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why crusaders go on crusade?
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Message 1.听
Posted by greyblur (U13698205) on Tuesday, 18th November 2008
Specifically focusing with the third crusade- but welcome references on other crusades, do you think it was purely religion the motivation behind crusaders? or more polticial, economic or social factors?
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Message 2
Posted by WarsawPact (U1831709) on Wednesday, 19th November 2008
No, I don't imagine the crusaders were only motivated by religion.
Most would be motivated by some combination of personal glory, opportunity for loot, to stay out of prison, to stay out of Hell, the best war going to show off their fighting ability, or simply to see the world outside their own village. -
Message 3
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Wednesday, 19th November 2008
when we say the crusaders - and mention loot glory or even religion - we are talking about the elite !!
whatever the reason, there IS a reason - probably money - maybe glory
why did the infantry go there - because their liege lords did ??
st -
Message 4
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Wednesday, 19th November 2008
Why do US marines go to Afghanistan?
With regard to the Third Crusade - and from England's perspective - it must also be appreciated that the realtively peaceful reign of Henry II had seen a growth in prosperity in the land and the treasury coffers consequently filled. This wealth was essentially what allowed Richard to be successful as a recruiter and prosecutor of the Crusade. -
Message 5
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Wednesday, 19th November 2008
I think 95% of books about Crusades do not show the real picture. From the one hand, over-inflation as Crusades are the beggining of the "exodus into the light of history for W.Europe", while on the other over-confusion since for modern muslims Crusades bring to mind mostly current affairs. One has to begin from the fact that till a few decades in the past muslims never paid any special attention to Crusades viewing them as much as we view the presence of say... Hanseatic pirates in the Baltic sea, i.e. a certainly troubled period but not any "cosmo-historic" event! Crusades was not the downfall of muslims as some like to portray since a few centuries later the Ottoman Empire was set based in Europe while the worst trouble that Arabs they faced during all these Crusade times was not the Crusaders but the Mongols!!!
Now having cleared out that, we come to the second important remark: up to the 4th Crusade it was not any "western initiative", but it was the Eastern Romans that were the instigators, initiators and the organisers simply because they thought they had found a smart way to replace their own army. Instead of paying a highly expensive army that often threatened the throne through the rise of powerful generals, they would do their business by calling in some illiterate fanatics to wage war on their behalf. There were enormous businesses played there and one starts to get only a hint when he discovers that Eastern Romans in fact they were at their most affluent state in 1180-1190 just 2 decades before the 4th Crusade and their final fall - another major error: byzantines did not fall in 1453, as they did not exist anymore as any Empire, they were already conquered and had only regained a city-state and bits and parts. Byzantines fell in 1204 by their own internal treachery. Contrary to common thinking that presents today Byzantines as "desperate for help from the west" to fight the Seljuks鈥 Seljuks were implicitly welcomed in Eastern-Central Minor Asia and the Comnenii emperors were paying armies to do campaigns in鈥. Egypt... that much they were pressed to recover those lost lands!!!!
Having understood that up to the 4th Crusade, these were events initiated by the Eastern Romans we come down to Crusaders backgrounds and their societies. It is true that westerners were increasingly obsessed with religion. From times to times (like elsewhere of course) people dreamt of being God's chosen to make this or that, and since for example Seljuks had the idea of hindering christians from going to Holy Lands, it was often that some had ideas about doing something for this... often leading to quite weird projects like gathering orphans and unwanted children (families had too many) to send them to pray in the Holy Lands just to show off God's power to infidels Arabs and Seljuks... of course children being sold as slaves... But these cannot be considered in retrospect as any crusade in the classical sense otherwise I can name 1000s of crusades done in the very same period such as Cathares from Anatolia to Bulgaria and Bosnia and from Bulgaria to south France and Spain. It is much different when an army is crossing lands to go elsewhere to fight. One therefore has to see what there was behind all this movement...
