Crusades in Catholic Education

I ran across an interesting link leading to a Catholic education website. The specific link I provide here is the website's section on the crusades. Unfortunately, the website only provides a brief summary of the highlights of the crusades as a whole. One thing did stand out right away though. The Christian leaders are definitely portrayed very heroically and almost surrealistically. Does the Catholic education source provide biased teaching material because of the religious factor? You check it out:

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0010.html

A Very Long Walk In The Park

I feel like a major part of the Crusades that is often overlooked was the actual journey to get to the Holy Land itself, not just the conflict/fighting that was done once the Crusaders had arrived. I mean, in some Crusades (most notably the First and Second) people would walk by land the entire way from Western Europe to the Holy Land, not being shipped over across the Mediterranean Sea. That's pretty inconceivable. The distance from Paris to Jerusalem, for example, is just over 2000 miles, and that's if you travel as the crow flies, which is impossible because the Mediterranean Sea stands in the way. That is an incredible distance to travel on foot. Imagine walking one marathon a day, every day, for close to three months, and that's about the distance some of these Crusaders had to traverse. Just doing this without any hardships would be an amazing accomplishment-- but then you have to factor in (to the First Crusade) the battles fought along the way to the Holy Land, in such places as Nicaea and Antioch. Undoubtedly there was something strong motivating these Crusaders to march on, whether it be the promise of redemption or riches.
Anyway, all of this got me to thinking about the type of footwear that the Crusaders used on their multi-thousand mile journey, but I really couldn't find that too much on it. I did find that as a result of the Crusades, shoe styles from the Byzantine Empire were brought back to Western Europe, including the characteristically Medieval long-pointed shoes. These were called crackowes or poulaines.

Crusading at it's Height

I've been looking at many websites for information but I found that lots are just too much to take in at once; almost like there way to spread out over the place or too random or they just aren't clear enough. Anyway, I found this website that is very clear and gives some really helpful information. Also, lots of the links here are primary sources!
Hope it helps!
-Abby

Crusading at it's Height

The Fourth Lateran Council

I wanted to know more about the Fourth Lateran Council so I looked at a few articles on http://www.questia.com/library/encyclopedia/lateran_council_fourth.jsp. The Fourth Lateran Council was convened in Rome by Pope Innocent III in 1215. It was summoned for the purpose of creating a list of canons to dictating the Pope's policies regarding the Church. These canons included minimum requirements for remaining a Christian, various disciplinary protocols, and arrangements for another crusade. The council caused the majority of soldiers still engaged in the Albigensian crusade to migrate east to support the fifth crusade. Simon of Montfort, controlling the Christian forces of the Albigensian Crusade, resorted to hiring mercenaries to conquer and control Toulouse.

Thoughts on Runciman

In preparation for the recent in-class debate, I was reading Steven Runciman's famous "The Summing-Up," from his "A History of the Crusades, vol. 3." Granted, I have not read his entire book; however, I was quite surprised by the quality (or lack thereof) of his chapter.
Throughout these ten pages of text, Runciman makes unsupported claims, doubles back on his arguments, and, reveals an extreme bias that feels more like blind accusation than scholarly hypothesis.

One example of this is Runciman's flat statement on the link between the Crusades and the beginning of the Renaissance. He argues that the Crusades had virtually nothing to do with Europe's emergence from the "Dark Ages," and consequent transformation to the period we now entitle "rebirth." However, one of the tenants of the Renaissance period was a push back towards classical learning, facilitated by access to ancient texts taken from the Byzantine Empire and the Middle East (a result of the Crusades). In addition, as Runciman himself points out later in his paragraph, the Crusades did facilitate and open trade between Europe and the Levant, another element in the development of the Renaissance.

Another example is Runciman's analysis of the Muslim world. He argues that the Crusades, by providing a distraction, drastically weakened Muslim presence in the in the Middle East. It is important to note, however, that the Muslim world was divided by both ethnic and religious sects. Turks, Abbasids, and Fatimids were all Muslim and enemies; they had been fighting wars before the Crusaders entered the picture, and they continued to fight when the Crusaders left. The Ottoman Empire, whose principal religion was Islam, lasted another half dozen centuries until the beginning of the twentieth century. Moreover, even with Crusader presence in the Middle East, Muslim influence still remained both strong and powerful.

