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Were the Crusades justified or not?

Please no /pol/-tier answers.

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en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ascalon
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hattin
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The first one was

Yes

How so?

was there an official proclamation or just what the pope said

Like most things it was just in principle and unjust in practice.

The original plan was to resist what was obviously a belligerent invasion of the Roman Empire by the Seljuk Turks. Some modern moralists might argue that they should not have resisted because the Romans were an oppressive regime whose soldiers would inevitably kill civilians, kill prisoners, rape women and such during a war, however so were the Seljuk Turks and everyone else at the time. Arguably what was best was to keep the peace which involves deterring invasion through resistance thereby keeping it to a minimum.

In practice the crusaders gravitated towards the wealthy trading cities of the Levant and Jerusalem which had been held by Muslims for centuries and thus did not serve the prior moral purpose.

>inb4 Byzantine empire wasn't Roman

They were about as Roman as the USSR was Communist.

>justified

only good answer here, thanks

If they stuck with helping out the Byzantines against the Turks instead of wrecking the strongest buffer between Europe and the Middle East then it might've been justified.

*didn't mean to quote sorry

What was the buffer? Jerusalem?

I just can't help but think this whole religious war/crisis bullshit came from the crusades. It's driving me insane, so I want to know who's in the right.

I mean the Byzantine state whatever you want to call it, particularly Constantinople

Yes the Crusaders came up with many justifications for their actions, as in fact all humans do, no matter what it is they are doing.

There were a lot of crusades, it depends on which one you mean.
The Middle Eastern crusades seem much more justified to me than the shitshow that was the northern crusades.
The Albigensian crusade was just horrific.

I mean the middle eastern ones

t. cathar fucking shit

Of course it was justified, bear in mind that the first crusade was called more than 300 years after:
>The burning of churches in the holy Land
>The slaughter of North African Christians
>The conquest of iberia
>The invasion of Italy and Scicily
>The attack on Rome
>300 years of slave raids
>Ongoing religious strife in regions of co-habitation
>Multiple jihads being called against the "kuffars"
>Suppression of Christianity in Muslim lands (including the birthplace of Christ and Christianity)
> Et cetera
The crusades were only called after extensive Muslim invasions and attrocities to the point that the Pope felt Christendom itself was threatened and decided to pull resources from the as of yet unattacked northern Christian kingdoms to defend the heartland (the medditeranean) of The Faith.

1.yes
2. because it proved the obvious superiority of Islam over cuck-tianity

Yes it was justified, it created Just War you fucking plebe

No.

>were the crusades justified based on our post enlightenment view of history

Probably not, but back then nobody cared.

No they were white supremacist wars against innocent muslims.

>Projecting 21st-century ethics onto early medieval geo-politics

why even?

No one cared about the crusades until it was used by the Arabs as a way to unite them during the European age of imperialism

To wallow in the sense of self-superiority, of course.

Muslims kinda deserved it, Ordodox didn't deserve it, Northern heretics absolutely deserved it.

No. The Byzantines wanted help fighting against the Seljuks and then some French knights tired of their shitty land decided to parlay that into attacking polities that hadn't even done anything directly antagonizing European Christians.

Why didn't they launch crusades into Iberia instead of the Levant?

Population pressure led to the Crusades.
And most other conflicts.
Justified is moot.

Yes, the Muslims were not keeping their end of the agreement that they'd stop expanding. Turks in Anatolia was not right.
All in all, the Crusades were a very small and insignificant thing, and the fourth had the biggest result, historically, and that had nothing to do with attacking Moslems.

Acting like the Crusades were the most wicked act in the history and completely unprovoked against the innocent Moslems is a bit silly when they had previously conquered half the Christian world.

The first few were justified due to the threat of islamic expansion into europe/byzantine territory, but after that, the crusades took a life of its own and became a shitshow

What happened at Antioch to cause the falling out between the Catholic armies and Alexios Komnenos?

That's because nobody really gave a shit at that point. The first few Crusades were basically an act of Catholic Solidarity: all the kings of western Christendom put aside their petty squabbles to go on a romp around the Holy Land to kill a few infidels. It was all jolly good fun.
Then, the 100 years war and the Plague happened, and that did Europe no favors

The Crusaders turning on the Romans was an inevitability, but that didn't come until a bit later.

You give a bunch of Norman second sons descended from warrior families command of an army in a wealthy land, and you expect them to just hand it over to the land's rightful owners (the Romans?) Not a chance.

You mean Tancred and Bohemond?

They were actually the only Princes who didn't swear an oath of allegance to Alexious.

>Some modern moralists might argue that they should not have resisted because the Romans were an oppressive regime whose soldiers would inevitably kill civilians, kill prisoners, rape women and such during a war
What kind of moron believes that?

Most current students at American Universities.

Have heard from other students and personally experienced this kind of nonsense in my own experience with some professors at University.

T. UConn student USA

>Please no /pol/-tier answers.

If you don't want pol tier answers don't ask pol tier questions. What justified the crusades? Killing people because they believe in different imaginary things is beyond stupid, how can that justify anything?