The reality is that Western Europe underwent a huge transformation from 600 A.D. to 1000 A.D. First of all, a long period of good weather and excellent harvests even up to Scandinavia doubled or tripled its population that up to then had been traditionally less than compared to the south - for the first time western-northern Europe had more population than the southern one. It had even more population than what it had in 1500-1600 A.D. which, note that, was the start of colonisation of the Americas (the famous diseases reduced it considerably). Now it is easier to imagine why: people had to share fewer resources at a time when economies lacked the international commerce present in the Eastern Mediterranean while agricultural technologies were not yet developed enough to sustain a considerably larger population. They had either to fight to exterminate each other or to go on fight somebody else, colonise other lands or die from hunger or diseases... Obviously I speak very generically here but you get the picture. Vickings afterall had started already the "dance" by moving around much more than the usual. So when all that movement inspired Eastern Romans to think they had found an excellent solution for waging wars in a cheaper way, i.e. by employing dispensable fanatics, it could not have been a more timely proposal for the westerners. Pope Urban had grasped the point right from the first moment by saying directly to people "make no war among you, go fight elsewhere, and if you do so why don't you fight the infidels? God wants it".
So having understood the basic needs behind - that of course apply to societies, we also need to answer to the question why each one of the Crusaders was so eager to go on such a campaign: The answer is easy if you think today who goes on to wars? Would your average rich father's kid that works for his father's business leave his father's villa's piscine where he usually spends his time together with his 5-6 girlfriends to go fight in Afganistan? A bit difficult. Would a guy that has a nice job enrol in the army? Again, a bit difficult, even most graduate officers are usually those kids that have no hope of getting wired with the right connections to lead them to any good careeres and thus choose the predictability (only in terms of salary, employment and evolution not place of living of course) of a career in the army - ok you may say whatever but "grosso-modo" it is like this. Your average guy that expects to have a fairly good life where he is, he will not just leave everything behind to go to fight elsewhere, he would not even think of emigratting. However one that feels unsuccessful where he lives, insecure, with no bright future ahead of him or expecting a life of difficulties and humiliations and has no hopes of by staying there he will just grasp the first opportunity out there. I know you could ad things here or want to correct details, but still you have to remain to this general facts of life: if you are a Hollywood man spending your days in Acapulco dancing the hoocaracha not only you would never become a Crusader but you would not even want to see one in front of you as that would spoil your "feng-shui"!!! (And we know that Eastern Roman feng-shui was certainly spoiled even by first sight of the first arriving Crusaders of the first Crusade! They were given food and help to pass on to the Middle East but were treated like the pariahs they were, aristocrats and peasans alike - there was not difference anyway to the Eastern Roman eyes - something that intensified the complex of inferiority of westerners explaining also the extreme violence with which they finally destroyed the Empire).
So where those westerners living alright back then? Starting from peasans, certainly not! Increased population meant lower quality of diet, less money, more social tension etc. etc. There were not many things to do. Were you a farmer? You worked and gave most of it to your feudal leader that treated you like an animal anyway. You were not a farmer? Well, too bad, as there were not many specialties out there, most of them already satisfied by the sons of technicians and technicians obviously had too often many sons that arrived at mature age!!! You could not be a banker or something; banks did not exist at the time (the first ones were the Crudaders of course!)!!! Become an artist also is something you had to rule out unless you wanted to live a life of poverty and humiliation!!!! Hence, there was an increased number of peasantry wandering around just like say modern Palestinians wander around their cities doing nothing particular, having no outlet for their energy.
So what about aristocrats? Didn't they have 5-6 girlfriends inside their castle-piscine? Well, no they did not! Because out of the 3-4 sons that each father could easily have, all the land went to the first born, the super star, the others鈥 鈥渆at-my-dust鈥. That fact explains above why an inflated number of peasants so often had no land. Again you had either the option of killing your brother or convincing him to help you make war with the neighbouring village in hope of stealing their lands... Difficult, as everybody had similar ideas!!!
