What is the most misunderstood historical event?

[abradley]

Back on page 3 Funky posted:

On topic, the crusades definitely present one of the most misunderstood historical events in history.

And I agree, so let's look at the Crusades.

On page 10 HannibalBarka posted:

I don't really think any conquest was "unjustified" back than. Crusaders had every right to go wage war in the Levant as did Muslims conquering Europe. As I said earlier, land back than was the property of the Kings not the people and I don't see what would make the Caliph less or more legitimate than say the Byzantine Emperor or the Frankish King to rule the Levant, Anatolia, Belgium or even China !! Back than Kings conquered what their armies allowed them to conquer not what they thought would be "rightfully" (right say who?) theirs.

But were the Crusades about conquering lands or stopping an invader that was out to force-convert Christendom to another religion/ideology. IMO It was rather like the West deciding to stop the spread of Communism in the 20th Century.

Even after the First Crusade after the crusaders had captured lands and there was plenty of room for Christian immigrants, few came plus many, if not most, of the Crusaders completed their pilgrimage and went home, from that point on the Crusader's were always under populated, many Christians came on pilgrimages and went home. Contrary to popular opinion they were out to save their souls, not enrich themselves.

Where is all this coming from,
Crusade Myths | Thomas F. Madden
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/print2005/tmadden_crusades_print.html

MARCH 19, 2011
The Real History of the Crusades
THOMAS F. MADDEN
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2011/the-real-history-of-the-crusades

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) Paperback – August 1, 2005
by Robert Spencer (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/Politically-Incorrect-Guide-Islam-Crusades/dp/0895260131

 

[Arakhor]

Like everything else, the Crusades weren't initially about religion. The Byzantine Emperor appealed for help to stop the Seljuks invading Anatolia and the Pope had a brilliant idea to say that it was God's will to retake Jerusalem. As it was, several of the princes leading the First Crusade absolutely were out to enrich themselves and did so quite successfully.

 

[abradley]

Like everything else, the Crusades weren't initially about religion. The Byzantine Emperor appealed for help to stop the Seljuks invading Anatolia and the Pope had a brilliant idea to say that it was God's will to retake Jerusalem. As it was, several of the princes leading the First Crusade absolutely were out to enrich themselves and did so quite successfully.

Who were these princes?

Do you have a link?

 

[Arakhor]

The first two that spring to mind immediately were Bohemond of Taranto and his nephew, Tancred. There was also Godfrey de Bouillon, who possibly did the best out of all the princes, but he does seem to have been more pious than the others.

(Note that this is not exhaustive by any means. I've linked to Wikipedia for speed, but this is fairly well-known history and can be sought in many different places.)

 

[abradley]

The first two that spring to mind immediately were Bohemond of Taranto and his nephew, Tancred. There was also Godfrey de Bouillon, who possibly did the best out of all the princes, but he does seem to have been more pious than the others.

(Note that this is not exhaustive by any means. I've linked to Wikipedia for speed, but this is fairly well-known history and can be sought in many different places.)

While there may have been a few that cleaned up, that wasn't the norm:

http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/print2005/tmadden_crusades_print.html
Myth 2: The Crusaders wore crosses, but they were really only interested in capturing booty and land. Their pious platitudes were just a cover for rapacious greed.

Historians used to believe that a rise in Europe’s population led to a crisis of too many noble "second sons," those who were trained in chivalric warfare but who had no feudal lands to inherit. The Crusades, therefore, were seen as a safety valve, sending these belligerent men far from Europe where they could carve out lands for themselves at someone else’s expense. Modern scholarship, assisted by the advent of computer databases, has exploded this myth. We now know that it was the "first sons" of Europe that answered the pope’s call in 1095, as well as in subsequent Crusades. Crusading was an enormously expensive operation. Lords were forced to sell off or mortgage their lands to gather the necessary funds. They were also not interested in an overseas kingdom. Much like a soldier today, the medieval Crusader was proud to do his duty but longed to return home. After the spectacular successes of the First Crusade, with Jerusalem and much of Palestine in Crusader hands, virtually all of the Crusaders went home. Only a tiny handful remained behind to consolidate and govern the newly won territories. Booty was also scarce. In fact, although Crusaders no doubt dreamed of vast wealth in opulent Eastern cities, virtually none of them ever even recouped their expenses. But money and land were not the reasons that they went on Crusade in the first place. They went to atone for their sins and to win salvation by doing good works in a faraway land.
Thomas F. Madden is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University. He is author of A Concise History of the Crusades and co-author of The Fourth Crusade.

