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History 104A, November 9: The Crusades—Then & Now!

Well, we do have a group meeting today.

A Actually, it was on Monday but we missed it.

A I agree with her.

A I second that motion.

THE PROFESSOR: What, get rid of it?

A Yeah.

Q Can we do it for extra credit? There's nobody here.

THE PROFESSOR: That's the best time to have it because they all

lose all their points for not writing the paper. I'm a teacher.

We're nasty.

A But you're not like that.

THE PROFESSOR: Yes, I am.

In any case, today is our crusading day. I've always had an

interest in the crusades, but in many ways, today we're living through

crusades. And some of it is really very very similar in the sense

that -- first of all, there's a new movie out on TV called Crusades.

Kingdom of Heaven, did anybody see in?

A I can bring it in.

THE PROFESSOR: Any good?

A Yeah, it is.

THE PROFESSOR: Yeah. We haven't got time to watch it.

A Yeah, we do. We can watch it today.

A She has it in her backpack right now.

THE PROFESSOR: And perhaps a good reason for it. The fact is

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that in a sense since 1948 the West, being western Europe, has once

again created crusading states, this time perhaps not under

Christianity but under Judaism in Israel when Israel was created by

the establishment of this western outpost being Jewish or be it

Christian. The Muslim world saw there as an extension of an era that

they didn't put much attention on until recently.

A How come they don't like the holy land just like an international

zone.

THE PROFESSOR: Well, that was talk about creating an

international zone just Jerusalem which is holy to three religions,

Muslim, Hebrew, Jewish and Christian. Certainly with the Jews and the

Muslims, they are not really to compromise. And like many religions,

they're not willing to share.

A But I mean, they could just put a fence around it and charge

admissions like Disneyland and do strip searches.

THE PROFESSOR: I don't think that's a good analogy for Jews,

Christians or Muslims. I laugh because I thought it was funny, make

it a Disneyland where you charge admission to go.

A Not necessarily charge admission, but make it so that everyone

going in is searched. Make it so that you can only bring in a certain

amount of things and you can only stay for a certain amount of time.

Regulate it, but they all get their own peace, they stay away from

each other.

THE PROFESSOR: And nobody is saying that there's anything wrong

particularly with the idea, by only thing is, the practicality of it

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has been limited by the faiths themselves who are, at this point, very

very demanding and certainly that --

A Or just give them the ultimatum this we can just nuke it and then

there won't be anything nor everybody.

THE PROFESSOR: I think we would have trouble nuking it.

In any case, in the 11th century, 1000s, if you will, the Muslim

world was expanding as you can see into these areas. And today

another analogy we see, a Muslim world expanding perhaps on a

different level; but countries like Germany, France, many of western

European countries have quote/unquote imported Muslim laborers, in

Germany and in north Europe up through Denmark, large numbers of

Turks. In France, of course we have large numbers of Algerians and

Libyans and even some Moroccans who have moved into those countries as

part of the working class to the extent that these nations who have

been traditionally very much isolated -- we know the Germanic sense of

the racism that existed there under Hitler. The French, certainly

anybody who deals with them well knows that they won't even speak

French to you even if you speak it fluently if you don't have a

Persian accent. Each nation has its extreme nationalism and under

those particular indications it isn't too surprising that in France

today, for the last 12 days, there has been violence by the young

Muslim population along with a certain percentage of Africans from

Africa. The difference being that this Muslim expansion is dealing

with a working class. And so we are seeing the development in the

Christian quote/unquote world of another fear of a Muslim take over.

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Now, valid or not is not an issue.

Spain had been taken over by the Muslim starting in 711 when they

crossed into it. By the 12th century -- by the 11th century there was

a great Spanish leader whose often identified with nationalism in

Spain but he changed his alliance and worked very strong by with the

Moors the Muslims in Spain. And of course there are many songs done

around him, and his name as he had Cid C-I-D. And as I say, often

identified as a nationalistic leader far before nationalism expanded.

In a sense, the first crusades took place in Spain. In the

middle of the 11th century, the Pope gave to Spanish Christians

remission of sin if they died in warfare against the Muslim

population. Of course they didn't get the 72 virgins that's alleged

to be promised by the Koran for those that die against the infidel in

warfare. Remission of sin means, translated to, you go ahead to

heaven without passing go and without collecting the $200. The Pope

said any sins that you engaged in would be forgiven by Christ because

you died for Christ.

