Talk:The Crusades

My good lord, this is perhaps the greatest whitewashing of historical fact I have ever seen. Where is the information about the power crazed Pope? What about the slaughter of entire towns and the sacking of Constantinople? This page's analysis is a joke and thus, it has been deleted. There are barely any references at all on a subject that still affects us today. -Xenuite

'...greatest whitewashing of historical fact I have ever seen...' Don't get out much do you? For what it shows it is pretty straightforward, and evenhanded. It can be expanded. Learn together 14:40, 15 February 2008 (EST)

xenuites dramatic flare aside. what he saying is true. this article doesn't mention any of the atrocities of the crusades. when the crusaders took Jerusalem they slaughtered the whole city, Muslim, Christian, and Jew alike. the crusaders were not noble in the slightest. a good way to think of crusaders would be to compare them to modern day Jihadis. crazed fighters unafraid to kill innocents because they believe there on a mission from god to "kill the infidel". anyone who identifies with a crusader is either ignorant of a fool. these were not good people! Gailim 01:04, 24 February 2008 (EST)

I disagree. There were atrocities, but Jerusalem was hardly the only city ever taken and many other places did not receive the same treatment. They were upset at a population that was fighting for the forces of Islam which had originally conquered the lands by the sword. In the Crusaders eyes, they were the liberators. The Crusades were fought over a couple of hundred years. To take isolated examples and make them the sole norm of what the Crusades were is unfair to the overall reality of what occurred. Learn together 18:10, 24 February 2008 (EST)

I don't know much about the crusades, but be careful using the logic of "in the Crusaders eyes, they were the liberators". The Nazi's had a pretty high opinion of themselves as well. HelpJazz 18:27, 24 February 2008 (EST)

If the Crusaders acted like the Nazis, then I would agree. But too much of what is being taught about the Crusades today fixates on points/places in time (yes there were atrocities) and misses the total picture. The truth is they were a mixed lot fighting over a very complex issue. If your land is taken by force do you have the right later on to take it back? If so, after how much time has passed? Why is the original forced conquest barely mentioned and only the reconquest condemned? At the time the Crusades started, the Muslim Empire was twice the size of Christian Europe, and it had spread entirely by the sword (and would again a couple of centuries after the Crusades under the Ottomans). Was it wrong to harness the fighting spirit that was common during that time period and turn it against an outside threat? There are no easy answers, and certainly no definitive 'bad guys'. Learn together 18:36, 29 February 2008 (EST)

I would like to point out that king Richard and Saladin did not have that much respect for each other as the article claims. When Richard first captured acre he held 3000 muslims hostage and demanded an obscene amount of gold and the release of several christian prisoners of war including a number of select prisoners. Saladin paid the ransom except for a few of the select prisoners and Richard (after receiving the ransom) Saw this as a breach of the agreement and slaugthered the prisoners, most of them civilians -toby

Time and resources were on the side of Saladin. Saladin wanted to keep Richard from advancing and knew he could not do so with his prisoners. He stalled to get Richard to run out of supplies and give himself time to mount a defense and Richard showed him he was serious the way that they would in that time period. In the end Richard was unable to take Jerusalem when Saladin continued to attack that same weakness by retreating with a "scorched earth" policy including poisoning all wells so Richard would run out of food and water. Their admiration was seen in their coming to an arrangement to end the Crusade after personally talking with each other, an arrangement that both men trusted and honored. Learn together 03:20, 8 March 2008 (EST)

Gottschalk

There are many reasons to favor the information as written. 1) Durant barely mentions him 2) He operated quickly; nobles take time to gather an army as did the others who actually answered the call 3) He is never given a title, unlike Count Emicho right under him 4) He did not fight in the Holy Land, an oddity for a noble with an army of 10,000 -- which would have been one of the largest assembled. 5) He should have been sought after extensively to join the Crusade -- he was not

All indications point to the idea that your source is embellishing. It's not the first time a writer of a book has done so. Learn together 21:14, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

I'll drop the whole Gottschalk thing, although Thomas Asbridge in The First Crusade writes, "Historians long believed that these atrocities were the work of uncontrolled peasant mobs, a vile distortion of the crusading ideal at the hands of the illiterate, undisciplined masses. The unsettling reality is that, although peasants did make up a large portion of the People's [Crusade's] expedition, most contingents... were led by knights. ... Certainly no rabble, this contingent, thousands strong, was a potent military force.... The pogroms of 1096 were not simply random, rogue incidents, nor were they necessarily misrepresentative of the ideals that drove the First Crusaders." You'll forgive the ramshackle quote; it's a long section. Perhaps we can compromise and change it from the current version:

A smaller group of peasants led by Gottschalk took out their fervor on a more local target, Jews along their path. Their actions were condemned by the Church and the local populace.[2][3] A much larger threat against Jews took the form of a larger mob led by Count Emico of Leiningen, who was more organized and more brutal. Already a man with a sullied reputation, he ignored the pleas of the Bishops in town after town to desist. Apart from being hidden by the local populace when they heard Emico was coming, there was little the Jews could do. Previously in Europe, local difficulties against Jewish communities would rise from time to time in various places, but would be isolated to that local area. This started a phase not previously seen, a systematic effort to weed out and attack Jewish communities.

To this version:

Smaller forces led by local noblemen took out their fervor on a more local target, Jews along their path. Their actions were condemned by the Church and the local populace.[2][3] A much larger threat against Jews took the form of a larger mob led by Count Emico of Leiningen, who was more organized and more brutal. Already a man with a sullied reputation, he ignored the pleas of the Bishops in town after town to desist. Apart from being hidden by the local populace when they heard Emico was coming, there was little the Jews could do. Previously in Europe, local difficulties against Jewish communities would rise from time to time in various places, but would be isolated to that local area. This started a phase not previously seen, a systematic effort to weed out and attack Jewish communities in mass pogroms.

I think this small change would satisfy us both, yes?--Tom Moore^{fiat justitia ruat coelum} 17:36, 6 June 2008 (EDT)