Killing In The Name Of – The Crusades Explained
The Crusades were the wars that occurred hundreds of years ago between Muslims and Christians that are hard to compare to modern-day wars, but are quite similar in so many ways. Today, we have wars that involve tanks, guns, chemical warfare, nuclear weapons, drones, missiles, GPS guided smart bombs, stealth aircraft, submarines, and the hellish genocides that have defined the past 100+ years. Before that, humanity had the Crusades, which included all the chaos of the wars today, but based solely on religion and territory.
President Obama had to deal with controversy lately over comments about Christians also committing horrible acts during the Crusades. In fact, all religious and non-religious people in history have done things that are horrible beyond words. There’s just no denying it, but we try to forget because it reminds us of how capable we are to cause catastrophic events.
“Remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” Obama told the audience in a not-so-subtle attempt to point out the hypocrisy of some Christians who too often link all Muslims to the violence of ISIL and al-Qaeda.
The reference to the Crusades – the 11th century battles between Roman Catholic knights and Muslim moors for territory and dominance in Europe – has particularly irked people leading to a wave of public criticism from conservative radio talk show hosts and politicians who disagree there is a moral equivalent.
The latest volley came from former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Catholic, who reportedly told a gathering of Republicans in New York on Wednesday: “The Crusades were kind of an equal battle between two groups of barbarians. The Muslims and the crusading barbarians.”
DC Dispatches emailed Mr Giuliani’s office requesting clarification but they were not returned. Still, it begs the question: is replacing the words “Roman Catholic” or “Christians” with “crusading barbarians” an accurate or rather, fair characterisation of historical events from a public figure who is a self-professed historian and theologian? No, says Jay Rubenstein, history professor at the University of Tennessee who specialises in the Crusades. The battles, according to him, were “between European Christian armies and Muslim armies”. To characterise one side or the other as barbarians, he adds, is unfair.
“Both the Latin Christian world and the medieval Muslim world were civilizations of no small achievement,” he adds. Bottom line for Rubenstein? “If you think that it is wrong to make war in the name of religion, then you should be comfortable condemning the Crusades,” he says, adding the lesson from those wars, “is that any religion can be turned toward violence, and that when that happens, when warriors believe that act of shedding blood has received divine sanction, the acts of war that follow will be especially savage.” (Via Al Jazeera)
Long story short: All religious groups battled based on their beliefs and claims of land. You’ve no doubt know about the Crusades if you’ve taken college courses that deal with early history, or like most, have seen the events on film and television. To get a full grasp of the Crusades, let’s take a look at the background before getting into the First Crusade.
THE BEGINNING
At the end of the 11th century, Western Europe emerged as a major power, but still wasn’t as powerful as Mediterranean civilizations like the Byzantine Empire, and the Islamic empire in the Middle East and Northern Africa. During this time, Byzantium (mostly Christian/modern-day Istanbul) was losing a lot of its territory to the invading Seljuk Turks. The Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantine army at the battle of Manzikirt in 1071 and this battle gained them control over most of Anatolia. After years of war, Alexius Commenus took control of the Byzantine throne in 1081 and became the ruler better known as Alexius I.
After many years of his reign, Alexius I sent envoys to Pope Urban II to ask for troops from the West to help quash the threat of the Turks. In his letters to the pope, he detailed the horrific acts of violence caused by the Seljuk Turks to encourage and convince the pope for help. It worked. By November of 1095, Pope Urban II called for Christians from Western Europe to aid the Byzantines and take back control of the Holy Land from the Muslims. The call to arms was met with a substantial response from every part of society — from the ordinary citizens to the military elite. Those that joined the fight would wear a cross. This act was the beginning of warfare that would last over 200 years (and could be said to have never ended).
THE FIRST CRUSADE (1096-99)
Four armies of Crusaders formed from various troops from the Western region. They were led by Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Godfrey of Bouillon, Hugh of Vermandois and Bohemond of Taranto. Despite a plea by Alexius I, a less organized army that included knights and commoners called the “People’s Crusade” left before the four armies did in August of 1096, and left a trail of destruction that was led by Peter the Hermit.
When the four armies of Crusaders arrived in Constantinople, Alexius had the leaders of the armies swear an oath to him that they recognize that he has authority over all lands that were taken from the Turks. Every leader agreed except for Bohemond of Taranto. The four armies went on to conquer Nicea (present day Iznik, Turkey), the Seljuk capital in Anatolia in May 1097, then march through Anatolia to capture the Syrian city of Antioch in June of 1098. Later, in mid-July of 1099, the combined forces of the Byzantines and Crusaders forced the governor of Jerusalem to surrender the city with the promise of protection for its people. Sadly, the Crusaders went on to massacre men, women and children as they entered the city.