Hence, there where you wandered around bored and disppointed, out of nowhere you hear about the "Crusade" thingie: Not only you will travel for free, fed and equipped but you will have the chance to meet those rich places in the south (you obviously had heard at least about Arabs of Spain!) and - if a peasant - the chance to win real money, some more respect and either return home vindicted with the style "look at me now!" or stay there for ever and live certainly a nicer life than back home - if an aristocrat - the chance to create your own new feud in a much more cool place than home. For both also, what could be the worst scenario: you died and went to paradise - Pope himself had said so: this would be a war for God.
And an instant question that comes to mind right here is the following: how on earth Crusaders were mainly W Europeans and not so much E. Europeans, say Bulgarians, Serbians, Hungarians, Russians etc.? Well another false view of history is that back then Western Europeans were somehow better than all these 鈥淪lavs and Mongols鈥. The truth is that the likes of Russians, Serbians or Bulgarians despite being often very barbaric and violent were also much more cultured people in comparison to westerners (the adventures of that poor Russian princess getting married in France would ashame every modern Parisian 鈥 worse than Britney Spears married in Afganistan), and thus could be less easily convinced about the 鈥渘ecessity of a Crusade鈥 when Greeks down there eat with golden forks and spoons inviting muslims friends along to dinner鈥 but then again even that cannot explain it fully 鈥 they certainly had an enormous percentage of illiterate and poor people. Well, here is the catch, while most of them were certainly illiterate there were not many destitute poor for the very simple fact that opposite to western tradition, in Eastern Europe tradition said to share the land among all sons, possibly only giving the best land to the oldest but certainly sharing equally land. Hence, the numbers of landless were considerably lower in the East and thus the numbers of possible Crusaders much inferior 鈥 hence the Crusading movement never caught Eastern Europe until Poland was directly threatened by Ottomans (and that late 鈥淧olish Crusade鈥 can hardly be seen as any Crusade at all, it was more of a national struggle).
So you get the picture鈥 -
Message 6
Posted by WarsawPact (U1831709) on Thursday, 20th November 2008
Why do US marines go to Afghanistan?听
I don't think you can equate the body of the Crusaders with a formation of professional troops ordered to conduct a campaign.
Think of them more as the runners in the London/New York/Wherever Marathon.
You'll have the top professionals trying to get amongst the prizes; the top amateurs doing it for glory; people doing it for personal reasons such as rehabilitation after physical, social or emotional problems; people doing it for a 'higher' purpose - such as sponsorship for charity; and people who do it because they like dressing up as a purple dinosaur. -
Message 7
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Thursday, 20th November 2008
Only fools fight for Religion.
Religions do not need to be fought for - any God worthy of worship is surely capable of looking after himself?(or herself?)
Ambitious, land/money grabbing opportunists can often persuade these fools to fight for 'religion', and con the fools into doing most of the dying, so that they can reap the rewards.
A lot of guys got a nice little estate in the Middle East out of the crusades, and made a few bob. OK, it was a risky business, but so was life in general in the Middle Ages! -
Message 8
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 20th November 2008
I can guarantee you that despite the illiteracy and the low cultural level in Western Europe that people were not necessarily, on the top, unintelligent. Hence, I think religious fanatiscism has to be seen more as a side-detail: people used it - often unconsciously - to justify their deeper urgues to go to fight these wars just like today' terrorists hide behind their ideologies political or religions etc. People rarely dared face the truth anyway and they do not dare even today.
