Thoughts on the Crusades

I want to see what the forum thinks of crusades.

Neither good or bad, it's just a fact of history to me.

The Crusades were defensive wars. 10/10 would crusade again.

DavidlVofGeorgia wrote:The Crusades were defensive wars. 10/10 would crusade again.

Except since they left their country and attacked outside of it by very definition it's offensive, not defensive.

The crusades regardless of intentions were stupid and sad, as many had to die for little reason that affected the soldiers who went compared to the aristocrats and leaders back home. The Children's crusade for example is one of history's saddest events. In the end they accomplished nothing too, which only adds to the gloominess of it all.

They were definitely lead by stupid people. When looked at the Crusades in a broader context we can see that over the past decades Muslim invaders had taken the Holy Land and the Seljuq's had crippled the Byzantine Empire. The Crusades were simply retaking land lost to the Muslims.

The Crusades didn't accomplish nothing through. Richard Lionheart managed to get Christians the right to visit the Holy Land. Additionally, it mended the rift between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. Venice also got some sweet trade deals.

You are correct in that the Crusaders died for a prize that would never materialize but to say they accomplished nothing is incorrect.

Love the new forum btw.

To be honest, I myself am not entirely sure what the Crusades actually accomplished, asides from bloodshed and casualties on both sides. Wars like these ones, especially ones that come from a need of one side to establish their superiority, whether social, religious, or racial, over another, irks me so much.

Countless innocent people lost their life, and for what?

I think the Crusades were a bloody part of history that we should learn from, so we can avoid a repeat, and not romanticize and glorify.

I selected, "meh". The reason for this is because the Crusades are hundreds of years in the past. This would be like sitting down modern day Algerians and Tunisians and saying, "So, how do you feel about the Barbary Pirates?" It's a historical reality, nothing more, no bearing on how we should think of or treat today's Christians, Algerians, or Tunisians...

The Crusades are nothing compared to what Jehan did, the Muslims attacked Europe 30 times more than Christians attacked the Middle East.

Crusade were just muslims for hundradrds of years took Christain land and they fought to get them back only problem i had was the killing of civilians but compared to the civilians the musliem killed was nothing and the crusader had reasons also when it come to the defesive and offience war thing the crusader also fought agent the ottomain empire who did massive expansion in europe and were barley succesful agent them succesucce wise they did make portugal a countrya pushed musliems out of Iberia there were also crusade agent pagans manly in north eastern europe the baltic states i wise this was common knowledge not Christain evil invader musliems perfect peaceful people.

I chose "Crusades were pretty good" since i myself have an ancestor from the basque country who fought against the moors for the liberty of his kingdom (Navarre). However, i belive that some crusades were stupid and tricked people to die for someone's economic intrests such as the children's crusade and the people's crusade. So i support crusades when they are defensive.

We have to specify which "wave" of the crusades we are talking about, because if you ask me about the crusades in the levant I will say that it was pretty stupid, but the crusades in the Iberian peninsula, hahahaha DEUS VULT!

100% terrible. The first crusade was an act of aggression to capture the tomb of Christ, not to defy hundreds of years of muslim expansion. The next crusades are just to maintain what was won in the first one.

Plus, if they had been defensive wars, they wouldn't have killed the jews, who christians thought to have killed Christ. And they wouldn't have focused on Jerusalem on every god damn crusade, because that wasn't really THEIRS, it just had religious relevance.

I can understand and partly sympathize with why they happened, even if I don't necessarily agree with what they did. But the Fourth Crusade stands out to me as being really stupid, since the crusaders got sidetracked on the way to Jerusalem and ended up killing their fellow Christians in Constantinople over a debt. This would end up permanently weakening Byzantium, causing their defeat and annexation by the Ottomans and leading to the final downfall of Christianity in the Middle East. Worst. Crusade. Ever.

Bowtie wrote:The Crusades are nothing compared to what Jehan did, the Muslims attacked Europe 30 times more than Christians attacked the Middle East.

Not every single war that a Muslim nation did was on the scale that the crusades were at. a single Muslim nation could say attack Leon and say that it is a holy war, just because someone says it is a holy war doesn't mean that every single other Muslim nation in the world is going to go and attack Leon. Other Christian nations would help Leon and in turn local Muslim nations would join. A Crusade was tens upon tens of Christian nations going after a single area or to repel the Muslims from an area. Although a Jihad called by the Caliph is on par with a Crusade.

eggcrate09 wrote:

Bowtie wrote:The Crusades are nothing compared to what Jehan did, the Muslims attacked Europe 30 times more than Christians attacked the Middle East.

Not every single war that a Muslim nation did was on the scale that the crusades were at. a single Muslim nation could say attack Leon and say that it is a holy war, just because someone says it is a holy war doesn't mean that every single other Muslim nation in the world is going to go and attack Leon. Other Christian nations would help Leon and in turn local Muslim nations would join. A Crusade was tens upon tens of Christian nations going after a single area or to repel the Muslims from an area. Although a Jihad called by the Caliph is on par with a Crusade.

He is talking about the Arab Empire that too TWO/THIRDS of Christain land who were stoped in the battle of tpurs which happenens in France, forced convert and killed Christain after it slit up those nation went to war with Christain nation , started slavarly in the medertarian and part if the Atlantic and took 1million Christain slaves and stop trade by reindroducing pirates. Seljuk empire went into Antiolia and were only stop due to the crusades. Ottoman empire pushed into Europe and took the Balkians and were just stoped barley at Vienna.

Now the crusaders retook Iberia, part of antiolia and Iserial two of which are not a Christain country today one being musliem and the other being Jewish. Foreced convert and  Killed around a couple of hundered Jews, musliems and other religious  group and kill a couple of thoundards musliem in Jersulaem.

So compare one to the other who seems worst.

Muslims began attacking Europe long before the crusades, but today the muslim conquests never get the same demonization attached to them. Couple things.

1.Umayyad Caliphate invaded Iberia in 711 A.D., 384 years before the crusades began. Last muslim conquerers didn't leave Iberia until 1492, 201 years after the crusades ended. So the muslims reeking havoc in Iberia lasted 585 years longer then the crusaders did in the middle east.

2.The Crusaders wanted to take back Israel and stop there, while at the same time the muslim invaders of Europe  didn't have a specific piece of land that would have satisfied them, they wanted to conquer as far as they could, and tried to do just that until they were halted at Tours in 732.

3.I'm not defending the crusades, i thought for the most part they were morally wrong, especially how they were carried out. However you have to look at the historical context. The crusades took place during pre-reformation Europe, when the Catholic church was extremely corrupt and most common people outside of the corrupt clergy couldn't understand latin, which is what pretty much all the Bibles were written in at the time. So everyone just assumed that what the clergy told them was Biblical truth, when it wasn't. An honest read of the New Testament wouldn't convince any believing christian to conquer by force and commit genocide. However an honest reading of the Quran and the Hadith did and still does convince many to commit murder and genocide.