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The Spectacle Blog
Perhaps a better title would be something like Don’t Allow the Crusades to be Thoughtlessly Added to a Parade of Christian Horribles without Knowing More about It, but I wanted to get your attention.
Rodney Stark’s God’s Batallions is an outstanding book designed to help the educated reader (not only the academic reader) understand the Crusades. You know the routine. You want to talk about Christianity and the village atheist wonders just how you are getting past the horrors of the Crusades and the Inquisition. This book answers the question with regard to the Crusades. Stark brilliantly explains how the Crusades started, what happened in the course of events, and why they finally ended. All in all, the western church comes off pretty sympathetically. Readers who know Stark find it easy to trust him because he always questions excessive claims and makes sure to back his own assertions up with data.
What becomes clear is that the Crusades failed for three reasons.
First, despite the fact that the westerners regularly decimated their Muslim rivals in combat thanks to superior tactics and technology, they were always on the wrong end of a numbers game. The western armies arrived in the Holy Land already diminished from disease and harrying attacks along the way. They never had large enough armies to begin with. And whenever they secured their objectives, a substantial number of troops and/or nobles would return home leaving ridiculously small numbers to hold on, which amazingly, they did for decades at a time.
Second, Crusading was expensive. Although it has been suggested the Crusades were about wealth, nobles didn’t get rich on them. They borrowed, scraped, and imposed heavy taxes just to be able to afford equipping, paying, and feeding their armies. When they captured an area, the land was not revenue-producing in the same way their European farm land was.
Third, the Byzantines never came through with the help they promised. Crusaders regularly expected help from the Comnenus family of rulers which began the Crusades by appealing to the pope for help. But the help was virtually never forthcoming. Had the Byzantine empire allied itself with the Crusaders, the Holy Land might still be in Christian hands today.
Read for yourself. I found the book highly enjoyable. Rodney Stark has reached the point to which many academics aspire. He writes about things that interest him for a mass audience with the aid of a major publishing company (Harper). And the books come to us rather than sitting staidly in university libraries.
View all comments (36) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Hunter Baker
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/02/26/stop-apologizing-for-the-crusa
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grant1863| 2.26.10 @ 3:14PM
Would that be the Byzantine Empire who's capital was sacked in 1204 by the Crusaders? Some cooperation!!
Sean| 2.26.10 @ 3:15PM
Add to that a lot of infighting amongst the Crusader states and military orders. Despite all that it is amazing how close the Crusades came to taking control of key objectives like Egypt and Damascus.
Missy| 2.26.10 @ 3:25PM
Mao and Stalin slaughtered hundreds of millions in the 20th century--why no apologies for these monsters' misdeeds?
ACynic| 2.27.10 @ 4:36PM
Because it matters not how many are exterminated or who are the victims.
What matters is WHO did the exterminating.
So if Stalin (killed 30 million) or Mao (killed 70 million), it is OK because Stalin and Mao were leftist progressive communists. Therefore it is OK.
If Hitler killed 10 million in the gas chambers, and if the left wing progressive communists had assigned Hitler to be a left wing communist progressive, well, the 10 million dead would have been OK too. Just a minor mis-step in seeking heaven on earth. After all, the ends justifies the means. Sometimes you need to crack a few eggs to make an omelette.
On the flip side, if Pinochet, defined as a right wing fascist by the progressive left wing communist mass murderers, killed, say 1000 progressive left wing communist mass murderers, than, by all means, hunt this man down, and prosecute him 40 years after the fact, regardless where in the world he may be.
So, there you have it.
It really is rather simple
Sam| 2.27.10 @ 10:04PM
Whoa Whoa whoa slow down! It is not that simple at all. I need to set a few things straight Who on the left appreciates these mass murderers? I don't know of any that do and the ones who do- why even bother taking such fools seriously?
The only reason people ever bring up the Crusades is when Christians rail against Muslims and their extremism. Don't act all shocked because the Muslim extremists are just as much a fringe group as the Crusading Christians. Did you know that less than 10% of Muslims worldwide live in the Middle East? And that the largest Muslim country is Indonesia?
Just as such a small segment of Islamdom (most of whom are not terrorists) should not reflect on their whole religion, the Crusades, the KKK, Army of God, Christian Identity, and Christian Patriots should not reflect on all of Christendom.
Missy| 2.28.10 @ 4:18AM
Hmmm. When were the Crusades? About a thousand (or so) years ago, right? That's 1000 years ago, a millennium in the past and a REALLY long time ago!
And you're trying to compare the Crusades of a thousand years ago to Muslim extremist terrorism and barbarity of TODAY, right now--the present?
