[GCFL-discuss] Crusades

[gcfl-discuss at gcfl.net]

>From all the facts I have ever read, the Crusades were not in
retaliation for Muslims overtaking all of Europe, because no Muslim army
ever overtook all of Europe.

The part of Europe with the longest period of Muslim rule was Spain --
which was a patchwork series of little kingdoms where Muslim and
Christian knights went back and forth in their individual alliances and
allegiances. Christians fought one year for a Muslim prince, another for
a Christian prince. In the end, a couple of Christian kingdoms pushed the
last Muslim armies out -- after maybe 700 years. The Crusades happened
somewhere in between, having little to do with any Spanish forces.

The part of Europe with the next longest period of Muslim rule was the
south eastern Slavic areas, which were not even entered by the Turkish
empire until after the fall of Constantinople in the 1400s, long after
the Crusades.

The Crusades were fought primarily by armies from England, France and
Germany, areas that were never under Muslim rule at any time. The first
Crusade was a response to a change in policy toward pilgrims to
Jerusalem. Under the Arab Caliphates, Christian pilgrims were freely
allowed to come and go, but after the Turks took over (500 years after
Muhammed's successors established the Caliphate), there was at least some
greater hostility and harrassment. After that it was a fight over
territory between various competing little dukes and emirs, for another
hundred years or so.

In short, it was mostly politics, not religion, and there were radically
different policies on the part of various different Islamic regimes, as
well as a good deal of infighting between Christian leaders in the midst
of the Crusades.

Siarlys


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