Totally epic. I looked up this song on Google and apparently it was a song sung at various graduation services, but mainly it was meant to make poke fun at the universities! It makes it even better that the up-loader of the video incorporated Raphael's "School of Athens" as the backdrop to the music. Too funny.
I'm pretty sure we are supposed to post a blog comment about God's Battalions, so I'm just going to put it here. I thought it was very interesting how Louis IX's early conquest of Damietta actually upset his plan rather than helping it. I suppose the root of the issue goes back to what we talked about a few weeks ago: soldiers get very restless when they are not fighting. Louis was expecting the conquest of Damietta to take him months, whereas in reality it took him only a few hours. This created major problems. The Nile river was flooding, and to attack Cairo now would be suicide. So Louis was stuck in Damietta with nothing to occupy his troops. They eventually either lost interest and went home, caused trouble in the camp, or got sick and died. Louis's forces were small by the time he finally decided to cross the Nile, and so his campaign failed after a few small victories. It is rather ironic that even a smart leader with abundant resources could not lead a successful crusade, because one of his victories came too early, because he was too successful in the beginning.
I will follow Katie. I thought these last few chapters were very interesting. It starts out with the second crusade which ended in failure, but what I thought was interesting was that it seemed that it failed because of lack of enthusiasm. It also seemed that a lot of the hardship came from lack of supplies, they even had their horse die etc. It was also interesting to learn that the fourth crusade was the crusade that people would use to say that the crusades were all about the money and very unjust. The crusades were very bloody, in which woman and children were murdered. I found it interesting that stark took the time to note that the streets were clogged with bodies, and that the streets were turned into rivers of blood; he did this more than once. Reading this book I think that the crusades were not unprovoked they were not done for land converts etc., the crusaders were not barbaric they simply believed that they were Gods battalions.
I'm going to follow Katie and Sam's examples and post my comment here. What I found interesting was Mr. Stark’s description of King Richard. “Richard was a complex character: ‘As a soldier he was little short of mad, incredibly reckless and foolhardy, but as a commander he was intelligent, cautious, and calculating. He would risk his own life with complete nonchalance, but nothing could persuade him to endanger his troops more than was absolutely necessary.’” I thought it was interesting how, as a person, Richard was considered to be crazy, but as a commander, he could be cool, calculating and caring for his troops. The fact that his troops completely loved this kind of commander really served Richard well when he went up against Saladin. This was evidenced by how he was able to hold his line against Saladin’s hit and run tactics at the Battle of Arsuf. After that battle, I thought it was funny how the Muslims never tried to destroy Richard’s forces ever again. To the point of losing to only several hundred of his forces when they had them greatly outnumbered at Jaffa. Yet the fear of his forces from what happened at Arsuf killed any willingness on the Muslim’s side to really press forward and fight.
Overall, I really enjoyed God’s Battalions. To compare it to previous books, I would put it up there with Lost to the West and way above Birth of the West. Although, unlike Lost to the West, There was actually not a single chapter I didn’t find interesting. Stark focused a lot on the battles that occurred during the crusades and the tactics involved and that is completely fine with me.
Haha, we can compare King Richard to the Greenhouse. People thought he was crazy; we're homeschoolers, people think we're crazy. Richard was willing to serve his troops to the point of death. The Greenhouse seeks to raise up servant leaders. It's a perfect analogy. Conclusion: the entire GH student body should go on an overland crusade to Jerusalem. It makes so much sense. How's that for another field trip idea, Mr. Parker? And if for some unfathomable reason things go terribly wrong, just blame me (I don't have any friends anyway, haha). If I'm not mistaken, there was a children's crusade at one point...I propose a living history project!
Okay. Jokes aside (sorry), I do agree with you Nathan. While I'm not sure that "God's Battalions" quite lives up to "Lost to the West" for me, it was an intriguing book.
