How the Seljuks Crushed the Crusade of 1101

In the aftermath of the Latin acquirement of Jerusalem in 1099, Pope Pashal II launched a follow-up campaign aimed at bolstering the defenses of the newly established Latin States in the Levant. The resulting campaign pitted several Latin armies against the forces of the Seljuks and the Danishmends in Anatolia.

What Inspired a Knight to Go on Crusade?

Take a look at some interesting quotes from well-known historical figures from the Crusades. What motivated a knight to set out on Crusade? Featuring the song "Siege" from J Stephen Roberts.

J Stephen Roberts' CD Scatheless

Did Crusaders believe "killing infidels" would gain them heaven?

Peter, one of our subscribers on youtube, asks an interesting question: did crusaders of the Middle Ages believe that killing infidels would earn them heaven? He asks this after viewing the scene in Kingdom of Heaven in which a crazed preacher is shown proclaiming that killing infidels is "the path to heaven". But is this idea historically accurate? J Stephen analyzes the issue. 

5 Questions About the Crusades: Answered

J Stephen Roberts tackles five common questions about the Crusades.

Women Captives During the Crusades

A discussion of the treatment of female captives during the era of the Crusades. Were there differences in how Crusaders and Saracens treated female captives?

Sources quoted in this podcast:

“Women and children together came to 8,000 and were quickly divided up among us, bringing a smile to Muslim faces at their lamentations. How many well-guarded women were profaned, how many queens were ruled, and nubile girls married, and noble women given away, and miserly women forced to yield themselves, and women who had been kept hidden stripped of their modesty, and serious women made ridiculous, and women kept in private now set in public, and free women occupied, and precious ones used for hard work, and pretty things put to the test, and virgins dishonoured and proud women deflowered, and lovely women’s red lips kissed, and dark women prostrated, and untamed ones tamed, and happy ones made to weep! How many noblemen took them as concubines! How many ardent men blazed for one of them, and celibates were satisfied by them, and thirsty men sated by them, and turbulent men able to give vent to their passion! How many lovely women were the exclusive property of one man! How many great ladies were sold at low prices, and close ones set at a distance, and lofty ones abased, and savage ones captured, and those accustomed to thrones dragged down!”
-Imad ad-Din, as quoted in Arab Historians of the Crusades, translated by Francesco Gabrieli (Barnes and Noble Books, 1993), p. 162-63.

“Those Turks who had good and swift horses escaped, but the stragglers were abandoned to the Franks. Many of these, especially the Saracen footmen, were taken. On the other hand few of our men were injured. In regard to the women found in the tents of the foe the Franks did them no evil but drove lances into their 

bellies.”

-Fulcher of Chartres, translated by Francis Rita Ryan, p. 106.

“Many of the Saracens who had climbed to the top of the Temple of Solomon in their flight were shot to death with arrows and fell headlong from the roof. Nearly ten thousand were beheaded in the Temple. If you had been there your feet would have been stained to the ankles in the blood of the slain. What shall I say? None of them were left alive. Neither women nor children were spared.”

-Fulcher of Chartres, p. 122.

“The army entered the city, massacred its inhabitants, pillaged and burned it, leaving it in ruins and taking prisoner all those who remained alive...The dead bodies were so many that they blocked the streets; one could not go anywhere without stepping over them. And the number of prisoners was not less than 50,000 souls. I was determined to enter the city and see the destruction with my own eyes. I tried to find a street in which I would not have to walk over the corpses; but that was impossible.”

-Sibt ibn al-Jawzi, in Norwich, John Julius (1991). Byzantium: The Apogee. New York: Viking. pp. 342–343. 

“[Saladin] performed his ablutions and prayed, before being brought fourteen Franks and a Frankish woman taken captive with them, who was the daughter of a distinguished knight. With her was a Muslim captive whom she had received. The Sultan freed the Muslim woman and the rest he herded into the armoury. They had been brought from Beirut, having been captured in a very numerous traveling party. They were put to death.”

–Baha ad-Din, 169-70. 

“The Muslims had thieves who would enter the enemy’s tents, steal from them, even taking individuals, and then make their way back. It came about that one night they took an unweaned infant three months old. They brought it to the Sultan’s tent and offered it to him. Everything they took they used to offer to him and he would reward and recompense them. When the mother missed the child she spent the whole duration of the night pleading for help with loud lamentations. Her case came to the notice of their princes, who said to her, ‘He has a merciful heart. We give you permission to go to him. Go and ask him for the child and he will restore it to you.’ So she went out to ask the Muslim advance guard for assistance, telling them of her troubles through a dragoman who translated for her. They did not detain her but sent her to the Sultan. She came to him when he was riding on the Tell al-Kharruba with me and a great crowd attending upon him. She wept copious tears and besmirched her face with soil. After he had asked about her case and it had been explained, he had compassion for her and, with tears in his eyes, he ordered the infant to be brought to him. People went and found that it had been sold in the market. The Sultan ordered the purchase price to be paid to the purchaser and the child taken from him. He himself stayed where he had halted until the infant was produced and then handed it over to the woman who took it, wept mightily, and hugged it to her bosom, while people watched and wept also. I was standing there amongst the gathering. She suckled the child for a while and then, on the orders of the Sultan, she was taken on horseback an restored to their camp with the infant.”