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Madden
Thomas F. Madden (born 1960) is an American historian, a former Chair of the History Department at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri, and Director of Saint Louis University's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.[1] He is considered one of the foremost medieval scholars and experts on the Crusades, and was often called upon as a historical consultant after the events of September 11, to discuss the connections between Jihad, the medieval Crusades and modern Islamic terrorism.[2][3][4][5] He has frequently appeared in the media, as a consultant for various programs on the History Channel and National Public Radio.[6] In 2007, he was awarded the Haskins Medal from the Medieval Academy of America, for his book Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice, which was also a "Book of the Month" selection by the BBC History magazine. In 2012 he was named a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

and Thomas F Madden, Ph D ~ The Crusades Then and Now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFt1ZRVqNOE

 

[Arakhor]

I don't doubt that many people went off to war in precisely the frame of mind Urban II and his successors intended. In these sorts of affairs, there's never simply black and white morality. At best, there will be multiple shades of grey, even (or especially) within the same faction.

 

[Ajidica]

I don't doubt that many people went off to war in precisely the frame of mind Urban II and his successors intended. In these sorts of affairs, there's never simply black and white morality. At best, there will be multiple shades of grey, even (or especially) within the same faction.

Yep.
People went into the Crusades for God, salvation from sin, a chance to kill (sanctioned by the Church!), wealth, power, the salvation of their immortal souls (which could be achieved without giving up your wealth and power), and excitement. Often all of them.

The Byzantine Emperor appealed for help to stop the Seljuks invading Anatolia and the Pope had a brilliant idea to say that it was God's will to retake Jerusalem.

Minor point. The Emperor had worked with the Pope a couple of times in coordinating European knights and nobles to serve in the Imperial Army but the numbers were never that large. When Alexius appealed to the Pope, that is what he was envisioning: 100 odd knights and men-at-arms to serve as mercenaries for a year or two to re-established the Byantine Army.
The last few Popes had been trying to establish some sort of temporal authority. They were already the spiritual authority of western Christendom but the fact the Pope had gone to war and briefly overthrow* illustrated spiritual power didn't do much to stop knights eager for a chance at loot and glory.


EDIT: As far as the except posted by abradley goes; I highly question where the "second sons" argument gets refuted considering that the author listed no sources. (And of course I'm highly suspicious of any sort of "computer database" that would have census-quality information on western Europe in the 11th century.)

*In a battle whose name I'm blanking on, an Papist-Byzantine Army was soundly trounced by Norman mercenaries. Both sides blamed the other for the loss and relations began to sour.

 

[Ice_Tyrant]

It's like I've said before, Carter was probably the more moral person we've had a president.

People say they always want good, nice honest politicians. Then the time comes when they get one, and they kick him out the first chance they get.

I dunno if this is a common one, but until about my senior year of high school when I started watching MASH, I honestly completely failed to realize that our main enemy in the Korean War was China. Up to then I just always assumed it was North Korea by itself, with perhaps behind the scene support from other communist nations.

 

[sophie]

Back on page 3 Funky posted:And I agree, so let's look at the Crusades.

On page 10 HannibalBarka posted:But were the Crusades about conquering lands or stopping an invader that was out to force-convert Christendom to another religion/ideology. IMO It was rather like the West deciding to stop the spread of Communism in the 20th Century.

No, not really. You can't really generalize about the Crusades - they were separate instances over the course of several centuries in rapidly shifting political and cultural climates and involving vastly different players with very personal motivations. Each individual crusade really needs to be looked at in isolation. All the players - from the Pope, to preachers promoting the pilgrimage (e.g. Bernard of Clairvaux), to the Byzantine court, who were probably the single most important entity in facilitating the actual success of the crusades (1st Crusade doesn't succeed in capturing Jerusalem if the Byzantine court hadn't allowed free access and provisions to the column through the Balkans and shuttles over the Bosporus, and these permissions were only granted because the Byzantines were trying to leverage their own political situations), the individual actors who answered the call to the crusade (the "poor 3rd son of some obscure German baron; needs to make his own inheritance" is an oversimplification and generally wasn't the case), even to the individual Muslim actors who contested the crucesignati incursions had their own deeply personal, usually political motivations for doing so. A lot of the crucesignati success in the earlier Crusades occurred because the Mideast at the time didn't represent a unified force, but rather a diverse array of statelets who often were more likely to greet the "Franks" as an opportunity to advance their own political position (i.e. play the Franks against other Muslim rivals) than as some Modern conception of one grand alliance vs another.