Ha, I like your deductions at the beginning, Ian. You could even take it one step further: "People thought King Richard was crazy; we're home schoolers, and people think we're crazy, therefore, King Richard was home schooled." :)
Like the others, I too see this as the most logical place to put my "God's Battalions" blog post. I made a few connections in this week's reading.
"Saladin was a Kurd..." (God's Battalions, pg. 194)
This brought me back to modernity, when we discussed Kurdistan. I assume Saladin of that same line, but much earlier? Having never heard of the Kurds before modernity, I thought it was interesting to run across the name in God's Battalions!
And now for the more geeky connection... I occasionally play a computer game called "Age of Empires" and as I read I found it interesting to learn more in depth about several different words. In the game "Paladins" are an elite cavalry unit and the text seemed to confirm that that's true! The one that I found the most fascinating though was the "Mamluks". In the game "Mamluks" are the elite Saracen unit, while in reality they were powerfully trained warrior slaves. Like I said: geeky, and perhaps not as deep as some of my fellow classmates, but intriguing! For the record, Age of Empires is one of the very few games I occasionally play. I'm just sayin'!
As a little aside, I also couldn't help but be reminded of Robin Hood when the text covered King Richard the Lion Heart. I liked the insights that the text provided about what "people back home" might have been suffering reality. Taxes do seem to have been a big issue over the two centuries of crusading!
One thing that I thought was a really interesting was the shift of the location from which the Crusades were funded. In the First Crusade, funding came primarily from the crusaders themselves who had to pay for their armor, weapons, food, etc. However, by the Third Crusade, this shifted dramatically when Henry II of England instituted one of the first income taxes and later, the Saladin Tithe, which required payment on all revenues and movable properties by everyone who was NOT going crusading. Previously the crusaders were the payers, but that role was completely reversed with the introduction of the income tax. Although this tax may have also had the dual purpose of persuading more people to join the Crusades so they could avoid taxation.
Something that I particularly enjoyed about this week's reading were several funny stories. One was when Richard seized Cyprus from Isaac Comnenus. Isaac implored Richard to promise not to put him into irons; Richard kept this promise by locking Isaac up in silver chains--classic. Another story I enjoyed was the theory of Baibar's death. It is thought that he was attempting to poison the drink of an Ayubite prince, but accidentally drank the poison himself...Oh the irony...Sort of felt like I was reading Lars Brownworth's footnotes in "Lost to the West"!
I find it kind of depressing that these Christians who were supposedly fighting a "Holy War" were also killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process. No wonder Christians get a bad rap!! All joking aside, I believe that this "Holy War" was completely unnecessary, and used primarily for personal gain rather than to spread Christianity.
I think the point of the book is to prove your view of the crusades invalid. While the crusaders certainly weren't perfect, I totally disagree with your assessment of the crusades, and Mr. Stark certainly would as well.
I too, as Ian above mentioned, was brought back to modernity at the mentioning of Kurds. It is fascinating how the brain stores information such that a single word could bring back massive amounts of memories. Moving on however, as Mark mentioned, I found the process of funding the crusades was very unusual (comparably speaking) to todays society. From simple individuals selling their homes to kings selling entire countries and islands...you just do not see that today. I guess what can be drawn from this is how important the crusades were for the individuals partaking on the journey. I think the book did a rather good job at displaying the crusades for what they actually were, both the moral and the immoral attributes of them. Furthermore, I think that throughout them the original goal was maintained––prevent the spreading of the Muslim religion and restore the territories that were captured and placed under their rule. Now that is not to say that the ends justify the means, however, rather a large group of uncivilized individuals tend to get out of hand, even in todays society. I will also say that while a few groups throughout the crusades slaughtered, robbed, and applied a host of other unpleasantries to the local populations, a large number of crusaders also followed the “proper etiquette” of war.