One last example to offer: on pp. 398-399, Runciman writes: "The Italian Renaissance is a matter of pride for mankind. But it would have been better could it have been achieved without the ruin of eastern Christendom." However, his very next sentence is: "Byzantine culture survived the shock of the Fourth Crusade. In the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries Byzantine art and thought flowered in splendid profusion." How is it possible that eastern Christianity both was ruined and flourished at the same time?

Overall, I was very disappointed with Runciman, although it made my debate preparation a bit easier.
~C. Erba

Google Timelines

I was poking around the internet as a young adult is apt to do, and I discovered that the creative geniuses at Google have come up with another cool search engine. With this one you can search a key word (I used crusades, go figure) and then it will search the web for articles or pages that mention the keyword and a date. The timeline is also very adaptable and you can search specific years or look over a specific time period. I always love timelines to help get my dates in order and see what events could have affected each other and which ones are chronologically separated. So enjoy this new feature and I'm sure this will come in handy in other subjects besides the Crusades.

http://www.google.com/search?q=crusades&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&sa=X&tbo=p&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbs=tl:1,tl_num:100,tll:1200,tlh:1209&ei=-zJ-S9CFL4W1tgeU1MzEDw&oi=timeline_histogram_main&ct=timeline-histogram&cd=1&ved=0CLwDEMkBKAE

(Disclaimer: I might be the only one who does not know about this and as my girlfriend has informed me it has been around for a while, but I just found it so it seems exciting to me)

Medieval Sourcebook

I was trying to find credible sources online that could help out with the new debate assignment, essays, and everything basically. I came across this source, Medieval Sourcebook, which I think turned out to be pretty cool. That link will take you to a page that has basically, a table of contents. If you click on the link you'd like to get more information, you're taken to that page and all it's goodies. At the way bottom are the sources so you can check those out as well. Pretty awesome?

Abby P.

Crusades Songs and Troubadours

After reading The Song of Roland, I was interested in the kind of music that was popular during the time of the Crusades. As it turns out, the crusades were actually seen as a catalyst for music in Europe, partially because it increased contact with Islamic culture and music which influenced European artists, but mostly because of the rise of the troubadours. Before the crusades, the most common form of music was church-related, either being Gregorian Chant, a Sequentia or other similar forms. About the time of the Crusades, however, individual musicians began to rise. Many journeyed with the crusaders and wrote of their adventures, while more remained behind either in the service or a lord or as travelers. With the rise of chivalry, tales of honor, love and courage became very popular.

This website lists some details on the more famous of the troubadours, and even has some samples of their work.

-Peter C.

A couple recent mentions of "crusades" in the news

The above title naturally omits news stories about the chap "crusading" to save a pub, things of that sort. I'm referring to mentions such as that in Stafford Williamson's American Chronicle. The relevant passage appears below, since it's rather far down the page:

They´ve Gone Too Far - AND They "Broke" the Constitution

Where they went was to Iraq and Afghanistan, but in this case, it isn´t a who, it´s a what. It´s a WHAT?? Okay, that may be sloppy linguistic construction but the problem here is worth mentioning because it is the kind of arrogance that could spark a regional conflict into a global war that lasts a millennium. Pardon me, I mean, another millennium, because this one has already been going on since the Crusades, indeed, it IS the Crusades being resurrected by the same kind of intolerant religious fanatics who started the Crusades in the first place.

No, in case you didn´t pay attention in history class, I am NOT talking about the "Infidels" who captured the ancient biblical lands, I mean the Christians who were outraged by the fact that they had been relieved of control of the "holy lands" despite the generally peaceful and tolerant rule provided by Moslems then and now. That may not ring as a popular sentiment with some people, and I am sorry they have come to that conclusion because of a few hundred fanatics on the "other side" (which is to say, Moslems) who "hijacked" their religion for political purposes. But this is an action that could inflame Muslim sentiment around the world, and it should have been prevented by rules already in place that prohibit religious propaganda on government goods.

