The Crusades - A HARD TRUTH

Yeah I said it, if you disagree with me, write your own essay and reference it.

Primary

Gesta Francorum, p.92 Albert of Aachen, VI 20. Fulcher of Chatres p.304; Ibn al-Athir, p.198
Gibb, Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen. “The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades: extracted and translated from the Chronicle of Ibn Al-Qalanisi.” Courier Corporation, 2012. 41-72
Ibn al-Arabi quoted in Rabo, Omar Abed. "Islamic cultural-religious life in Jerusalem on the eve of the First Crusade." In Exploring Outremer Volume I. Routledge, 2023. 24-43
Lemkin, Raphael. “Lemkin on Genocide.” Lexington books, 2012. 1-51
Laden, O. B. "Declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places: Expel the polytheists from the Arabian peninsula (August 23, 1996)." B. Lawrence & A, Karim (Eds.), On violence (2007)
Peter the Venerable quoted in Riley-Smith, Jonathan, and Susanna A. Throop. “The Crusades: A history.” Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022. 132
Pinker, Steven. “The Better Angels of Our Nature: The decline of violence in history and its causes”. Penguin UK, 2011.
W. Miller, trans., Xenophon “Cyropaedia Books 5–8” (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914

Secondary

Asbridge, Thomas. “The First Crusade: A New History.” Simon and Schuster, 2012. 295-320
Barber, Malcolm. "The Order of Saint Lazarus and the crusades." The Catholic historical review 80, no. 3 (1994): 439-456.
Evans, H.E quoted in Kelly J. Baker, “Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America 1915-1930”, Lawrence University of Kansas Press, 2011, 114
Fudge, Thomas A. “The Crusade against Heretics in Bohemia, 1418–1437: sources and documents for the Hussite crusades.” Routledge, 2017.
Herman, Edward S., and David Peterson. “The politics of genocide.” NYU Press, 2010.
Hillenbrand, Carole. “The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives.” Psychology Press, 1999. 131-134
Huff, Livingstone M. "The Crusades and Colonial Imperialism: Some Historical Considerations Concerning Christian-Muslim Interaction and Dialogue." Missiology 32, no. 2 (2004): 141-148.
Koch, Ariel. "The new crusaders: Contemporary extreme right symbolism and rhetoric." Perspectives on terrorism 11, no. 5 (2017): 13-24.
Knobler, Adam. "Holy wars, empires, and the portability of the past: The modern uses of medieval crusades." Comparative Studies in Society and History 48, no. 2 (2006): 293-325.
Murray, Alan V., and A. Classen. "The demographics of urban space in Crusade-period Jerusalem (1099–1187)." Urban space in the middle ages and the early modern age (2009): 205-24.
Spencer, Robert. “A Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't.” Simon and Schuster, 2007.

[insoniac]

Error, instructions unclear, currently sacking Constantinople.

[Jimbo-dr]

This genocide talk doesn't really understand medieval sieges - it was pretty standard for sieges to be negotiated between attacker and defender - "If my reinforcements don't arrive by the summer equinox we open the gates, and in return we get to live" was a pretty typical sort of agreement. And if these agreements didn't happen, and the attackers breached the city by force after a protracted siege, you slaughtered the defenders to the last man and pillaged the city as punishment to the defenders and a reward to your own long suffering soldiers. This was standard practice where fortresses were used - SandRhoman covers this stuff really well.

[Swan_River_Cowboy]

I see in no way how this comment section will be heated at all

[awesomehpt]

Apparently Prince Tancred attempted to actually save the lives of some of the people of Jerusalem by giving them his banner. Which was meant to signify they were under his protection. Unfortunately this didn’t work but this is more evidence that not all crusaders had the same hostile attitude to the local population as is often depicted.

[brianoneil]

The oversimplification of history to impose modern context onto past events is an attempt to eradicate that history. Calm, rational address of historical events is not often done in these times.
Bravo sir, bravo!

[FrisoGorter]

Ukraine's Holodomor wasn't the only genocide being perpetrated at the time. Kazakh famine of 1930–1933 -- wiped out ~40% of the Kazakh population; for the same reason.