Though the question remains, could the crusades have been avoided? Obviously a desperate and radical measure was needed to stop the seemingly never ending flood of Muslim advancement. But could have simple policies been put in place? I do not think this was an option due to the fact that even beyond this point the only way to get what a country needed or wanted was through war. While I do not condone war, I think it was a necessity at this point. One also has to keep in mind that beyond the Christian advancements, the crusades also helped spur major events such as the Renaissance due to the merchant families that could be found throughout the crusading parties. In addition, they brought upon a host of new technologies to which we owe even the current means of making paper to. Finally, the Crusades opened trade routs throughout the world that ultimately benefited all populations within any remote proximity to them.
I realize that my post was more about the entire book as a whole, rather than the last two chapters...but I think it still applies. On that note I will conclude with recognizing Mark's reaction to Baibar's death! I mean how classic was that?
Im going to go off of what rose was saying. I also think it was interesting to think how they thought that starting the holy wars was a good idea. However probably at that time it may have had pure intentions for a select few. But how many times has an idea that has potential for good (in a sense) turn bad when humans who are inherently sinful try to carry it out. Just a thought i had while reading.
What I found interesting in these last few chapters of the book, was how important it was for their to be good leaders in the armies on both sides. It seems that whichever side had the better leader usually had the better chance of winning. However this was not the only aspect to a successful crusade, resources were also important. "The Crusade led by Saint Louis probably was the best organized, best financed, and best planned of all the Crusades and this was mainly due to the and rectitude of its leader...At the same time he imposed a very substantial tax to pay for a Crusade." So it goes both ways, a successful Crusade bring glory to the area but it also sucks all of the resources out of the people. Therefore, if it was not a successful crusade you can imagine the reaction of the local people. People were probably not too enthusiastic about putting their money towards something that would fail. A successful Crusade needed two major components, money and a good leader, and even if you dont have these components they were not guaranteed to succeed, which would then lead to a group of complaining people. Overall the Crusades were either a great success or a great failure, there was no in between.
The crusades remind me of our coup discussions last year. So many regimes, despite successful coup d'etats, fell due to standard government maintenance problems. Take the attempted Venezuela coup. After Chavez was successfully overthrown, there was a failure to replace him with someone remarkable (although, the name of the temporary dictator remains one of the coolest names ever) brought him back in only a few days. I feel this principal applies to the crusades. The initial offensive strike was hugely successful, but maintaining a firm grasp on the Holy Land, while effective for a little, did not last.
The reliance on Byzantine cooperation was a huge part of this, as they were expected to retain rule of the Holy Land just as they had before Islam was founded. Instead, Byzantium was perfectly willing to compromise with the Muslims as long as it could remain the dominant power.
Finally, we can see the rift between the Latin and Eastern churches powerful result on the modern world when we look at the crusades. The strife between Rome and Constantinople turned a Holy War against a twisted religion into an internal church war. I know that politics had just as much (if not more) to do with the sack of Constantinople, but it is certainly ironic that the culmination of the fourth Crusade ended with a struggle between Christians. Stark argues that this siege was justified. I can see where he is coming from, as the Byzantine's certainly performed their fair share of treachery and betrayal, but I hate to see 'in house' disputes which divide the Church result in bloodshed.
I found it interesting that Saladin was viewed as such a great military genius and hero. His only real military victory was over the city of Jerusalem, all of the other cities he conquered was by deceit. He couldn't defeat any crusaders army in open combat and if it was not for the death of Fredrick the Germans would have obliterated Saladin. Stark notes that the Saladin's forces became so disheartened with their luck in attacking crusading forces they gave up fighting pitched battles against them. The Muslims were so helpless under Saladin that they failed to destroy Richards force of a couple hundred men with a much larger army. Saladin should neither be recognized for his humanity or his military prowess. The real reward should go to disease for confronting and stopping the crusaders at every turn.