Well, at least WE'VE evolved--what's the Muslims' excuse?
You Leftist atheists really have to stop living in the past--and I mean the thousand year old past! And you really do need to apologize for the savagery of Mao and Stalin (don't get me started on Pol Pot, Castro and Lenin).
Doofus.
Missy| 2.28.10 @ 4:25AM
Bingo, ACynic! You win the prize--your answer is exactly the one I was looking for.
Commie libs are always looking to push their agenda 0n us. It gets real old.
M. Bouffant | 2.26.10 @ 3:47PM
So, the only thing wrong w/ the Crusades is that the "Christians" didn't have enough troops, they spent too much money, & the dirty Byzantines didn't help enough.
And if it weren't for those factors, all that oil there would be Christian oil today!!
A more fitting title might be, "Why We Lost The Crusades: It Wasn't Our Fault, So We're Not Apologizing, And How Much Better Would Things Have Been If We Had Won?"
JP| 2.26.10 @ 4:27PM
"So, the only thing wrong w/ the Crusades is that the "Christians" didn't have enough troops, they spent too much money, & the dirty Byzantines didn't help enough"
Mmmm.... in a period of just a few centuries, Islamic armies invaded, conquered all of the Arabian Penninsula, North Africa, Spain, and large portions of Persia and what is today Afghanistan. In the 8th Century, Islamic armies invaded France; Islamic prirates and mauraders constantly raided the shores of Sicily, Italy, the Balkans (which they would later conquer). They sacked and burned Rome and the Vatican a number of times, and spent the best part of the High Middle Ages invading and defeating Byzantium.
In thier wake, the Muslim victors forced the conversions of most of the defeated populace; thier maurading navies captured indigenous people and enslaved them (BTW, the slave trade is alive in well in East Africa and other Muslim regions to this day).
By the 17th Century, the Califphate overan all of what is today Turkey, all of the Balkans, Rumania, Hungary, and got to the gates of Vienna before they were stopped for good. Nope, the Muslims posed no threat to Europe.
Teflon93 | 2.26.10 @ 4:57PM
Oh, you've done it now---the Orthodox apologists will be out in force.
If there's anybody with a more ahistoric, hysterical, and biased view of The Crusades, it's them.
Fact is, the Byzantines wanted cheap mercenaries---the cheapest in that they didn't want to pay. The Crusaders expected to rely on well-provisioned Imperial roads but found the Byzantines unprepared and unwilling to support large forces moving through their territories to fight the enemy.
It would be akin to the French begging Brits and Yanks for help fighting the Nazis only to not lift a finger or spend a franc in the process, and whine endlessly about it all the while.
Oh wait, that happened too....
Chris| 2.26.10 @ 5:27PM
"Would that be the Byzantine Empire who's capital was sacked in 1204 by the Crusaders? Some cooperation!! "
It got sacked after the Byzantine emperor, that the Crusaders put on the throne, reneged on his promise of support. Anyways, that was like the 4th Crusade long after the Byzantines had shown themselves to be unreliable partners.
Bouffant, maybe you should read the book. Then you might understand the thinking behind the Crusades.
Jim Hlavac | 2.26.10 @ 6:50PM
Maybe the Catholic Europeans and the Pope should apologize for the Crusades. I doubt it, but maybe. Meanwhile, I'm neither Catholic, nor European by several generations. There were no Protestants in the Crusades. In fact, too, my ancestors were anti-pope as far back as the burning of Jan Hus in 1415, probably before -- ergo, I, nor any American, need apologize for the Crusades whatsoever. Let the Pope and the royal families of Europe still floating around apologize if they wish. There is still a Louis XIX of France running around, claiming the French throne, what say he?
We here "apologized" with our feet and left that besotted continent of hate, death, destruction and mayhem.
Not only that, there is no way to even trace our lineages back that far, so who knows where our ancestors 800 or 900 years ago were? But there is a direct link between the Hapsburgs of Spain today and the Hapsburgs of 1215 with Rudolf II on the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. So let Juan Carlos II Hapsburg of Madrid give apology.
We Czechs fought Rudolf II and his kids too, culminating in the death of Ottakar Premysl II in 1278 -- so what on earth does any of this have to do with me today in the bastion (fast falling) of liberty on these shores, not known during the Crusades, during the Medieval Warm Period (different debate, oops,) but still, way back when?
And will the Muslims apologize to the Goths and Gauls for the pillaging, raping and murdering they did on the way to Poitiers in the 870s? Which was some 200 years before the first Crusade was but a twinkling in the eye of Louis IX of France.
