The Crusades

[pardus]

OK, the Crusades, fun and games invading the holy land.

Here is a good start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade

This is an extremely biased and often inaccurate view of the Crusades from the people that perpertrated it, but it is the 'official' view of one side of this event in world history.

catholic encyclopedia

This should be an excellent resource

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1k.html

 

[pardus]

I've always been taught in history lessons (Medieval History 101 ... at KU... LOL) that the Crusades were a "good" thing ... a just holy war. So it will be interesting to see both sides of the spectrum in my research.

The Crusade's first victims were European Jews, once the Crusaders got to the East they began slaughtering Christians, In the forth Crusade they attacked and sacked Constantinople the home of the Eastern Holy Roman Empire, the Crusades were directly responsible for the demise of the Christian Church in the east, So I think the teachers etc... that are proponents of this view are being very selective in their facts.

There were some benefits to the west of the Crusades, ironically one of these benefits was Islamic knowledge of science, mathmatics etc... other was the diminishing of feuds/wars in Europe between states/kingdoms etc...

 

[AMRUSMCR]

I actually did hit up the wikipedia chronology on the crusades the other night and found it interesting. I was quoting it to Chopstick in IM's.


I'll take a look at the other links. Thanks for the info!

 

[G-2]

The crusades

The crusades shows us I believe the level of danger there is in mixing church and state to the point where they become almost one. A state controlled by Religion is one which can much easier justify murder and slaughter of innocents on a grand scale. However with that said the view could be taken that the Moors had incurred the wrath of the crusades by their continuous expansion in Spain and the inevitable consequence of their continuous expansion being a confrontation with the Franks. While I am fascinated by the crusades (cause, event and result) I am not hugely familiar with them and so would very much appreciate other's here who may know more posting their info and views.
My personal is Ancient Rome.