If you'd like to read some actual, good history for a change, I'd highly recommend you pick up Christopher Tyerman's God's War: A New History of the Crusades. It does a really good job of highlighting how specific to their time and political the crusades were. It also does a good job of tossing out a lot of really bad assumptions people tend to make about the historical period.

 

[abradley]

Yep.
People went into the Crusades for God, salvation from sin, a chance to kill (sanctioned by the Church!), wealth, power, the salvation of their immortal souls (which could be achieved without giving up your wealth and power), and excitement. Often all of them.



Minor point. The Emperor had worked with the Pope a couple of times in coordinating European knights and nobles to serve in the Imperial Army but the numbers were never that large. When Alexius appealed to the Pope, that is what he was envisioning: 100 odd knights and men-at-arms to serve as mercenaries for a year or two to re-established the Byantine Army.
The last few Popes had been trying to establish some sort of temporal authority. They were already the spiritual authority of western Christendom but the fact the Pope had gone to war and briefly overthrow* illustrated spiritual power didn't do much to stop knights eager for a chance at loot and glory.


EDIT: As far as the except posted by abradley goes; I highly question where the "second sons" argument gets refuted considering that the author listed no sources. (And of course I'm highly suspicious of any sort of "computer database" that would have census-quality information on western Europe in the 11th century.)

*In a battle whose name I'm blanking on, an Papist-Byzantine Army was soundly trounced by Norman mercenaries. Both sides blamed the other for the loss and relations began to sour.

Sometimes you have to go by the credentials of the person, Dr Madden is considered the premier expert on the Crusades in the USA.

I trust him.

 

[abradley]

No, not really. You can't really generalize about the Crusades - they were separate instances over the course of several centuries in rapidly shifting political and cultural climates and involving vastly different players with very personal motivations. Each individual crusade really needs to be looked at in isolation. All the players - from the Pope, to preachers promoting the pilgrimage (e.g. Bernard of Clairvaux), to the Byzantine court, who were probably the single most important entity in facilitating the actual success of the crusades (1st Crusade doesn't succeed in capturing Jerusalem if the Byzantine court hadn't allowed free access and provisions to the column through the Balkans and shuttles over the Bosporus, and these permissions were only granted because the Byzantines were trying to leverage their own political situations), the individual actors who answered the call to the crusade (the "poor 3rd son of some obscure German baron; needs to make his own inheritance" is an oversimplification and generally wasn't the case), even to the individual Muslim actors who contested the crucesignati incursions had their own deeply personal, usually political motivations for doing so. A lot of the crucesignati success in the earlier Crusades occurred because the Mideast at the time didn't represent a unified force, but rather a diverse array of statelets who often were more likely to greet the "Franks" as an opportunity to advance their own political position (i.e. play the Franks against other Muslim rivals) than as some Modern conception of one grand alliance vs another.

If you'd like to read some actual, good history for a change, I'd highly recommend you pick up Christopher Tyerman's God's War: A New History of the Crusades. It does a really good job of highlighting how specific to their time and political the crusades were. It also does a good job of tossing out a lot of really bad assumptions people tend to make about the historical period.

True Byzantium was a great aid, and sometimes not, IIRC Like early on when the 1st Crusade was plodding along in enemy territory, expecting supplies the Emperor had promised, they didn't come, crusaders ate their horses and anything else they could stomach, finally won a battle and were able to re-supply, so the promise that Byzantine cities recaptured would be returned to the empire didn't happen which made Byzantium angry. Would they have honored the agreement if they'd been resupplied ... well, maybe.

Sometimes you can get so deep in the weeds that you can't see the forest for the trees.

