Aegean coast leaving the crusaders to go on toward the holy land. Bohemund's nephew Tancred took Tarsus while Balwin took Edessa. The rest spent the winter outside the walls of Antioch waiting support from Alexius who along with deserters had turned back. An Italian fleet arrived with supplies and siege engines in spring 1098. Antioch surrendered on June 3 to the generalship and diplomacy of Bohemund 5 days before a Turk relief force arrived. Bohemund lead in driving them off also. Bohemund defied emperor Alexius who had abandoned them and took title to Antioch. Pope Urban did not interven on Alexius behalf. (No big surprize - grin) Italian ships directly supplied the popes forces.
"The battle also precipitated a bitter quarrel between Bohemund and Raymond of Toulouse, who had himself been eager to rule at Antioch and who now, in the face of the northern French party, espoused the cause of Alexius. Besides, the southern French attributed the victory, not to the generalship of Bohemund, but to the power of a sacred relic--- the lance which had pierced the side of the crucified Christ and which, as the result of a vision, had recently been discovered by Peter Bartholomew, a follower of Raymond. The Normans, of course, scoffed at this alleged miracle, intimating that their rival had simply uncovered what they had already buried. Even after the host had resumed its march on Jerusalem, dissension still raged. At last, during a halt on the coast, Peter Bartholomew agreed to undergo ordeal by fire to prove the truth of his statements. Clad only in a shirt and bearing the Holy Lance, he actually walked into a heap of fiercely blazing olive branches and emerged on the other side. Twelve days later he died, in consequence, said his friends, of excited handling by the crowd; in consequence, said his enemies, of natural burning by the fire. So the dispute continued as before--- a remarkable commentary on the mixture of religion and politics that characterized the whole crusade". page 232-3 Ibid. Maybe the ICR, todays creationists and you would be willing to "prove" the truth of your statements in the above manner? (grin)
On July 15, 1099 Jerusalem fell after 6 weeks assualt. One week later, Godfrey who led the final assault and who had remained somewhat aloof from the previous wrangling was proclaimed Defender of the Holy Sepulcher. Urban died in Rome on July 29, 1099. Godfrey died on July 18, 1100 and his brother Baldwin who, on moving from Edessa, was formally crowned as king on Christmas Day, 1100.
The ecstatic cleric Raymond of Aguilers wrote about the conquest of Jerusalem, "In the temple of Solomon, one rode in blood up to the knees and even to the horses' bridles, by the just and marvelous judgement of God."
In summary, it was Pope Urban, head of the christian church, that "lead" the 1st crusade, not Godfrey of Lorraine of the house of Bologne aka de Bouillon, who merely was in the right place when Jerusalem fell. Leaders in the field were nobility that had little chance of rulling in their native country. Troops were induced to go via material *and* special spiritual rewards. After the failure of the eastern Christian emperor Alexius to live up to his end of the bargin, leaders in the field set the presedent for claiming kingship.
As Saint Bernard of Clairvaux declared in launching the Second Chrusade, "The Christian glories in the death of a pagan, because thereby Christ himself is glorified."
In the Third Crusade, after Richard the Lion-Hearted captured Acre in 1191, he ordered 3,000 captives - many of them women and children - taken outside the city and slaughtered. Some were disemboweled in a search for swallowed gems. Bishops intoned blessings. Infidel lives were of no consequence.
Throughout Europe, beginning in the 1100s, tales spread that Jews were abducting Christian children and killing them for blood rituals. Hundreds of massacres stemmed from this "blood libel". After the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 proclaimed the doctrine of transubstantiation: that the host wafer miraculously turns into the body of Jesus, rumors soon spread that Jews were stealing and crucifying the wafers. Reports said that the pierced host actually bled. In 1243 in Belitz, Germany, Jews were burned at the stake for this. To avenge the tortured host, the German knight Rindfliesch lead a brigade in 1298 that exterminated 146 defenseless Jewish *communities* in six months. Such killings continued into the 1800s.
Don't forget the persecution of Albigensian heretics starting in the 1200s that lead to the Inquistion which shifted to focus on witchcraft in the 1400s. What about the "Protestant Inquisition" started by John Calvin in the 1500s leading to Oliver Cromwell being deemed a *moderate* in the 1650s because he massacred *only* Catholics and Anglicans, not other Protestants?
What about that Thirty Years War between Protestants and Catholics, that involved Germany, Spain, England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, France, and Italy? One estimate is that Germany's population dropped from 18 to 4 Million.
Contrary to God's will, Christianity has repetedely resorted to killing others if they refuse to be "saved". If I were the devil, I could think of no better way to seperate people from God than to get them to break his commandment "thou shall not kill" by killing in God's name! How else could so many people be mislead if the organized Christian religions are not the work of the devil? Now what makes you think your version/interpertation of "Christianity" is any better?
Peace, Larry
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