Hey Mr. Parker, I left for North Carolina before everyone started posting the blogs here, but I wrote it in a Word Document before I left. Here it is:
God’s Battalions was a fantastic book, especially the ending. I found two nuggets that I thought were really important. First, I like how he stresses the importance of looking at history in its context. He says, “nothing is to be gained either in terms of moral insights or historical comprehension by anachronistically imposing the Geneva Convention on these times.” (pg. 158) This reminded me of the C.S. Lewis we read in Literature which talked about how contemporaries all share certain inherent mindsets, prejudices, and ideologies – sometimes involuntarily. Because we all grew up in the 21st century, we have been ingrained with the culture and perspective of our contemporaries. Similarly, the people of the Crusades also had certain views, presuppositions, and perceptions that they had acquired from their time period. Imposing our ideologies on a totally different period in culture tears down these differences and assumes everyone has the same basic morals and philosophies when they didn’t. This can be observed by looking at other military campaigns. Many of the crusader’s atrocities – burning important buildings, destroying artifacts, brutally sacking cities, and the execution of conquered people – are non-unique to their quest. Muslims, Greeks, Latins, and Barbarians all did similar things in war, often to a worse extent than the Crusaders. Second, I thought the double standard was especially appalling. For historians to critique the crusaders for Jerusalem (which resulted in perhaps 2,000 deaths) but turn a blind eye to the massacre of Antioch by Baibar (which resulted in thousands of mass beheadings and tortures, and fires) is truly and injustice. It is almost like the goal is to critique the Christians exclusively. Granted, the crusaders were imperfect, but if we are going to be condemning a people for military barbarism the standards we use should be culturally impartial. In the end, I thought Dr. Stark gave great insight into the crusades, the mindset of the medieval Christians, and how their quest to secure the Holy Land from the defiling Muslims was lost.
I really enjoyed reading God's Battalions and the thing that struck me the most was the overall cost of the crusades. People who were poor couldn't afford to buy swords and armor so they used farming supplies like pitchforks and other tools. People who couldn't fork over the money to pay, gave up land and other possessions. It was shocking!
THIS SONG IS EPIC.
ReplyDeleteTotally epic. I looked up this song on Google and apparently it was a song sung at various graduation services, but mainly it was meant to make poke fun at the universities! It makes it even better that the up-loader of the video incorporated Raphael's "School of Athens" as the backdrop to the music. Too funny.
DeleteI'm pretty sure we are supposed to post a blog comment about God's Battalions, so I'm just going to put it here. I thought it was very interesting how Louis IX's early conquest of Damietta actually upset his plan rather than helping it. I suppose the root of the issue goes back to what we talked about a few weeks ago: soldiers get very restless when they are not fighting. Louis was expecting the conquest of Damietta to take him months, whereas in reality it took him only a few hours. This created major problems. The Nile river was flooding, and to attack Cairo now would be suicide. So Louis was stuck in Damietta with nothing to occupy his troops. They eventually either lost interest and went home, caused trouble in the camp, or got sick and died. Louis's forces were small by the time he finally decided to cross the Nile, and so his campaign failed after a few small victories. It is rather ironic that even a smart leader with abundant resources could not lead a successful crusade, because one of his victories came too early, because he was too successful in the beginning.
ReplyDeleteI will follow Katie. I thought these last few chapters were very interesting. It starts out with the second crusade which ended in failure, but what I thought was interesting was that it seemed that it failed because of lack of enthusiasm. It also seemed that a lot of the hardship came from lack of supplies, they even had their horse die etc. It was also interesting to learn that the fourth crusade was the crusade that people would use to say that the crusades were all about the money and very unjust. The crusades were very bloody, in which woman and children were murdered. I found it interesting that stark took the time to note that the streets were clogged with bodies, and that the streets were turned into rivers of blood; he did this more than once. Reading this book I think that the crusades were not unprovoked they were not done for land converts etc., the crusaders were not barbaric they simply believed that they were Gods battalions.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to follow Katie and Sam's examples and post my comment here. What I found interesting was Mr. Stark’s description of King Richard.
ReplyDelete“Richard was a complex character: ‘As a soldier he was little short of mad, incredibly reckless and foolhardy, but as a commander he was intelligent, cautious, and calculating. He would risk his own life with complete nonchalance, but nothing could persuade him to endanger his troops more than was absolutely necessary.’”