Like:

Christopher Tyerman, "God's War: A New History of the Crusades"
"To Be Read" Book Review Column
JOHN E. (JACK) BECKER | MARCH 20, 2007
http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/archive/to_be_read/0001.html
{Snip}

In other respects, Tyerman is less satisfying. His story proceeds logically from crusade to crusade. But within each section there is little interest in explaining strategies, the importance of this that or the other battle. It is not about battles, strategies, changes on the map. It is about the politics of the warriors, their recruitment, their dynastic ups and downs, their commitment or failure of commitment. Significant battles appear only in connection with the life and/or death of this that or the other crusader. The name of a battle starts appearing only as dynastic shifts are recounted. In this book characters are not introduced. They simply appear and disappear. If a name recurs frequently you realize that this must be an important figure. Unless of course two have the same name, which happens often enough, and you find yourself reading about a heretic on one page who, on the next, appears to be a defender of the faith. Same name; different folks. As for the action, you are reading along and suddenly find yourself actually reading about a crusade. Then you wake up to the fact that action has been going on all along, intrigues, rivalries, murders, whatever. The "action" of the crusade is somehow or other the product of all these other actions, which lead up to, entangle, and come after the crusade. The action of the crusade is lost in the tangle of everything else. It is certainly not the most important thing. Which is what makes this book a very tough read. The narrative bogs down in dynastic swamps, endless lists of counts, ladies, kings.

The book is highly recommended by a couple of Medieval historians with Hi Reps, but I believe in KISS, Keep it simple senor. A medieval Historian can read through the tangles with no problem, he's already got the background down pat. Not saying it isn't a good book, just, it might be a good idea to have a simpler reference around to help you getting out of the tangles.

The point is, why were they called:

Myth 1: The Crusades were wars of unprovoked aggression against a peaceful Muslim world.
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/print2005/tmadden_crusades_print.html
This is as wrong as wrong can be. From the time of Mohammed, Muslims had sought to conquer the Christian world. They did a pretty good job of it, too. After a few centuries of steady conquests, Muslim armies had taken all of North Africa, the Middle East, Asia Minor, and most of Spain. In other words, by the end of the eleventh century the forces of Islam had captured two-thirds of the Christian world. Palestine, the home of Jesus Christ; Egypt, the birthplace of Christian monasticism; Asia Minor, where St. Paul planted the seeds of the first Christian communities: These were not the periphery of Christianity but its very core. And the Muslim empires were not finished yet. They continued to press westward toward Constantinople, ultimately passing it and entering Europe itself. As far as unprovoked aggression goes, it was all on the Muslim side. At some point what was left of the Christian world would have to defend itself or simply succumb to Islamic conquest. The First Crusade was called by Pope Urban II in 1095 in response to an urgent plea for help from the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople. Urban called the knights of Christendom to come to the aid of their eastern brethren. It was to be an errand of mercy, liberating the Christians of the East from their Muslim conquerors. In other words, the Crusades were from the beginning a defensive war. The entire history of the eastern Crusades is one of response to Muslim aggression.

This was the sales pitch, plain and simple.

The main thing is we're finally getting histories that aren't based on Voltaire's anti christian bias. As for Runciman and his three volume history, he was a Byzantinophile and his work shows it.

 

[Ajidica]

While I agree with Owen that Tyerman is good, he is also a complete slog. A good introduction to the First Crusade I found was Thomas Asbridge "The First Crusade: A New History":
http://www.amazon.com/The-First-Crusade-Conflict-Christianity/dp/0195189051
As the title suggest, it only looks at the First Crusade. (He wrote another book on the Crusades in general. I haven't read it but if it is anything like his book on the First Crusade, it can't be that bad.)
Asbridge does an excellent job with using contemporary source to try and understand to best degree possible why people went on the First Crusade and why the First Crusade took off. Plus, I read it when I was in 9th grade and enjoyed it; so it does not get too bogged down in historical minutia for a layperson.

From the time of Mohammed, Muslims had sought to conquer the Christian world.

No, just no.

 

[Arakhor]

That "Myth 1" has a rather misleading line in it, implying that the Muslims had already penetrated Eastern Europe before even the First Crusade, which is obviously not true. It wasn't until the 14th Century that the Ottomans crossed the Bosphorus.

What's more, as I recall, Manzikert (in 1071, still before the First Crusade) was actually provoked by the Byzantines during a truce with the Seljuks, in a wholly unnecessary battle.