Who would ever admit that he prefers to risk his life for 2-3 hours extremely risky hard job (1 battle) and earn half a years' salary (whatever he could gain by looting) rather than to work 1 year full time out in the fields? Doesn't this remind you of all these 1000s of professional mercenaries fighting in Iraq getting paid a years salary in 3 months who are now a surprisingly large percentage of the US army and explaining why official figures of dead US soldiers are so low: for each of the 4000-5000 dead US soldiers there are 5 other dead mercenaries...)? To hit the nail, who would ever admit that he goes to war in order to find a justification to rape with impunity since the only woman he can find in peacetime is a prostitute? Forced sex has been a huge urgue to go to battle long before Romans attacked the Sabines to steal their women...
Now note that back then these lazy/rogue people if remaining in their villages they would have to work 1 year to give more than half to their masters' something even a normal people could not easily swallow, let alone a rogue. In terms of sex they had not even the chance to find easily prostitutes (non-existing in small societies, their place taken by orphans, retarded but not necessarily available as we are not talking about urban centers! Such lowly perhaps but very basic motives like sex and complexes of inferiority have always been a huge motive for men especially from regressive societies or lower societal castes to go to war...
That means if one sees Crusades primarily in the light of a clash of religions he has already lost it... -
Message 9
Posted by Haesten (U4770256) on Friday, 21st November 2008
And an instant question that comes to mind right here is the following: how on earth Crusaders were mainly W Europeans and not so much E. Europeans, say Bulgarians, Serbians, Hungarians, Russians etc.?
听
These people would have been still pagan or Orthodox Christians (Byzantine Church) wouldn't they?
Why would they answer the call to arms of a Roman Pope?
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Message 10
Posted by Aethelfleda (U13709676) on Saturday, 22nd November 2008
Hi! I believe the Crusades were not only inspired by a religious duty (to retake Jerusalem and keep it safe from the Muslims), but also by economic reasons(new trade routes and markets were certainly welcomed), social reasons (crusaders gained fame, glory, lands, and were relieved from their sins) and the Pope saw a great opportunity to bring the Eastern Church (that of Constantinople) back under the control of Rome...
Probably, that was the case of the nobles and high clergymen.
Crusades are quite an exciting point in the history of Europe! Don't you agree? -
Message 11
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 22nd November 2008
Haesten. Yes they were orthodox. It is true that they would not bother about Pope or his forgiving papers... but you did not see my above comments (that answer also Aethelfleda's remark): Pope was not any designer of the Crusades. The Crusades were designed by Byzantines. It was the Italians (Byzantine protectorates up to then) that transported them and it was the Byzantines that organised and inspected the whole thing. Without their decision Western Europeans would had never found themselves in the East. Thus the Pope unly jumped on the bandwagon.
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Message 12
Posted by Aethelfleda (U13709676) on Monday, 24th November 2008
Thank you for answering Nikolaos. I would have never imagined that the Byzantines organised the Crusades. It's quite interesting. Are there any books to read more about it?
Another exciting point about the Crusades is that they gave birth to "elite" fighting forces; one of the earliest were the the Knights Templar (a strange mixture of monks, knights and... bank clerks!)There's still a lot of mistery about this Order in particular. Any interest for the Orders? -
Message 13
Posted by Haesten (U4770256) on Monday, 24th November 2008
Thank you for answering Nikolaos. I would have never imagined that the Byzantines organised the Crusades. It's quite interesting. Are there any books to read more about it?
Another exciting point about the Crusades is that they gave birth to "elite" fighting forces; one of the earliest were the the Knights Templar (a strange mixture of monks, knights and... bank clerks!)There's still a lot of mistery about this Order in particular. Any interest for the Orders?
听
These warrior monk orders were authorised by the Pope originally to bring some order to the young Norman freelancers who infested the area in this period.
The Teutonics, Sword Brothers, etc were used in the Northern Crusades.
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Message 14
Posted by Backtothedarkplace (U2955180) on Tuesday, 25th November 2008
Well You cant rule out relgious, social and economic factors but one of the most major ones will have been boredom. Better to wander off to adventure in the holy land than stare at a ox's bum while your ploughing a feild.
never underestimate the power of boredom.
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