–Baha ad-Din 147-48.

“The king of Damascus [Toghtekin] now sent wise and discreet men as envoys to the chiefs of our army, namely, the Patriarch, the Doge of Venice, the Count of Tripoli, William Bures, and the other lords of the realm. They bore proposals of peace couched in conciliatory language. After much discussion and many disputes, an agreement was reached between the two parties: the city would be surrendered to the Christians on condition that those citizens who wished be allowed to depart freely with their wives and children and all their substance, while those who preferred to remain at Tyre should be granted permission to do so and their home and possession guaranteed them.”

–William of Tyre, vol II, p. 19.

Templar - an original song by J Stephen Roberts

Enjoy some medieval-themed music from Real Crusades History's own J Stephen Roberts.

Templar

Music & lyrics by: J Stephen Roberts

Church on a hill in a grove
Below skies gray
Lay the sword at the altar
Kneel and pray

Faith is that a soul black with sin
Can be restored
But what penance could ever cleanse the Christian blood
That stains this sword?

Brothers all around as I kneel
And the oath is sworn
Clad in the mantle and the spurs
I am reborn

The burdens of the Devil's rule
No more upon me lay
And the sword that once carved my path to hell
Will guard the pilgrim's way

The Crusades

A pictorial journey through some riveting moments in the history of the Crusades, set to the song "Agnes" by J Stephen Roberts

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"Barbarian" Crusaders -- A Second Look

Two weeks ago I laid out several of the popular misconceptions about the crusades and made a rebuttal. Today I want to look more closely at the persistent myth that the crusaders were "less civilized" than their Muslim opponents.

The crusaders are primarily portrayed as "barbarians" today because they are seen as brutal aggressors against "peace-loving, tolerant, and highly sophisticated" Arab societies in the Middle East. This ignores the fact that the Arabs had taken the Holy Land by the sword, not with sweet words, persuasion, or peaceful tolerance. And that expansion continued far beyond the Holy Land!

Muslim armies attacked Constantinople 678. In 698 the Christian city of Carthage fell to the sword Islam. In 713 Corsica was conquered. By 720 the Muslim invasion of Spain was nearly complete. In 732 an invading Muslim army had almost reached the Loire before it was crushed by the Franks under Charles Martel and pushed back behind the Pyrenees. In 827 Muslim armies started the conquest of Sicily, and ten years later landed in Italy. In 846 Rome was attacked and St. Peter's sacked by Muslim armies. in 934 Genoa was sacked. In 997 the Muslims sacked Santiago de Compostella, the most important pilgrimage church in the West. In 1009 the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built by the Byzantines in the reign of Constantine the Great (306 – 337), was utterly destroyed.

Meanwhile, however, the Muslims had divided into Shiites and Sunnis and engaged in bloody wars in which they murdered, raped, pillaged and burned rival Muslim cities. Zengi, atabeg of Mosul, for example, according to a Muslim source ordered the “pillaging, slaying, capturing, ravishing and looting” of Edessa, but was feared in Damascus because of “his exceptionally cruel and treacherous behavior” – to his co-religionists. The great “chivalrous” Saladin spent more of his career fighting his fellow Sunni Muslims than he did fighting the Christians.

Attempts to depict the crusaders as illiterate brutes lacking in cultural accomplishments also miss the mark. The “unwashed masses” might not have been very cultivated—but nor were the peasants and common soldiers of the Byzantine Empire or the Turks.  The upper classes in 11^th century Europe, on the other hand, had already started to develop arts and architecture to a high degree of sophistication as manuscripts, artifacts and the architectural record shows. Literacy may have been confined to an elite and fostered mostly by the clergy, but the leaders of the crusade themselves were highly educated. (And, by the way, at this time classical Greek scholars had been re-discovered and were being studied in the West.) Furthermore, literacy was not exactly universal in the Byzantine and Muslim worlds either. While it is fair to say that in certain fields (mathematics and astronomy) the Muslim world was more advanced than Western Europe, in other fields (shipbuilding, transportation and agricultural technology), the West was more developed.  As earlier entries have stressed, medicine in the West was on about par with the East, not hopelessly more backward as so often portrayed.



However, two features of Western European feudal society set it apart from the East into which the crusaders came so suddenly and unexpectedly at the end of the 11^th century. 