>Pic related (it's (you))

How did you find my picture, I demand an answer!

Live in servitude to clergy all you like, just don't try to imply that whatever idiocy they pressure you in doing is somehow justified

>Christians lost 2/3rds of their playground to the muslims
>muslims spend almost 800 years fighting the Iberians(the Reconquista). It ends with the Inquisition. Spain has a golden age and is a world power within a century
>muslims invade Romania, oust Vlad's father,enslave and castrate his people, pike them. He breaks out and liberates his people, defeating the puppet king who took his place
>200 years after the crusades end, Vienna in the heart of Europe is besieged yet again by the Muslims. Other Christians come to their aid
>there simply weren't enough Crusades to prevent that from happening

>the pic when /pol/ was right about them

Yes, they were fucking based. Awooo! BTFO mooselambs. Shout out my fellow pedes from the_donald!

Most people who are university trained in anything but history. Essentially, they believe history is one big corpse synod where they wave their finger in shame at the poor, silly savages who don't conform to [the current inalienable moral standard of the decade]

>Haha, History is just a series of facts, and morality shouldn't be interpreted ethically
>Oh, the Crusades were terrible, and Christians are culpable for attacking Muslim lands, the lands they conquered in the first place from Christians

Justified? Do you mean justified in our privileged view? Our 20/20 hindsight? One of the greatest mistakes when looking at history is trying to hold people in the past to the moral standards of the present.

But, yes, they were. I wouldn't be surprised if all of you here were anglos or northern European, so maybe this isn't important in your history, but look at Spain. Since the 700's, the Iberian Peninsula came under attack by what we might generalize as muslims, and it expanded until overtaking much more than half the territory of the modern Iberian Peninsula. The Spanish themselves were not able to expel the muslims until the 1400's I think.

Just that is enough cause, Islam had expanded throughout all the middle east in lands, slaughtering christians in North Africa, attacking fucking ROME the heart of Christendom, not to mention Italy (or whatever it was back then), etc.

The Crusades, at least the first one was absolutely necessary, at least to drive back Islam.

Regardless of your opinions on the matter, it's obvious you have no understanding of the historical events being discussed.

>first few Crusades
>Solidarity
>put aside their petty squabbles

Are you serious? You know how much shit they all gave each other?
It's a miracle that they actually reached Jerusalem and managed to take it.

So absolutely...

>not showing Constantinople sack that was the nail in the coffin for middle eastern christianity
It's like he wants to fit a certain narrative...

Moral universalism is the worst, my 10th grade history teacher nearly ruined this subject for me. 99% of his class had a morality spin on it. I don't give a shit whether or not you thought X was bad just tell me what happened and let me decide.

>Were the Crusades justified or not?

Of course they were. The Arabs conquered the holiest cities of Christianity - Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage etc. and then were surprised that eventually the Christians might come back for them.

We shuouldn't judge the events of the past with a actual perspective as the muslims.

Luther had argued against resisting the Turks in his 1518 Explanation of the Ninety-five Theses, provoking accusations of defeatism. He saw the Turks as a scourge sent by God to punish Christians, as agents of the Biblical apocalypse that would destroy the antichrist, whom Luther believed to be the papacy, and the Roman Church.[174] He consistently rejected the idea of a Holy War, "as though our people were an army of Christians against the Turks, who were enemies of Christ. This is absolutely contrary to Christ's doctrine and name".[175]

Resbond blease

>Muslims
>Superior
Pick one an only one
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ascalon

>Franks
>Superior
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hattin

When they first departed from constantinople the Crusaders agreed that any and all territory captured was to be returned to the Byzantine empire.
When the Crusaders (specifically Bohemond and his men) captured Antioch they instead kept the city for themselves and started the principality if Antioch, something the Komnenos didn't take kindly to.

>Outnumber your enemy by 150%
>Win
What a great achievement!

Byzantines wanted to regain control of "roman" clay
Crusaders wanted to sack cities, get rich and grab some clay for themselves
When they arrived at Antioch and held the long and exhausting siege, they felt that they Byzantines did not really help them that much, were cowards and traitors and therefore they didn't really have any obligations to give up the city. Especially Behemont who forced the others to decide between supporting his claim to Antioch, which he could access through contact with a traitor inside the city or meeting the Seljuk relief force in front of the city walls.

>this bullshit map again
Go back to rebbit brainlet

Well they weren't based on a blatantly obvious lie so they were a step up from more recent moves in the region.

Well the crusaders hoped for serious military support. Instead the Byzantines only send 2000 men who fled the Antioch siege and an army under Alexios turned back to Constantinople when he learned that Antioch was taken, then besieged by a large Seljuk army.
He could have relieved the city and press the Byzantine claims after.
Instead the starving outnumbered crusaders BTFO the turks themselfs and Bohemonds claims to the city were at that point pretty much justified desu

Not really but its not like the islamic conquests were any more justifified.

>Carthage

3rd crusade was the best, prove me wrong.

Bohemond wanted some clay for himself real bad