 

[abradley]

That "Myth 1" has a rather misleading line in it, implying that the Muslims had already penetrated Eastern Europe before even the First Crusade, which is obviously not true. It wasn't until the 14th Century that the Ottomans crossed the Bosphorus.

It reads ok to me, 'By the end of the 11'th century ...' and then continues with the narration of 'They continued to press forward towards Constantinople ...'

See nothing wrong with it.

What line are you referring to.

What's more, as I recall, Manzikert (in 1071, still before the First Crusade) was actually provoked by the Byzantines during a truce with the Seljuks, in a wholly unnecessary battle.

Yes, that's Byzantium. But when you look at their history, that's the only way they could survive.

Manzikert was the reason the Emperor requested help from the Pope, after the defeat several themes rebelled. Byz was a mess, luckily the Turks weren't in a position to take advantage of it.

 

[Ajidica]

Manzikert was the reason the Emperor requested help from the Pope, after the defeat several themes rebelled. Byz was a mess, luckily the Turks weren't in a position to take advantage of it.

You have a 20+ year gap between Manzikert and the ensuing collapse of the Byzantine Empire and the First Crusade. A whole lot of very important events occurred in between the two events. Plus, as I stated before , when Alexius Komnenus sent a letter to the Pope asking for assistance he was not asking for what ended up as the First Crusade. He was expected the Pope to organized and send to Byzantium 100-odd knights and men-at-arms to do mercenary work for the Empire as 'native' Byzantine units had all but disintegrated during the civil wars and the wars with the Normans under Robert Guiscard.

Anyone who tries to paint Muslim-Christian relation in the Middle Ages as one long monolithic struggle between "Christianity" and "Islam" is just wrong.

 

[chijohnaok]

That "Myth 1" has a rather misleading line in it, implying that the Muslims had already penetrated Eastern Europe before even the First Crusade, which is obviously not true. It wasn't until the 14th Century that the Ottomans crossed the Bosphorus.

What's more, as I recall, Manzikert (in 1071, still before the First Crusade) was actually provoked by the Byzantines during a truce with the Seljuks, in a wholly unnecessary battle.

Stated in the "Myth 1":

Muslim armies had taken all of North Africa, the Middle East, Asia Minor, and most of Spain. In other words, by the end of the eleventh century the forces of Islam had captured two-thirds of the Christian world.

The Umayyad conquest of Hispania occurred roughly from 711 to 788. The last Muslim emirate in Spain was not conquered until 1492. So while the Ottomons may not have crossed the Bosphorus until the 14th century, by that point Muslims had been ruling parts of Europe (Spain) for around 600 years.

So is it understandable that there may have been some concern about further encroachments by the Muslims into "Christian" lands?

 

[Arakhor]

Maybe my geography's up the spout, but that really does not sound like two-thirds of the Christian world, unless we're using some sort of funky ahistorical "greatest extent" schtick.

And of course there might have been concern about further Muslim conquests in Europe, especially once the Ottomans started getting going, but given the equally long 600-year period where the Moors in Spain were constantly declining (and not going anywhere else), as Ajidica says:

Anyone who tries to paint Muslim-Christian relation in the Middle Ages as one long monolithic struggle between "Christianity" and "Islam" is just wrong.

 

[Kyriakos]

Another misunderstood history event that is Key: Basil II's epic-scale embodiment of the apt metaphor about the era's bulgarians' blindness.

 

[abradley]

In an opinion piece Dr. Madden writes:

From the time of Mohammed, Muslims had sought to conquer the Christian world.

and a reply was:

{Snip}
No, just no.

I agree with Dr. Madden.

ISLAM AND EUROPE TIMELINE (355-1291 A.D.)
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/notes/islamchron.html

and a video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7y2LRcf4kc

 

[Funky]

In an opinion piece Dr. Madden writes:

This is a very good overview of some of the myths around the crusades. Thanks for posting.

I would like to point out however, that Madden's statement, "From the time of Mohammed, Muslims had sought to conquer the Christian world", is slightly misleading. While it is certainly true, Muslims did not just focus on Christians but on all infidels. The goal of the followers of the doctrines of jihad was (and is) to conquer the entire world. Most jihad related deaths have occured in India and Africa. Nevertheless, the Christians suffered greatly too, and it is definitely noteworthy that, according to Madden, the Muslims had conquered two thirds of the Christian world before the first crusade.