[thecatinthefedora]

This is something my ethics professor spoke about, the overuse of genocide in areas where it doesn't fit so well (such as The Crusades) not only waters down the term itself, but also obfuscates actual crimes against humanity committed.

[MichalisG]

As a historian (of Byzantine History), I am so glad to see you setting the record straight here. I've seen a lot of revisionism making headway in the West recently regarding the Crusades, particularly about how they were a totally offensive and entirely genocidal act by Europe. I've spent much time explaining to many friends of mine how the First Crusade was largely a continuation of the Byzantine-Seljuk Wars, as it was the Byzantine Emperor who (somewhat inadvertently) triggered the First Crusade. And this idea that the Crusaders were genocidal in the Holy Land is entirely false. As you correctly pointed out, we are well aware that this was not a genocidal act because we have clear evidence of Crusaders behaving in such a way in other places and against other enemies (The Baltic Pagans and the Cathars come to mind). The history of the Crusades have lately come to be used by many particularly in the west as a political tool, and this is a perfect example.

[cschroeder]

It is extremely hard to get students to not look at history from a modern perspective. Have been trying in my classes, but modern judgment makes it very hard to look at the past objectively.

[seanquigley]

You hit the nail on the head when you said "We can't keep forcing our 21st Century views on subjects we study in history. Or else we loose the understanding of how it happened and we will just end up repeating the same mistakes." Excellent video, really enjoyed this one for the history you brought to light and the common sense mythbusting you performed here.

[zlatko]

Please make more videos like this one and the Carolingian renaissance. They are really good.

Videos re-examining general myths and common conceptions are very interesting and thought provoking.

Thank you, and have a happy new year

[farnowofeverything]

Hey yo let's go to the holy land: Sacks Mannheim for no reason whatsoever

[DHBucsFan]

Ridley Scott can also shoulder some of the blame for modern perceptions of the crusades thanks to his film Kingdom of Heaven and how it portrayed the crusaders and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

[frostyguy]

It seems the historian is cursed to try his hardest in the face of his own biases to get to the truth, only to have his work willfully misinterpreted by politics and pop culture.

[colindunnigan]

Rhodesia? Indian Partition? Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear. You do have your work cut out.

[SilentCyRadioShow]

It's funny how the algorithm doesn't help you unless you do something controversial, but if your controversial topic isn't something they agree with it also doesn't help you. Yup. Ultimate platform right there. Only let one type of thought reach the masses, because that's how you get people to be open-minded.

[geodkyt]

Modern people, *particularly* those that do not understand how the Laws of War work or were actually developed over history, cannot grasp the idea that, in pre-modern warfare, the sacking of a city and massacre of the residents was not only *in accordance with* the Laws of War at the time, it was done in lawful reprisal specifically *because the defenders had VIOLATED the accepted Laws of War* .

The critical point is understanding the true purpose.ofnthe Laws of War and how they develop.

*The Laws of War do not exist to make warfare "nice", "clean", or "civilized".* The Laws of War are intended to *reduce the overall cost of war* by encouraging negotiations and surrender over destroying everything of value (including the population).

Thus, why sacking a city if it fails to surrender when required by the norms was not an "atrocity" by the then existing Laws of War. It was intended to discourage futile defenses that could have no logical ending other than the amount of destruction and death in the city.

Why keep defending if the only result is that you have to repopulate and rebuild more, when you could have avoided that expense either seeing an unstoppable.force arranged outside the gates, or after the first "practicable breach" was made in the defenses, or after being besieged for X days without a relief column showing up?

Note there was no corresponding penalty for *successfully* repelling an attack - that was considered to be bad leadership on the part of the *attackers* and thus the penalty falls on the attacking force in the form of the blood and treasure lost in the attempt.

[joebloggs]

in 614ad the Judeo-Parsian army actually DID genocide Jerusalem. But I guess its always Christians fault😂😂😂😂

[free_at_last]

We can all thank the Crusades for bringing kitchen sinks to Europe.
So useful for washing Saladin.

[GermanConquistador]

Modern People:
"People starting wars over religion, what nonsense!"

>Starts war over what color hat Karl Marx wants us to wear.
>Builds camps for people who don't want to hear the hat.