Who were the “real” barbarians during the Crusades? The statement, “for the Europeans to call the Muslims barbaric is ironic, for it was the Europeans who were the true barbarians”, is valid. This is shown through how the Europeans were unjustified in inciting the First Crusade, how the Muslims were civilized, and how the Europeans were the true barbarians. Some people may believe that Pope Urban II was justified to persecute the Muslims, but upon further analysis this view is clearly misinformed. In fact it was the Europeans who were unjustified to incite the First Crusade against the Muslims, which led to much bloodshed. Some who believe that the Muslims caused the First Crusade may justify themselves by stating Robert the Monk’s version …show more content…
The account told by a Muslim historian, Ibn al-Athir about the various stages of the First Crusade, specifically when the Franks seized Antioch. The historian accounts about a the Muslim leader named Yaghi Siyan, “protected the families of the Christians in Antioch and would not allow a hair of their [Christians] heads to be touched” (Document E). This quote shows how even with the Christians attacking the Muslims, Yaghi Siyan, a Muslim leader, acted out of the best interest of all his people, not just the Muslims. He made the logical choice and left all the Christian men outside the walls, because he was unsure of how the Franks were going to react. However, he did promise the Christian men that Antioch was still their home. He also promised to protect their families inside the wall and assured that no harm would come to them. This quote also shows that this city was civilized enough that Christians and Muslims could harmoniously live together in it. Even though this historian who gave this account was a Muslim, which may cause bias, he is a historian who is known for being extremely factual. At this time, there started to become Christian uprisings against Islam, beginning with the reconquest of Spain and the Norman invasion of Sicily. Shortly after were the fall of Antioch and Jerusalem and the establishment of Christian kingdoms in the Holy Land. The second account is a Muslim …show more content…
This is shown through a Western European’s version of the siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade. This is written account by Fulcher of Chartres, a religiously trained man who travelled with the Crusaders. He recounts them, “forthwith they [Europeans] joyfully rushed into the city to pursue and kill the nefarious enemies, as their comrades were already doing… you would have seen our [Europeans] feet coloured to our ankles with the blood of the slain [Muslims and Jews]… None of them [Muslims] left alive; neither women nor children were spared [killed everyone]” (Document G). This is during the siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade. The Crusaders had used ladders to get over the walls and massacre all of Jerusalem, until no one was left. What this account is basically saying is that the Europeans came into the city and killed everyone inside, including women and children. They killed so many people that their ankles were covered in blood. The document states that the person is religiously trained, which can be fairly assumed that means he is Christian. He was also traveling with the Crusaders, therefore under their protection. He is reliable to a certain extent, because they did kill many people, but probably not enough to slain their ankles red. This is an account of the Sack of Constantinople, told by a Byzantine living in Constantinople at the time. As the account goes, “in the alleys, in the streets, in the
On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II gave a supposedly important speech at the end of a church meeting in Clermont, France. In it he had called upon the nobleness of the Franks, to go to the East and assist their Christian “brothers”, the Byzantines, against the attacks of the Muslim Turks. He also apparently encouraged them to liberate Jerusalem, the most sacred and holy city in Christendom, for the Muslims had ruled it since taking it from the Christian Byzantines in A.D. 638. The Crusades were a series of wars between Christians and others to take back Jerusalem.
In 1095 Pope Urban II delivered a riveting call to arms that led to the formation of a divinely inspired army intent on retaking Jerusalem from Muslim control. He grounds this appeal on a command from God: “I, not I, but God exhorts you as heralds of Christ to repeatedly urge men of all ranks…to hasten to exterminate this vile race from our lands and to aid the Christian inhabitants” (Fulcher 66). Though Urban emphasizes the need to assist the Byzantine Christians, the hordes of common people, clergy, and nobility that answer his call have diverse motives for embarking on the crusade. The rationalization for the first crusade is revealed expressly by participants who authored chronicles. However, some of the most conclusive evidence is
Document 1 states that “...both Christian and Muslims committed appalling atrocities in the name of religion...crusaders sometimes turned their fury against Jews, massacring entire communities.”This is (important/interesting/relevant) No side are innocent bystanders as both Muslims and Christians created appalling crimes. With the example given that the Crusaders murdered Jews for the reason of anger as hate flew towards them from all sides of the battlefield.