The basis for the crusading spirit was remission of sin. And

when Peter, often known as Peter the Hermit, returned from Jerusalem

in the area 1095, about 50 years after remission of sin was granted to

Spaniards of Christian origin we preached of the freeing of the holy

land of returning Jerusalem to Christianity as a holy city where

Christians went on pilgrimages. And because of the expansion of the

Muslims at the time of -- into this idea into the caliphate of Cairo

and before the Ottomans came in, there had been greater difficult for

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Christians to get there. There was also higher taxes that the Muslims

were demanding of these Christians moving in. And with the expanding

of Europe, there were more people who were willing to take the journey

to the holy land in a sense of doing good works and good deeds, if you

will. People of Europe rallied to Peter as a salesman. And the Pope

declared the first crusade. He offered any Christians who went out to

fight the infidel, the Muslims, salivation. And throughout Europe,

large numbers of unemployed poorer Christians set forth with a few

nobles. Most of the nobles who went on the first crusade were the

second, third, fourth brothers of the individual who was going to

inherit all the land of their noble father. Most of Europe had a

system called primogeniture. Primogeniture was the system where the

eldest son inherited the land without breaking it up among the

children. And that left the younger sons with income to do except

perhaps fight. Now, many of them did go into the clergy. And because

of their noble background, because of their wealth, if you will,

whatever that means, they often bought high posts as bishops or

cardinals in the church, but others were left to depend on their own

they became fighting men. If you have nothing to fight directly, you

head out to the holy with the crusade. And basically the first

crusade went by land and some by sea but mostly by land.

And of course what began to happen in its travels by land here,

into this area, here, into the area -- (see map) -- is that they

encountered Muslims and Jews. And so why worry about getting over

here to fight the infidel when you go through here and you see

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infidels like Jews and Muslims living in eastern Europe. They

eliminated cities partially because of religious purposes but perhaps

because of a more practical one. When you've got a mass of people

maybe as many as 100,000 in groups of 10,000 marching across Europe,

there's something known as foods that necessary. And where do you get

it? There are no supply lines to bring it from Europe. And so they

simply took it. As these masses of armies moved, people took to the

hills knowing that they would be eliminated. Many of the people in

eastern Europe had some wealth. That sense that they were fighting

for Christ also meant that we deserved the rewards on this Earth; and

therefore, they're owed to us, so why not take that wealth not just

from Jews and Muslims but from Christians who do not support us in our

crusade against the Muslims. To say to say the least, a very violent

movement to the east with some minimal success. In this area here --

(see map), we began to see the establishment from the first crusade a

number of crusading cities along the coast. And finally they did

succeed in this first crusade from 1096 to 1099, they did succeed in

capturing Jerusalem. And Jerusalem, once again, I guess you would say

became a Christian city. So all of this area along the coast here

became part of the crusading success. And into this area here -- (see

map) -- Christian establishments were created. However, we found that

the Muslims began to organize and recapture some of this area. And so

at around 1104, another large group of crusaders left to try and

reinforce the crusading states.

Perhaps one of the biggest and best known crusades though was

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what we called the second crusade. What had happened by the 1150s is

that much of this territory had been recaptured by the Muslims. And

in the second crusade, some of the most famous kings of Europe set

forth with their knights to liberate the holy land. They included

Henry of England and Louis of France. And I talked earlier of Eleanor

of Aquatain who switched from Louis of France to Henry of England.

And that crusade had again achieved some success. However, a leader

emerged among the Muslims, a man whose name I think you've heard,

certainly appeared in kingdom of heaven. Saladin is the English

variation of his name. And he began do liberate much of the holy land

and actually was able to even recapture Jerusalem.

A third crusade went forth in the 1180s, another crusade with

some very famous individuals. We had King Richard from England of

Robin Hood fame going off leaving Robin Hood to fight and protect

England against King John. John was a snake in the movie?

A A lion.

THE PROFESSOR: I thought Richard was the lion. Was it Maid

Marian that was a fox? Just check your memories because mine is not

so good anymore. You have to keep up on your reviews.

And once again, a certain understanding came forth, the power of

the Christians at least solidified some of the land that they had and

people returned, except for Frederick Barbarossa who was, as I told you,

probably drowned because of the armor when he fell off his horse into

a puddle.

In 1189, Barbarossa left on the third Crusade to conquer Jerusalem. While on the Crusade Barbarossa died of drowning in 1190. He failed to achieve his dream of a Central European Empire. Nevertheless he left behind a legacy of a strong ruler who was able to create peace.

But once again the Muslims re-- not their forces back

together and began to seem to recapture much of the aread that been

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captured by the Christians.

A fourth crusade went forth at around 1202/1203. They never got

there. They stopped off at Constantinople. That is a nice rich city

that's controlled by heretics. They're talking about the eastern

Christianity, the eastern orthodox. And so the western Christians,

what we called to Catholics, took over Constantinople removing the

king from the throne. The Byzantium emperor was removed as a Greek

orthodox Christian and a Roman Christian was placed on the throne and

so for the short period of time, this area was once again reunited

with the Pope in Rome. However, 25 years later the Greek orthodox

restored the Byzantium empire and the Greek orthodox patriarch, if you

will, and restored a Greek orthodox emperor to Byzantium.

Word spread through Europe that the reason the crusades had

failed was that this crusaders went for selfish motives -- land,

wealth. And so the word spread by some that the only way the holy

land would be liberated from the infidel was through young people who

were pure. They had no selfish motives. 14-year-olds, 15-year-olds

were trustworthy, clean, referent, et cetera. We enter an era that's

an interesting one. It's called the children's crusade.

Throughout Europe young people are recruited from Germany,

France, Europe to go fight with pitchfork basically the infidel with

the belief that when they got down to the Mediterranean Sea, the sea

would dry up and they would be able, much like Moses did with the Red

Sea, they would be able to walk across to the holy land. Now again, I

doubt if they had any idea how long this was or the fact that there's

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no food -- well, I guess they would have some dead fish to eat on the

way. The Germans in their nice style, kicked the kids back home. By

the way, it is argued by many that the story of the pied piper who

supposedly convinced the parents to let the kids follow him and then

he disappeared with all the children, of course the main story you

hear is about how he cleared the city of the mice and he was to get,

once he cleared the city of the mice, these kids. The pied piper

supposedly comes from this children's crusade. The German kicked them

back. The French aren't always so great, and they let them go to the

Mediterranean. The Mediterranean, surprise, surprise, did not dry up.

And so they said, how are we going to get in? Well, there were these

nice Italian shippers, they came into the port of Nice. We'll take

it. That was the last that was heard of those nice young Christian

kids for 10 or more years. What had happened was that these kids were

actually sold into slavery by the Italians -- never trust the

Italians -- to the Muslims, especially to the Mamelukes here in Cairo,

here in Egypt, who had a system where they castrated all of their

bureaucrats. I'm not sure if that's a bad system. I'd love to see

Libby or Rove castrated. The reason? It would stop nepotism. They

couldn't give any of their kids to government jobs and they would be

pure in ruling. And so these kids were castrated and became part of

the bureaucrats of the Muslim caliphate in Egypt. Some actually were

used in the choruses as tenors, but a few of them began to wander back

in Europe about 10 years later. And the story of what had happened

gave some -- well, let's us know what happened is better said.

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The crusades continued perhaps off and on in different ways for

another couple of hundred years. They were minor. The king of

Portugal, at around 1480, took a group of crusaders into Morocco

through Libya supposedly and freed Tunisia. He disappeared. His name

was Sebastian. We're talking 15th century. They found in the late

1800s in Brazil a group of former Portuguese descendants who

worshipped Sebastian as the second coming of Christ. Many felt that

this was a messiah coming back. And so that sense of the crusades --

it's even said that that crusading spirit was part of what came forth

with Cortez and Pizarro in their conquest of the western hemisphere,

Pizarro in the Incas and of course Cortes with the Aztecs. They had

that same sense of crusades and purity and Christianity. The reports

are from the writers of the Spanish conquest, Bernal Diaz, that Cortez

not so upset at the Aztec guards that at the pyramid of Cholula, he

ran up the pyramids -- it's hard enough to walk up -- and began

tossing the images of their Gods down on the Indian population, the

Native Americans there.

Crusades had a tremendous impact in Europe and we'll talk more

about them after the exam. They changed in a sense the movement of

Europe because it brought back to Europe luxury goods from the East

that people began to want. It was a holy war in itself against what

they saw as a religious enemy. And of course it was to free the holy

land for the pilgrimages. It was a means of the Pope asserting his

leadership. He had a reason to control Europe because he was going to

free the world of non-Christians. And then of course there were the

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economic prizes and the conquest of land as well. We will go into

this a bit further and develop it. The main thing to note is it's

going to sort of be a transition in the long run into modern Europe

that we're going to pick up after the midterm No. 2 or at least exam

two.

Before we go into the groups, do you have any questions about the

exam on Monday? None? Are we sure? Okay. Then let me get your

little forms out and you can head into your groups. Please remember

that the question is on education in Europe and it deals with

education of all classes, so that's what you're going to be talking

about, some of it coming from the lecture and hopefully others from

the reading. You certainly can go outside. For those that are not

ready, you can write it up.

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