I thought it was interesting how, as a person, Richard was considered to be crazy, but as a commander, he could be cool, calculating and caring for his troops. The fact that his troops completely loved this kind of commander really served Richard well when he went up against Saladin. This was evidenced by how he was able to hold his line against Saladin’s hit and run tactics at the Battle of Arsuf. After that battle, I thought it was funny how the Muslims never tried to destroy Richard’s forces ever again. To the point of losing to only several hundred of his forces when they had them greatly outnumbered at Jaffa. Yet the fear of his forces from what happened at Arsuf killed any willingness on the Muslim’s side to really press forward and fight.
Overall, I really enjoyed God’s Battalions. To compare it to previous books, I would put it up there with Lost to the West and way above Birth of the West. Although, unlike Lost to the West, There was actually not a single chapter I didn’t find interesting. Stark focused a lot on the battles that occurred during the crusades and the tactics involved and that is completely fine with me.
Haha, we can compare King Richard to the Greenhouse. People thought he was crazy; we're homeschoolers, people think we're crazy. Richard was willing to serve his troops to the point of death. The Greenhouse seeks to raise up servant leaders. It's a perfect analogy. Conclusion: the entire GH student body should go on an overland crusade to Jerusalem. It makes so much sense. How's that for another field trip idea, Mr. Parker? And if for some unfathomable reason things go terribly wrong, just blame me (I don't have any friends anyway, haha). If I'm not mistaken, there was a children's crusade at one point...I propose a living history project!
DeleteOkay. Jokes aside (sorry), I do agree with you Nathan. While I'm not sure that "God's Battalions" quite lives up to "Lost to the West" for me, it was an intriguing book.
Ha, I like your deductions at the beginning, Ian. You could even take it one step further: "People thought King Richard was crazy; we're home schoolers, and people think we're crazy, therefore, King Richard was home schooled." :)
DeleteLike the others, I too see this as the most logical place to put my "God's Battalions" blog post. I made a few connections in this week's reading.
ReplyDelete"Saladin was a Kurd..." (God's Battalions, pg. 194)
This brought me back to modernity, when we discussed Kurdistan. I assume Saladin of that same line, but much earlier? Having never heard of the Kurds before modernity, I thought it was interesting to run across the name in God's Battalions!
And now for the more geeky connection...
I occasionally play a computer game called "Age of Empires" and as I read I found it interesting to learn more in depth about several different words. In the game "Paladins" are an elite cavalry unit and the text seemed to confirm that that's true! The one that I found the most fascinating though was the "Mamluks". In the game "Mamluks" are the elite Saracen unit, while in reality they were powerfully trained warrior slaves. Like I said: geeky, and perhaps not as deep as some of my fellow classmates, but intriguing! For the record, Age of Empires is one of the very few games I occasionally play. I'm just sayin'!
As a little aside, I also couldn't help but be reminded of Robin Hood when the text covered King Richard the Lion Heart. I liked the insights that the text provided about what "people back home" might have been suffering reality. Taxes do seem to have been a big issue over the two centuries of crusading!
I remembered the Kurds from last year too when I read that about Saladin!
DeleteOne thing that I thought was a really interesting was the shift of the location from which the Crusades were funded. In the First Crusade, funding came primarily from the crusaders themselves who had to pay for their armor, weapons, food, etc. However, by the Third Crusade, this shifted dramatically when Henry II of England instituted one of the first income taxes and later, the Saladin Tithe, which required payment on all revenues and movable properties by everyone who was NOT going crusading. Previously the crusaders were the payers, but that role was completely reversed with the introduction of the income tax. Although this tax may have also had the dual purpose of persuading more people to join the Crusades so they could avoid taxation.