How Barbaric Were The “Barbarians”? Historians like to very much think that the “Barbarians” were not actually barbaric at all, but given all the information and history on them, and how they moved from province to province, slaughtering men, women,children, even their own kind, and reduced settlements to nothing but ash and dust, it's hard to believe that these “Barbarians” were not actually, in terms with these historians, barbaric, because they indeed were very murderous and barbaric people. To say that these Mongols were not barbaric in not true, civilizations like Greece called them barbarians because they were uneducated, primitive, and out of civilization(introduction paragraph 3, line 4-7), however this is not the case, the Mongols were actually very smart in terms of military skill and tactics demonstrated by their use of horses, siege weapons, tricking the enemy, and denying the enemy rest(Document D, The Second Wave: Russia and Eastern Europe paragraph 1, line 10-12, The Third Wave: The Middle East and South China paragraph 2, lines 2-6). The Mongols may not have had religion or civilization, but they had tribes in which they eventually united to go and conquer(The Secret History of The Mongols).
The Mongols: How Barbaric were the “Barbarians”? During the thirteenth and fourteenth century the word “barbarian” meaning foreigner in Geek received a negative connotation of people that lived beyond the pale of civilization, people who were savages and evil. Knowing that Mongols were nomadic people, which were illiterate and did not have a written language definitely people would call them barbaric because they had a different way of life than those who lived in a civilization; who grew their food and were educated. Due to the fact that historians still cannot really decipher the Mongols language, much less they few written materials left behind no one is to know what they had in mind during the invasions throughout Asia, the Middle East and Eastern
In the text it states “They also left a bitter legacy of religious hatred behind them.” Another statement from the text is “both Christians and Muslims committed appalling atrocities in the name of religion.”This document is interesting because it states that because of the crusaders legacy of religious hatred soon it would lead to both Christians and Muslims committing careless acts for their religion. In conclusion both Christians and Muslims didn't always get along. Because of their legacies left by other followers of their religion. Which caused them to feel bitter toward each other. And sometimes both christians and muslims would commit careless acts for their
The Papacy in Rome sanctioned the First Crusade and Pope Urban II preached for a great Christian expedition to capture Jerusalem, the Holy Lands from the Muslims. During this time religion permeated every aspect of life. The Christian kings and peasants believed that every human being was judged in death and one way to absolve oneself of sin was to die in the name of the Lord, therefore dying in the Crusades would purify the soul allowing them to go straight to heaven. Consequently, “thousands of laymen and clergy took up the cross and younger sons of the upper-class had military advantages to become Crusaders” (Fiero, 2017). At this particular time, the church acknowledged and vindicated fighting and killing in the name of God, resulting in the Crusaders slaughtering all enemies of Christ; hundreds of men, women, and children plus the “entire Jewish populations of Cologne and Mainz became victims” (Fiero, 2017). The First Crusade set a dangerous precedent, the rise of organized anti-Jewish persecution and each subsequent Crusade resulted in renewed attacks on the Jews. The persecution of Jews reached a climax during the Crusades.
The Crusades were a series of holy wars that began in 1095 CE. These wars were fought between Christians and Muslims to gain control over the sacred land. The Turks moved into the middle east during the early part of the 11th century CE. Most of the Turks served the Islamic armies and would invade land rapidly using combat forces. This alarmed the Greek emperor and caused him to seek out Pope Urban II and ask for mercenary troops to confront the Turks. The Pope called a council and had 300 attendees to show up. During this council, the Pope made a plea to free the Holy Land, which received an enthusiastic response. After this, Pope Urban II promptly waged war against the Muslims and took armies of Christians to Jerusalem to try and
Jerusalem has been controlled by the enemy for ninety-one years, during which time God received nothing from us here in the way of adoration... Now God has reserved the merit of its recovery for one house... In order to unite all hearts..." The excerpt shows another uses religion as another pull factor for men to fight in the Crusades by stating that God received no praise since the enemy (the Franks) have been in Jerusalem. Saladin is using his religion to try and recruit men to take back the holy land from the Franks, by saying they are the enemy of God himself, and he also gives his men hope that they can succeed by hinting at the fact that God will give them the strength to fight their great
Patrick Geary’s “Readings in Medieval History” contains four accounts of the invasion of the Middle East by the Europeans in 1095 A.D. These accounts all cite different motives for the first crusade, and all the accounts are from the perspective of different sides of the war. The accounts all serve to widen our perspective, we hear from the Christian and Middle Eastern side of the conflict. Fulcher of Chartres claims, Pope Urban the Second urged all Christians to intervene in the “East” at the council of Claremont, saying it was a sign of “Strength of good will”. (Readings in Medieval History, Geary, page 396).
