There has been a lot said about the Crusades lately, mostly from the Left. They like to use it as an example of how hateful Christians can be, and how intolerant they are. The general story is that during the Crusades, Christians went out and forced people to accept Christ or die. That's usually their prime defense when we Christians talk about how the Muslims are commanded to convert infidels or kill them.
So, I thought I'd do a bit of research. I was always under the impression that the Crusades were a fight with the Muslims, who were trying to take over everything and make the world their caliphate. Let's see where this goes. The Truth shall set you free.
First, this is where I got the information, in case you just want to look it up for yourself. I'll be reading it myself and summarizing.
As we start out, we find that the Crusades were indeed a Holy war, but they were against the Saracens, which is what they called Muslims at the time. The Muslims had taken over Jerusalem, and we were trying to take it back. The Muslims didn't just take Jerusalem, they killed 3,000 Christian Pilgrims. Funny how the left doesn't mention that. I suppose Christians were supposed to just stand by and let it go...turn the other cheek. Jerusalem is holy to Christians, too, not just the Jewish people. Jesus preached there, was killed there and buried there. They were trampling on our Holy ground, too.
The main goal of the crusades was to free Jerusalem, but they also turned to freeing Spain from the Moors, Slavs and Pagans. There were nine crusades which lasted a total of 200 years. Christians and Muslims were at war for 200 years. That is just unbelievable, mind boggling, to me. I can't imagine being at war for 200 years.
The first crusade was called the People's Crusade. The people were furious that Muslims had killed 3,000 Jews and taken Jerusalem. They took off, most of them poor and poorly armed, to do what they could. I suppose a grass roots movement. Thousands of pheasants died because they were poorly organized andhad little to no military experience, and they were up against an army of Muslims.
But, real armies were starting to assemble. Most of the soldier volunteers came from France, causing the Muslims to call the crusade Francs. Makes one wonder if that's the reason there are such a high number of Muslims in France now. Maybe they decided to take it back by infiltration? One estimate has the Muslim population of France currently at 33%.
It was during the first Crusade that Jerusalem was retaken and most Muslims were slaughtered. You have to remember, they were an invading army and Israel wasn't a nation yet. And they attacked first, by killing 3,000 people. The Muslims didn't stop at killing the Pilgrims, either. They turned the Christian churches into stables or burned them to the ground. The first crusade lasted from 1071-1099.
There was a period of uneasy peace from 1099 until 1147. Then the Muslims rose again and took a Christian city, Edessa. Actually, they took the whole county of Edessa. The failure of the Muslims has been linked to a lack of organization, but they learned from their mistakes and became better at war.
This time, instead of just pheasants and common folk, or possibly even lower nobility being involved, kings got involved and took up the red cross. The Emperor of Germany and the King of France took up the cause. Sadly, this crusade only lasted two years and ended in 1149 in failure.
In 1187, the Muslims recaptured Jerusalem. This time, England joined with France and Germany to conquer the Muslims. During the first attempt, the Emperor of Germany, now 70, died.
Something I didn't know, is that the key player on the Muslim side, Saladin, was apparently just as gentlemanly to his enemies as England was to hers. There are stories of how when the king of England was ill, Saladin sent choice fruits to him. Another time, he sent an Arabian horse. Apparently he enjoyed the battle and didn't want to win at any means, but fairly. King Richard and Saladin reached a truce where Christians could visit the holy land without paying a tribute, having free access to our holy lands and have possession of the coastal cities.
The Fourth Crusade was started by a young Pope who wanted glory. I guess this is the turning point where it was no longer defense. But we're talking 1202 now, when the first one started in 1096, so over a hundred years later. I could defend them and say that after 104 years of war, they didn't trust the Muslims. The Crusaders first took Constantinople. They pillaged it and practically burnt it to the ground, destroying thousands of years of history. This weakened the city and it fell to the Turks 200 years later.
The next Crusade was taken up by children. Their leader was a child of 12 who preached that God told him to do it. It started in 1212. Strange, huh? Exactly 800 years ago. The French children, about 30,000 of them set off in a ship, but were betrayed and sold into slavery. Some returned home when hunger hit. In the same year, a German lad raised an army of 50,000 men, women and children to his battle cry. They crossed the Alps where they expected to sail for Palestine, but were never heard from again. This marked the decline of the crusades.
The rest were called minor crusades, and affected nothing in the holy land. The Fifth Crusade lasted from 1217-1221.
The Sixth Crusade (1227-1229) got Jerusalem back.
The Seventh crusade was from 1249-1254. It doesn't give details.
The Eighth crusade was in 1270 and had no effect.
The Ninth Crusade was 1271-1272 and they won back Nazareth. A treaty was signed that was favorable to the Christians.
The Last Crusade saw the loss of the last Christian city, Acre, in 1291.
I think through this we can learn a lesson. It started out as a Holy cause, avenging the deaths of so many Christians. It was an answer to an invasion and attack. But, the Catholic church took up the cause and turned it into a power grab. I think we see that in current times. We, as the Taxed Enough Already party, have done a lot of good. We need to make sure that the Republican party doesn't co-opt us for their own power struggle. But, this was not strictly a way of Christians to make people convert to Christianity. We also see that at one time Muslims had honor. What happened?
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