THE SECOND CRUSADE (1147-49)
Decades later, having achieved their goal in a fairly quick period time, the Crusaders headed back to their homeland. Those who stayed were left to govern the newly established large western settlements, or Crusader states, in Jerusalem, Edessa, Antioch and Tripoli. Obviously, the Muslims were not going to remain quiet for long. The Crusaders had the upper hand until about 1130, when the Muslim forces started to wage a jihad (holy war) against the Christians. Led by Seljuk general Zangi, governor of Mosul, captured Edessa back from the Christians in 1144. Edessa was the northernmost Crusader state that the Christians captured during the first Crusade.
When news of Edessa’s fall hit Europe, they were stunned. The fall of Edessa led the Christian authorities in the West to organize a Second Crusade. This Crusade was now led by two great Christian leaders: King Louis VII of France and King Conrad III of Germany. The Second Crusade began in 1147, just 3 years after Edessa fell to Seljuk general Zangi.
In October of 1147, Conrad’s forces were crushed by the Turks at Dorylaeum. Conrad III was running out of food and water (which leads to attrition in war), and stopped there to rest his army of 20,000 men, but was badly defeated by the Seljuk Turks led by Mesud I. The Germans were unable to continue the Crusade, and Conrad made his way with his remaining army of 2,000 men to the army led by Louis VII of France.
Louis and Conrad combined their forces at Jerusalem and decided to attack the Syrian stronghold of Damascus with an army of an estimated 50,000 troops. This caused the Damascus ruler to call for aid from Nur al-Din, Zangi’s successor in Mosul. Despite the biggest Christian force so far, the Muslim forces defeated the Christian Crusaders, which led to Nur al-Din adding Damascus to his expanding empire, and the decisive end of the Second Crusade.
THE THIRD CRUSADE (1189-92)
Despite numerous attempts and sieges by the Crusaders of Jerusalem to capture Egypt, the forces of Nur al-Din, led by general Shirkuh and his nephew Saladin (of whom may be a very recognizable name), captured Cairo in 1169, which forced the remaining Crusader armies to evacuate the city. After Shirkuh died on February 22nd, 1169, Saladin took control and began a series of conquests that ramped up after the death of Nur al-Din in 1174. By 1187, Saladin launched a major campaign against the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. His troops all but destroyed the Christian army at the Battle of Hattin, and Saladin took the city along with a substantial amount of territory.
The Battle of Hattin was fictionalized in the 2005 film Kingdom of Heaven. Check out this scene of what it may have been like to be a part of such an epic battle:
After news of the siege of Jerusalem, rulers such as the aging Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (died at Anatolia before his army reached Syria), King Philip II of France and King Richard I of England (known as Richard the Lionheart) organized a Third Crusade. In 1191, Richard the Lionheart’s forces managed to defeat Saladin at the Battle of Arsuf, which would be one of, if not the biggest battles of the Third Crusade.
After this battle, Richard recaptured the city of Jaffa and regained Christian control over some of the region as he made his move towards Jerusalem. He, however, didn’t lay siege to Jerusalem as one would expect. Instead, on September 2nd, 1192, following his defeat at Jaffa, Saladin was forced to finalize a treaty with Richard providing that Jerusalem would remain under Muslim control, while allowing unarmed Christian pilgrims and traders to visit the city, thus ending the Third Crusade.
THE FOURTH — SIXTH CRUSADE (1198-1229)
The remaining Crusades were mostly power struggles between Europe and the Byzantine Empire. The Fourth Crusade took place when the Crusaders declared war on Constantinople in response to the death of Alexius IV (ruler of the Byzantine Empire whom tried to reconcile with the Crusaders) being strangled in a coup. The Fourth Crusade ended with the looting and conquest of the Byzantine Empire shortly after.
The rest of the 13th century saw a variety of Crusades that didn’t so much want to topple Muslim forces in the Holy Land like the major Crusades in the past, but sought to fight against enemies of the Christian faith. The Fifth Crusade, set in motion by Pope Innocent III –shortly before his death in 1216 — had the Crusaders attack Europe using both land and sea power, but were forced to surrender by Saladin’s nephew, Al-Malik al-Kamil, in 1221.
In 1229, the Sixth Crusade began when Emperor Frederick II achieved a peaceful transfer of Jerusalem to Crusader control after negotiations with Al-Malik al-Kami. The treaty expired about a decade later and Muslims took back control of the city of Jerusalem easily.
END OF THE CRUSADES
By the end of the 13th century, more and more Crusades went on between Muslims and Christians seeking to gains in the Holy land, but none such as big and as important as the ones before it. One could say that the Crusades never actually ended, and the unrest remains to this day. Everytime you turn on the international news, you’ll hear about conflicts between nations that are mostly Christian fighting nations that are mostly Muslim over territories and resources. Technology changes, but it seems we just can’t get over the same fight that has gone on for hundreds of years.
(Sources: ChronoAtlas, Wikipedia)
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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post, UPROXX, BGR and by just looking up his name.
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