The First Crusades was a military group that was started by Christians in Europe who wanted to gain back the Holy Land that was being occupied by the Muslims. Pope Urban II preached a sermon at Clermont Ferrand on November 1095. Most histories consider this speech to be the spark the fueled a wave of military campaigns to gain back the Holy Land. This speech was meant to unite the Europeans and to gain back what was taken from them. The holy land was a small area on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The First Crusades was a very successful military expedition that was driven by religious faith to reclaim Jerusalem and other holy places that fell under Muslim control. driven by religious faith. They wanted to gain back the Holy Land that was once theirs. Arabs and the Muslim Turks otherwise known as the Seljuk Turks were the Muslims that invaded and conquered land rightfully occupied by the Christian’s. Many European men, women, and children joined the Crusades and fought in the Middle East. Pope Urban II granted forgiveness of all sins to those who died in battle thus assuring them ascendancy into heaven. Which gave those who volunteered to fight assurance. Nobles and peasants responded in great numbers to the call and marched across Europe to the capital of the Byzantine empire. Having the support of the Byzantine emperor helped make them a stronger army. The Crusaders took over many of the cities on the Mediterranean coast and built a large number of fortified castles across the Holy Land to protect their newly established territories. Soon after seizing power the Seljuks face a very different challenge to Islamic civilization. It came from Christian Crusaders. Knights from western Europe who were determined to capture portions of the Islamic world that made up the holy land of biblical times. Muslim political division and element of surprise made the first of the Crusaders assaults, between 1096 and 1099, by far the most successful. Much of
The Crusades were the first tactical mission by Western Christianity in order to recapture the Muslim conquered Holy Lands. Several people have been accredited with the launch of the crusades including Peter the Hermit however it is now understood that this responsibility rested primarily with Pope Urban II . The main goal of the Crusades was the results of an appeal from Alexius II, who had pleaded for Western Volunteers help with the prevention of any further invasions. The Pope’s actions are viewed as him answering the pleas of help of another in need, fulfilling his Christian right. However, from reading the documents it is apparent that Pope Urban had ulterior motives for encouraging engagement in the war against the Turks. The
The first crusade started in autumn of 1095. Pope Urban II initiated the first crusade by calling upon his Christians to reclaim the city of Jerusalem. The Crusade was also meant to seek revenge on the followers of Islam. The followers were accused of committing crimes against “Christendom”. Pope Urbans crusade was made possible by the work of St. Augustine on Christian Violence in the past. Many Christians joined the crusade because the Pope promised rewards for the afterlife. After the fourth century, Christianity underwent a transformation when it fused with the Roman state for which warfare was essential. St. Augustine and Pope Urban enabled violence to be an option for Christians and it can be described in this quote, “For the first time in Christian history, violence was defined as a religious act, a source of grace.” After the Pope’s Christian tour, many Christians were ready to destroy everything that stood in their way.
The Crusades, a series of wars, are an extremely important part of history in the 12th century, occurring during the Middle Ages. The Middle East or the Holy Land was always a place that Christians traveled to to make pilgrimages. The Seljuk Turks eventually took control of Jerusalem and all Christians were not allowed in the Holy City. As the Turks power grew, they threatened to take over the Byzantine Empire and Constantinople. The Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I, asked Pope Urban II for help and Pope agreed, hoping to strengthen his own power. He He united the Christians in Europe and In 1095, Pope Urban II waged waged war against muslims in order to “reclaim the holy land.”
The primary target of the First Crusade (and the intended target of many more crusades), preached by Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095, was Jerusalem. In the version of this sermon by Robert the Monk, Urban urges those present to admire rulers who “have extended…the territory of the Holy Church”, and to “enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves. That land which as