ReplyDeleteSomething that I particularly enjoyed about this week's reading were several funny stories. One was when Richard seized Cyprus from Isaac Comnenus. Isaac implored Richard to promise not to put him into irons; Richard kept this promise by locking Isaac up in silver chains--classic. Another story I enjoyed was the theory of Baibar's death. It is thought that he was attempting to poison the drink of an Ayubite prince, but accidentally drank the poison himself...Oh the irony...Sort of felt like I was reading Lars Brownworth's footnotes in "Lost to the West"!
I find it kind of depressing that these Christians who were supposedly fighting a "Holy War" were also killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process. No wonder Christians get a bad rap!! All joking aside, I believe that this "Holy War" was completely unnecessary, and used primarily for personal gain rather than to spread Christianity.
ReplyDeleteI think the point of the book is to prove your view of the crusades invalid. While the crusaders certainly weren't perfect, I totally disagree with your assessment of the crusades, and Mr. Stark certainly would as well.
DeleteI too, as Ian above mentioned, was brought back to modernity at the mentioning of Kurds. It is fascinating how the brain stores information such that a single word could bring back massive amounts of memories. Moving on however, as Mark mentioned, I found the process of funding the crusades was very unusual (comparably speaking) to todays society. From simple individuals selling their homes to kings selling entire countries and islands...you just do not see that today. I guess what can be drawn from this is how important the crusades were for the individuals partaking on the journey. I think the book did a rather good job at displaying the crusades for what they actually were, both the moral and the immoral attributes of them. Furthermore, I think that throughout them the original goal was maintained––prevent the spreading of the Muslim religion and restore the territories that were captured and placed under their rule. Now that is not to say that the ends justify the means, however, rather a large group of uncivilized individuals tend to get out of hand, even in todays society. I will also say that while a few groups throughout the crusades slaughtered, robbed, and applied a host of other unpleasantries to the local populations, a large number of crusaders also followed the “proper etiquette” of war.
ReplyDeleteThough the question remains, could the crusades have been avoided? Obviously a desperate and radical measure was needed to stop the seemingly never ending flood of Muslim advancement. But could have simple policies been put in place? I do not think this was an option due to the fact that even beyond this point the only way to get what a country needed or wanted was through war. While I do not condone war, I think it was a necessity at this point. One also has to keep in mind that beyond the Christian advancements, the crusades also helped spur major events such as the Renaissance due to the merchant families that could be found throughout the crusading parties. In addition, they brought upon a host of new technologies to which we owe even the current means of making paper to. Finally, the Crusades opened trade routs throughout the world that ultimately benefited all populations within any remote proximity to them.
I realize that my post was more about the entire book as a whole, rather than the last two chapters...but I think it still applies. On that note I will conclude with recognizing Mark's reaction to Baibar's death! I mean how classic was that?
Im going to go off of what rose was saying. I also think it was interesting to think how they thought that starting the holy wars was a good idea. However probably at that time it may have had pure intentions for a select few. But how many times has an idea that has potential for good (in a sense) turn bad when humans who are inherently sinful try to carry it out. Just a thought i had while reading.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found interesting in these last few chapters of the book, was how important it was for their to be good leaders in the armies on both sides. It seems that whichever side had the better leader usually had the better chance of winning. However this was not the only aspect to a successful crusade, resources were also important. "The Crusade led by Saint Louis probably was the best organized, best financed, and best planned of all the Crusades and this was mainly due to the and rectitude of its leader...At the same time he imposed a very substantial tax to pay for a Crusade." So it goes both ways, a successful Crusade bring glory to the area but it also sucks all of the resources out of the people. Therefore, if it was not a successful crusade you can imagine the reaction of the local people. People were probably not too enthusiastic about putting their money towards something that would fail. A successful Crusade needed two major components, money and a good leader, and even if you dont have these components they were not guaranteed to succeed, which would then lead to a group of complaining people. Overall the Crusades were either a great success or a great failure, there was no in between.