And I suppose to we should get the Italians, aka Romans, to apologize to Jews for having thrown the Jews out of Jerusalem in AD 70 or so, and for destroying the Temple of David -- for if they were left there, with that Temple still standing, the ridiculous debate of what happened since then would be pretty moot.
Meanwhile, the Arabs should thank their lucky stars that we Americans found and pumped the oil which makes them something more than sand drift and camel monitors as their ancestors were.
Tony in Central PA| 2.26.10 @ 8:28PM
There seems to be some kind of historical assumption by a lot of people that Middle Easterners and North Africans eagerly converted to Islam. In the next generation or two, many of the Europeans who believe this fairy tale will have some firsthand experience with how this works. Good luck !
Teflon93 | 2.26.10 @ 9:33PM
For anyone interested in such things, John Julius Norwich has the best and most balanced history of the Byzantine Empire with an excellent 3-volume set.
For a corrective on Islam's alleged "non-aggression" for much of the period, I direct you to "Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters" which is particularly good on the coastal slave raids Muslims undertook throughout the Mediterranean.
Flatdog| 2.27.10 @ 10:02AM
The Islamic slave raiders ranged far out of the Mediterranean, enslaving British and Irish people and even venturing as far north as Iceland. And it didn't come to an end until 1830.
And I can corroborate what JP wrote about East Africa. In 1972, I lived in Mombasa, Kenya. I remember the Kenya Police raiding an Arab Dhow in Mombasa's Old Harbor, and discovering the hold was filled with African school children. They were bound for slavery in Yemen.
Teflon93 | 2.27.10 @ 7:08PM
Excellent point!
One of our first wars after the Revolution was against the Barbary pirates, Muslims who among other things were slavers. The "...to the shores of Tripoli" line from the USMC anthem is a reference to how America finally fought back after paying tribute for some years.
Seems like we always need to relearn old lessons. And isn't the real point of political correctness to ensure we never do?
leo6955| 2.26.10 @ 11:20PM
I haven't read any of stark work before but the way you support him make me read his book as well , i always wanted to know more and more about crusade , i will make sure to find some time and read this book for sure, keep up the good work CSS Menu Generator
bmatkin| 2.27.10 @ 2:09AM
The excesses of Saladin did not end until the 1920's.
What was started by Saladin was only enhanced by Ataturk with the massacre and genocide of Armenians, the ruthless sacking of Smyrna.
The Turks were probably guilty of close to 3 million dead by genocide. So much for the "religion of peace"
As usual the Christians there were betrayed by the Byzantines namely Britain and the rest of Europe who failed to help and defend even though they had the resource at hand.
The entire middle east used to be Christian before the lovely warlords of Islam worked their charm. Anyone get taught this stuff in School??
I wasn't.
The golden age of Islam lasted exactly long enough for the captured Christian scholars to expire and their knowledge to be ground into history.
Welldoneson| 2.27.10 @ 2:52AM
Were Moslems involved in the destruction of the library at Alexandria? This seems likely.
Pingback| 2.27.10 @ 6:16AM
The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Stop Apologizing for the … | centralafrican links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 2.27.10 @ 6:21AM
The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Stop Apologizing for the … Information links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Yosemeti Sam| 2.27.10 @ 10:00AM
Coulda, woulda, shoulda - maximization of
efforts.
Sadly - the politics of the Crusades.
Curiously - failure of the Church in Rome ? - its'
proponents were not forward looking.
Hmmmm.
Nowhere - in the New Testament Bible - was
there an exhortation of crusading by force
of arms to the 'securing ' of any Holy lands.
That was reserved - for the Second Coming.
Thomas| 2.27.10 @ 12:06PM
Let;s see, should Christians apologize for the crusades? Should the Russians apologize for invading Poland? How about the Muslims apologizing for conquering a large portion of the Mediterranean area and putting much of the indigenous populations to the sword or in chains? Let's not forget the Japanese during the mid-20th century. Then there are the Mongols, the Huns, the Aztecs, the Apache, the French, the British, the Chinese, the United States and every other group that has ever harmed others. How long does it take before we can quit visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children?
Those responsible for the Crusades are D E A D, dead. The living bear no responsibility for any actions that occurred at that time. It is always interesting to expose historical untruths and those abound with regard to the period of the Crusades. But, the sons, on both sides, are not responsible for the debt of the fathers.
Sheila| 2.27.10 @ 3:26PM
Teflon93, you made me laugh, when most comments leave me shaking my head in disgust at the ignorance so prominently displayed. I have read some interesting fictionalized accounts of the relevant time period; this review has piqued my curiosity enough that I will read the book. I could use a afield manual in preparation for Western Europe's defeat and Muslim victory.
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