My concern here is not with the modern political content, as the article goes on to discuss the recent flap over that arms manufacturer labeling military weapons (not my business, given the general purpose of this blog), but with the casual (and untested) assumptions that a) medieval Muslim society was homogeneous, and b) Muslim rule in general was benevolent. Regarding point A, there was no single "Muslim society" in the 11th-13th centuries, something of which the Latin West was well aware, and of which the Egyptians, Arabs, and Turks were very aware. John France has done some excellent work regarding the constant infighting and warfare that plagued crusades-era Muslim society, just as Latin Christian society was afflicted with constant fighting. Regarding point B, the various sultanates, emirates, and other principalities did have a generally better track record in dealing with minorities than did the Latin West, but that has to be heavily contextualized and qualified, depending on time and place. Not to get into the business of making a numbers game of massacre, but it's worth remembering that Baybars' slaughter of Christians at Antioch and the Mongols' destruction of Baghdad made the capture of Jerusalem in 1099 rather pale in comparison. So, there's plenty of blame and atrocity to go around...

On the other hand, here's a letter to the editor which goes a bit too far in the other direction, particularly with this line:

I accept the fact that there were those Crusaders who sacked cities and treated people unjustly. However, these people were in the minority and were condemned or excommunicated by religious leaders.

Ummmm....no, not really. They weren't in the minority, and they weren't excommunicated. War in general was a nasty business, regardless of who fought it, and the "rules of war," while they did exist in various fashions, were too fragmented and uneven to apply in all circumstances. The negotiations between Richard and Saladin, and Richard's massacre of the prisoners of Acre, are both worth studying as examples of how "international" modes of diplomatic discourse and martial codes functioned in the 12th century.

Program up for St. Louis crusades conference

[This is brought over from my personal blog]

Well, the program for the crusades conference has been posted. This looks very exciting--not quite as exciting as that conference over in Syria and Jordan recently, but close. I'm afraid nothing quite beats going to a conference session in the Krak de Chevaliers...

Here's the link to the program: http://crusades.slu.edu/symposium/schedule.htm

The annoying thing is that the sessions are concurrent, which will necessitate a bit of jumping around--I've learned that, at events like this, time is too precious to adhere to the normal dictates of politeness and attend an entire session just to hear one paper. The chance to hear my former advisor, Eva Haverkamp, give what will doubtless be another excellent presentation, is my main reason for going. However, the program looks very exciting in any case, and I've observed that conferences are, for my own part, extremely exciting and dynamic occasions...Among the papers I'm looking forward to hearing (barring the plenary sessions, which will happen as a matter of course):

"Turks on the Hills: The Seljuks of Asia Minor Fighting Crusaders and Byzantium"
Roman Shlyakhtin, Central European University

"The Rhetoric of Reconquest: Pope Urban II and the Populus Christianus"
Matthew Gabriele, Virginia Tech University

"What Pope Urban II Understood by Crusading"
Paul E. Chevedden, Ctr. for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA

"Rough Diplomacy in the Crusade of Henry VI"
Daniel Webb, Saint Louis University

"National Identity, Language, and Internal Conflict in the Armies of the First Crusade"
Alan V. Murray, University of Leeds

"'A Man Totally Devoted to War and to God': The Spiritualization of Godfrey of Bouillon, 1100-1145"
Simon John, Swansea University

"The Self under Siege: Ideas of Identity and the "Other" in the Era of the Crusades"
Mith Barnes, University of Louisville

"Gregory VII and the Idea of a Military-Religious Order"
Paul Crawford, California University of Pennsylvania

"Visionary Intellectual or Ordinary Knight? The Early Career of Philip of Mézières"
Anne Romine, Saint Louis University

"The Last Crusade in Medieval Spain: the War for Granada (1482-1492)"
Bárbara Boloix-Gallardo, Washington University

"Ecclesiastical Chivalry: A New Model of the Military Orders"
Sam Conedera, S.J., Fordham University


Can't wait...

Welcome to Passagium Generale

Hello, and welcome to my blog, Passagium Generale: The Medieval Crusades. The immediate purpose of this blog is to provide my students with a forum to research and discuss the crusades, in both their medieval and modern aspects. The long-range goal of the project is to establish a scholarly, up-to-date discussion forum on all aspects of crusades history, art, literature, and archeology, to name a few fields.

So, welcome again, and look for various postings and discussions in the months to come.

--Daniel P. Franke, PhD candidate
Department of History
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY