What was the reason behind announcing crusades by Pope Urban II, a leader of the religion which teaches tolerance above all?
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
Church was quite powerful then....
And power makes us do lot of foolish things......:D
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
Church was quite powerful then....
And power makes us do lot of foolish things......:D
Is it just show of power that leads to Crusades? Was this show of power got more attention than the basic teaching of their religion? Don't you feel that Crusades were not religious in their very nature?
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
I was going to make a long article on this...
Basically Christianity has never been all that tolerant in the first place and the First crusade had three main motivating factors.
1) There were a lot of Princes in the West who were younger rivals to the throne and wars were happening all the time... sending them out of Europe on campaigns to win new territory was one way for many monarchs to get them out of thier hair.
2) The Byzantine empire was in decline and made a formal request to the Catholics and Western European powers for help to stem the Turks.
3) The More millitant and warlike Turks had established themselves as the major power in the East and so the new threat was seen as more dangerous than the tolerenat Arabs who had become much less warlike over the last couple of centuries. Christians saw Turks as more savage and barbarous and the proganada (Largely false) Was that Turks would kill and loot pilgrims or prevent Christians from visitng the holy land.
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
But in their mind they wanted to have control of their holy land…
Now they succeeded in controlling and capturing Jerusalem using a proxy…
They never gave up idea of capturing jerusalem..thats my personal view…
BTW how many crusades took place between Christians and muslims…
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
I was going to make a long article on this...
Basically Christianity has never been all that tolerant in the first place and the First crusade had three main motivating factors.
1) There were a lot of Princes in the West who were younger rivals to the throne and wars were happening all the time... sending them out of Europe on campaigns to win new territory was one way for many monarchs to get them out of thier hair.
2) The Byzantine empire was in decline and made a formal request to the Catholics and Western European powers for help to stem the Turks.
3) The More millitant and warlike Turks had established themselves as the major power in the East and so the new threat was seen as more dangerous than the tolerenat Arabs who had become much less warlike over the last couple of centuries. Christians saw Turks as more savage and barbarous and the proganada (Largely false) Was that Turks would kill and loot pilgrims or prevent Christians from visitng the holy land.
A little off topic, but I always think how the Christianity got its roots in Europe (especially Rome) when Jesus belonged to Palestine?
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
As per Bush, it still continues 
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
Due to roman control of palestine...and near by area...they took faith with them
like mongols took islam from Baghdad................
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
Due to roman control of palestine...and near by area...they took faith with them
like mongols took islam from Baghdad................
I think many Mongols accepted Islam before the fall of Baghdad. (Thats another topic)
Whenever I read Surah Rome in Quran, I always think that how within 4-5 centuries, Christianity got such strong roots in Europe? We read in Quran about Christians who lived in Hijaz at the time of Prophet and even Najjashi of Ethopia was a Christian?
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
Christianity was spread largely by small groups taking hold over important peoples minds. Some big Conversions took place but one of the greatest Christian Mirracles was When the Roman Emperor Constantine converted and created the consensus and the Eastern wing of Christianity. 4 to 5 Centuries of development is nothing compared to Islams first 4 decades of development.
As for How many Crusades took place it depends on the Official counts. Historically I would say there 9 Crusades in the Holy Land, 2 More launched against the Turks in Europe and 3 Levonian Crusades against the Bulgars and Russians in Eastern Europe.
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
Maybe thats how religions work. Buddhism spread far from its origin in India to the far east and I have read some articles that mentioned that its influence was felt even in places like egypt. This was slowly replaced by Christianity.
From the wikipedia…
*While historians of early Christianity concentrate on parallels with myths current in the Greco-Roman and Semitic cultures of the 1st century, parallels were also claimed to have been found in Buddhism. In some cases, these have been interpreted as having a direct influence on early Christianity.
The possible influence of Buddhism on Christianity (and possibly of the Essenes) has been suggested, but with more emphasis on doctrine than mythology. Nevertheless, it has been noted that the life of Christ bears strong similarities to the life of Buddha. This was initially interpreted by certain Catholic missionaries in terms of the “demonic imitation” theory. More recently it has been taken by some scholars as far as a “Copycat Christ” theory, postulating that Jesus is simply a Judaistic retelling of the story of Buddha. Thus, T. W. Doane in his 1882 Bible Myths opined that “nothing now remains for the honest man to do but acknowledge the truth, which is that the history of Jesus of Nazareth as related in the books of the New Testament, is simply a copy of that of Buddha, with a mixture of mythology borrowed from other nations.” (p. 286)
Max Müller in his 1873 Introduction to the Science of Religion noted that
“Between the language of The Buddha and his disciples, and the language of Christ and his apostles, there are strange coincidences. Even some Buddhist legends and parables sound as if taken from the New Testament, though we know that many of them existed before the beginning of the Christian era.” Th. J. Plange in 1906 concluded that early Christianity was the product of Buddhist missionaries. Such ideas were critically reviewed by Richard Garbe in his 1914 Indien und das Christentum. Garbe noted that the similarities between Christian and Buddhist tradition have invited much dilettante speculation, but he nevertheless acknowledged some possible influence, in particular on later Christian legend (suggesting that Josaphat is a corrupted form of Bodhisattva, and identifying Eustachius and Hubertus with Samantabhadra). Garbe accepted the historicity of Christ, but identified four passagesin the gospel narrative as borrowed from Buddhist scripture.
*
Islam took over where christianity and buddhism were once prominant. Afghanistan, the bengal region, and places in fareast had been predominantly buddhist before the arrival of Islam. I wonder which religion will gain prominance next. It is facinating to learn the origin of religions and how they influenced each other. I hope we can have a seperate thread for that, I think I sort of derailed this one without intending to
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
[QUOTE]
I think many Mongols accepted Islam before the fall of Baghdad
[/QUOTE]
The Mongols accepted Islam as early as the time of Ghengis in fact his Son Jochi was supposed to have converted and we know for a fact most of the Jochid line did convert like notable commanders of the Blue and Golden Horde from Burke Khan to Kaidu and Badur as well as others like Jebi.
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
Back on topic, why Pope call it holy war?
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
Essentially in that cold winters morning on November the 27 with little less than a Month till Christmass and a hundreds of waiting Noblemen in Clermont Abbey along with the most notable Clergy in the Roman Catholic faith and thousands of lay people waiting in the shivering french cold that day... Pope Urban slowly climbed his Lecturn and gave the single most controversial sermon of his life.
Exactly what was said is difficuilt to know for sure but the Pope spoke for a long time on the Subject of the Turks who invaded Anatolia and took over vast sections of the Near East and now controlled the Holy City of Jerasulem. We know that earlier that summer the Byzantine Emperor Alexios Comnenus has asked the Pope for his help in organising a vast Army of the "Franks" and setting out on recapturing the former Byzantine lands. The Byzantines wanted Annatolia back into thier hands and all the old states that had made up Roman Syria, the rest would be free for the Crusaders to take for themselves.
Pope Urban urged the masses and especially directed his sermon towards the nobles of the Franks and other European champions to take up a holy cause. To literally take the Cross "Crux" and wage a holy war to re-open the path to Pilgrims and liberate the Land where Christ Jesus was born.
The Citizens outside despite the wet and cold and despite the fact that the ground was now sheet ice and with snow falling around them gave a tremendous cheer... one that could be heard for miles around.
At first the Nobles were skeptical but as the speech progressed Urban talked of his dreams and visions in which he saw the Turks being driven off by the Knights of Europe and of a land free to Christians once more. What the nobles were more interested in was talk among some Italian veterans and men who had seen the near east and who spoke of un-believable wealth and land far more rich than the mere scraps of Earth the nobles and princess fought over in France, Spain and Italy... they spoke of immense lands rich in every manner. And now the Nobles had a perfect excuse for looting... it really was a Holy war now.
The Nobles one by one stepped forward and pledged to donate sums of money towards the expedition others promised to send soldiers and even more solemnly swore to take up the Cross and wear the robes of pilgrims and carry themselves and thier swords to liberate Jerusalem.
All at once the great cheer rose in Latin... "Deus Vult!" God Wills it!. So began the first Crusade and the next 3 centuries of almost ceasless violence. The year was 1095 and within the next 12 Months an astonishing series of events would take place that would lead to the most glorius and bloody episode in Medieval History.
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
Any idea, where the word 'Crusade' came from? I think its somewhat related to Cross?
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
Crusade literally taken from Latin Crux. Meaning to take up the Cross.
Literally many Knights swore to serve the Cross the symbol of Christianity. It was depicted in many ways some scholars suggest the oaths were sworn on a cross upon the alter.
Others point to the more simpler Pilgrims robes painted with a cross to denote a crussader soldier, however this I believe is a later format introduced after the first crusade once the millitary orders were established.
Finally the other popular notion and almost entirely mythical is Knights took thier oaths on the pommels of the swords with the blade pointed down and the Cross Guard or quillons used as the symbolic cross... many images depict this but not all swords had straight quillons and the most popular designs were actually not ones set at right anges but with the quillons arched down to protect the sword hand or upwards to intercept another blade.
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
and Bush called war for oil Crusade. Holy cause
I think Knights are even presented as heroes in Europe and they are quite glamorised. Did they really won the war? Who was the hero and who was the looser in these wars?
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
Actually the Crusades were an unmitigated disaster for most people involved and ultimately the Europeans lost.
If one forgets the human and social costs and tries to present the Crusades as a football game the official score would be 1 goal to the Crusaders and 7 to the Muslims.
The First Crusade was a collective group of leaders and I'll post a long history of that soon. It was succssfull for the Franks who cut thier way through the Middle East and carved themselves several new Kingdoms. Becuase the Turks were taken almost by Suprise they lost the war with terrible casualties while the Byzantines were also loosers becuase the Crusaders recovered most of the land but did not hand it over to the Byzantines as agreed.
The Second Crusade was a failure...
The Third came close to a draw but was another failure and the rest were all failures. The Arabs and Turks fought well but in the end more Turks and Mongols came to dominate the region and the biggest winners were the Turks.
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
It is very strange that during the Crusades when Muslims were getting some victories under the leadership of Salahudin Ayubi, history observed the Muslim defeats in the shape of fall of Abbasid caliphate by Mongols and Muslim Spain also could not survive.
Re: Tolerant Christanity and Intolerant Crusades
Actually it was a see saw motion. Salah-hudeen Ayubi had his victory almost a century before the Mongols sacked Baghdad. Likewise it would be a further 3 Centuries before the last moors left Spain.
Most people assume it all happened around the same period.