The Crusades

[Fidei Defensor]

The CRUSADES 

 

The Crusades are the holy wars from 1095-1291 A.D. The Crusade was an armed pilgrimage, by which knights and soldiers atoned for their sins by using their swords in the service of Church. The major element of the Crusade was The Crusader Indulgence, a dispensation from The Pope that granted full absolution of sins for the crucinatius (crusader). These wars have been misunderstood for centuries, and only now with modern scholarship are people beginning to grasp the Medieval Mind and what provoked hundreds of thousands to "take up the cross" and fight the Muslims in Syria, Palestine, and Tripoli. 

Join me on a quest to discover what the Crusades were about, their pitfalls, and the contributions of this period of Church history. 

[FresnoJoe]

Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight: Psalms 144:1

[other one]

https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/the-crusades/the-real-history-of-the-crusades.html

 

So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression — an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity — and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion — has no abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.

With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed's death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt — once the most heavily Christian areas in the world — quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.

That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.

[Who me]

Actually the crusades were a counter attack against islamic agression, partly in responce to there attacks, partly as a responce for a call for help from thje Bysantine empire and partly an attempt to gemerate peace in europe.

Unfortunetly the responce to those who were different lead to a violent dealing with them, in both europe and in the near east as jews christians and muslims were butcher indiscriminetly.

[Robert.A]

Jesus does not call his people to goto war. No matter what reasons we throw at it . This was not Christians versus muslims it was the Catholic Church.

 

The true body of Christ was not involved in leading these Crusades. 

 

 

[imnotJohnSmith]

On 6/15/2019 at 5:02 PM, Who me said:

Actually the crusades were a counter attack against islamic agression, partly in responce to there attacks, partly as a responce for a call for help from thje Bysantine empire and partly an attempt to gemerate peace in europe.

Unfortunetly the responce to those who were different lead to a violent dealing with them, in both europe and in the near east as jews christians and muslims were butcher indiscriminetly.

True.

 

On 6/15/2019 at 11:43 PM, Tampered With said:

I hardly think rounding up Jews by the Crusaders on their way to the Holy Land into their Synagogues and burning them alive (men, women, and children) was a defense against Muslims or and act for God!

Also true.

 

Even for true believers, we are weak in the flesh, and things could easily got out of hand, into a spiralling mess.

I don't like the robbing, pillaging, rape and murders in the Crusade, but Christendom might be snuffed out by Islam if it wasn't for the Crusade, from a secular/historical view.

[Who me]

1 hour ago, Tampered With said:

So are you saying Christians could not possibly have gone about things in a godly manner and achieved victory as the Israelite armies did when they let G_d lead them into battle?

How could the crusaders been Godly. They butcher communities simply because they were different.

One of the reasons for going on crusade was to earn a spiritual reward. Something that is not possible.

God had not called for the crusades so it was not a God honouring or God centered activity.

[D-Dawn]

Church (RCC) and State were pretty much the same thing in that part of the world...with Monarchs and Popes constantly fighting about who had final authority of course. That being said, it seems appropriate that the Church/State would respond to direct threats to their safety and religion.

[David1701]

On 9/25/2017 at 10:53 PM, Fidei Defensor said:

The CRUSADES 

 

The Crusades are the holy wars from 1095-1291 A.D. The Crusade was an armed pilgrimage, by which knights and soldiers atoned for their sins by using their swords in the service of Church. The major element of the Crusade was The Crusader Indulgence, a dispensation from The Pope that granted full absolution of sins for the crucinatius (crusader). These wars have been misunderstood for centuries, and only now with modern scholarship are people beginning to grasp the Medieval Mind and what provoked hundreds of thousands to "take up the cross" and fight the Muslims in Syria, Palestine, and Tripoli. 

Join me on a quest to discover what the Crusades were about, their pitfalls, and the contributions of this period of Church history. 

There was nothing "holy" about the Crusades.  They were Roman Catholic endeavours, using carnal weapons to fight Muslim invaders (and kill Jews, and plunder, etc.).

Roman Catholicism is a kind of evil doppelganger of the true Church, a hideous admixture of paganism and pseudo-Christianity, employing all kinds of evil means to try to bring about its aim - world domination.

[Fidei Defensor]

On 11/26/2020 at 12:56 PM, David1701 said:

There was nothing "holy" about the Crusades.  They were Roman Catholic endeavours, using carnal weapons to fight Muslim invaders (and kill Jews, and plunder, etc.).

Roman Catholicism is a kind of evil doppelganger of the true Church, a hideous admixture of paganism and pseudo-Christianity, employing all kinds of evil means to try to bring about its aim - world domination.

Save many Catholics with rhetoric like that you won’t. 

The Crusades were fundmentally wrong on a theological level. The concept one would merit salvation through killing and dying is a false gospel. However, the intial reason for The First Crusade had some merit, the Eastern Christians (Byzantines) were being besieged by the Seljurk Turks, and they asked Western Christians for help.

James Chapter 2 speaks of if a brother has need of anything, we are to help our brothers in Christ. 

Alas The Crusade was turned into a Jihad (Akbar) for Catholics, penitential warefare based on Abbot Cluny and Pope Gregory VII’s concerns for warriors going to hell because their occupation is murder. 

Edited March 3, 2021 by Fidei Defensor