ReplyDeleteThree thoughts on this week's reading:
ReplyDeleteThe crusades remind me of our coup discussions last year. So many regimes, despite successful coup d'etats, fell due to standard government maintenance problems. Take the attempted Venezuela coup. After Chavez was successfully overthrown, there was a failure to replace him with someone remarkable (although, the name of the temporary dictator remains one of the coolest names ever) brought him back in only a few days. I feel this principal applies to the crusades. The initial offensive strike was hugely successful, but maintaining a firm grasp on the Holy Land, while effective for a little, did not last.
The reliance on Byzantine cooperation was a huge part of this, as they were expected to retain rule of the Holy Land just as they had before Islam was founded. Instead, Byzantium was perfectly willing to compromise with the Muslims as long as it could remain the dominant power.
Finally, we can see the rift between the Latin and Eastern churches powerful result on the modern world when we look at the crusades. The strife between Rome and Constantinople turned a Holy War against a twisted religion into an internal church war. I know that politics had just as much (if not more) to do with the sack of Constantinople, but it is certainly ironic that the culmination of the fourth Crusade ended with a struggle between Christians. Stark argues that this siege was justified. I can see where he is coming from, as the Byzantine's certainly performed their fair share of treachery and betrayal, but I hate to see 'in house' disputes which divide the Church result in bloodshed.
I found it interesting that Saladin was viewed as such a great military genius and hero. His only real military victory was over the city of Jerusalem, all of the other cities he conquered was by deceit. He couldn't defeat any crusaders army in open combat and if it was not for the death of Fredrick the Germans would have obliterated Saladin. Stark notes that the Saladin's forces became so disheartened with their luck in attacking crusading forces they gave up fighting pitched battles against them. The Muslims were so helpless under Saladin that they failed to destroy Richards force of a couple hundred men with a much larger army. Saladin should neither be recognized for his humanity or his military prowess. The real reward should go to disease for confronting and stopping the crusaders at every turn.
ReplyDeleteHey Mr. Parker, I left for North Carolina before everyone started posting the blogs here, but I wrote it in a Word Document before I left. Here it is:
ReplyDeleteGod’s Battalions was a fantastic book, especially the ending. I found two nuggets that I thought were really important. First, I like how he stresses the importance of looking at history in its context. He says, “nothing is to be gained either in terms of moral insights or historical comprehension by anachronistically imposing the Geneva Convention on these times.” (pg. 158) This reminded me of the C.S. Lewis we read in Literature which talked about how contemporaries all share certain inherent mindsets, prejudices, and ideologies – sometimes involuntarily. Because we all grew up in the 21st century, we have been ingrained with the culture and perspective of our contemporaries. Similarly, the people of the Crusades also had certain views, presuppositions, and perceptions that they had acquired from their time period. Imposing our ideologies on a totally different period in culture tears down these differences and assumes everyone has the same basic morals and philosophies when they didn’t. This can be observed by looking at other military campaigns. Many of the crusader’s atrocities – burning important buildings, destroying artifacts, brutally sacking cities, and the execution of conquered people – are non-unique to their quest. Muslims, Greeks, Latins, and Barbarians all did similar things in war, often to a worse extent than the Crusaders. Second, I thought the double standard was especially appalling. For historians to critique the crusaders for Jerusalem (which resulted in perhaps 2,000 deaths) but turn a blind eye to the massacre of Antioch by Baibar (which resulted in thousands of mass beheadings and tortures, and fires) is truly and injustice. It is almost like the goal is to critique the Christians exclusively. Granted, the crusaders were imperfect, but if we are going to be condemning a people for military barbarism the standards we use should be culturally impartial. In the end, I thought Dr. Stark gave great insight into the crusades, the mindset of the medieval Christians, and how their quest to secure the Holy Land from the defiling Muslims was lost.
I really enjoyed reading God's Battalions and the thing that struck me the most was the overall cost of the crusades. People who were poor couldn't afford to buy swords and armor so they used farming supplies like pitchforks and other tools. People who couldn't fork over the money to pay, gave up land and other possessions. It was shocking!
ReplyDelete