First was the decentralized system of government based on complex, feudal relationships. Both the Byzantine and the Muslim world in this period were intensely hierarchical societies in which the Emperor (in the one) and the Caliph (in the other) theoretically held supreme and absolute control over his subjects. To be sure, reality looked slightly different.  By the end of the tenth century the Syrian Caliphs were virtual prisoners of the Abbasid dynasty, and changed masters when the Seljuk Turks captured Baghdad in 1055.  Thereafter they were puppets of the Selkjuk sultans, while the Fatimid Caliphs were at the mercy of their viziers. 

But whether the theoretically absolute rulers wielded actual power or not, their powerful “protectors” always ruled in their name; they considered – and called themselves – slaves of their masters. Western feudalism, in which kings were little more than the “first among equals,” was utterly alien to the Eastern mentality, and so was the outspokenness and (from the Easter perspective) impudence of vassals. The Eastern elites saw the inherent dangers of such a fluid system and associated it with primitive tribal structures. Yet it was exactly these feudal kingdoms that gradually devolved power to ever wider segments of the population until (through a series of constitutional crises) they eventually developed into modern democracies. Meanwhile, the Eastern states remained mired in autocracy.

The other feature of Western European society that the Muslims (though not the Byzantines) found disgusting and incomprehensible was the presence of women in public life. The fact that women had names and faces that were known outside the family circle was viewed as immoral and dishonorable (much the way the Athenians viewed Spartan women) by the Muslims of the 12th and 13th centuries. The fact that women not only had names and faces, but a voice in civic affairs and could play a role in public life including controlling wealth and influencing politics was even more offensive. Yet modern developmental research shows a strong correlation between societies that empower and enfranchise women and development. Societies that insist on muzzling and oppressing half their population are nowadays considered less “civilized.”

Whether you view the crusaders or the Saracens as more civilized depends on how you view democracy and womens’ rights. And modern commentators who feel compelled to “apologize” for the crusades are either utterly ignorant of the issues at stake and the comparative cultures of the antagonists—or implicitly reject the very Western values they allegedly defend. 

In my three part biography of Balian d'Ibelin I endeavor to portray the crusader society as accurately as possible.

 
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Book Review: Steven Runciman - A History of the Crusades: Volume II The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100-1187

For many decades Steven Runciman's overview of the Crusades was considered the definitive popular work on the subject, while Runciman himself was the go-to man for Crusades history. However, all that changed in the last forty to thirty years with the rise of better, more thorough scholarly methods (such as computer management of huge amounts of charter information through the use of random-access databases). A new generation of scholars, such as Jonathan Riley-Smith, Christopher Tyerman, Bernard Hamilton, Thomas Madden, Helen Nicholson, Jonathan Philips, etc, have revealed the Crusades to us on a far more in-depth and objective level than was ever attained by Runciman.

Runciman's work has not aged well. His sweeping generalizations and obvious biases have become painfully dated next to the groundbreaking scholarship that has come after him. Runciman was unashamedly petty in allowing his personal likes and dislikes to color his analysis. Within a few pages it's clear that Runciman deeply disliked the Crusaders and favored the Byzantines and Muslims. He attacks figures like Reynald of Chatillon as morally repugnant, meanwhile he lionizes Saladin, saying that his conquest of Jerusalem was "civilized". Runciman fails to sympathize with the thousands of Christian women and children sold into slavery by Saladin at Jerusalem; perhaps they might have disagreed that Saladin was civil. At any rate, it's not for the historian to make morally sharp judgments of character anyway, rather he should attempt to present all sides as objectively as possible, and in this respect Runciman's work is an absolute failure.

What's good about this volume is that it provides a basic, linear outline of the history of the Crusader States from 1100 to 1187. In my writing and research I have used this book as an outline for the period, though I am always deeply suspicious of Runciman's assessments that go beyond mere names and dates. I always check his work against the more current scholarship of professors like Riley-Smith, Tyerman, Philips, and others. I strongly urge all readers of this book to do the same.

Why Does the Heathen Rage? A Novel of the Crusades by J Stephen Roberts - AVAILABLE NOW!

It's here! My novel, Why Does the Heathen Rage? has finally been released! Get a copy, and delve into the reign of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem. 

Click here to get your copy from Amazon

RE: What’s the Consensus on Real Crusades History? Reddit Thread DEBUNKED!

A while back a thread appeared on Reddit concerning Real Crusades History. The title of the thread is “What’s the Consensus on Real Crusades History?” and in this thread, a user called “Water_nut” asked some users on Reddit for their opinion on my videos about the Crusades. One user, thejukeboxhero, answered the question, and his answer is incorrect and misrepresents my positions on the Crusades. This article will respond to and debunk the claims of thejukeboxhero concerning Real Crusades History.

Thejukeboxhero wrote some commentary on my video “How the Crusades Saved Europe”. This is what he wrote:

“His understanding of Islam as a monolithic hive mind bent on devouring Christian Europe is ludicrous and reflects his own ignorance of the diversity and complexity of one thousand years of Islamic civilization.”

Thejukeboxhero is setting up a strawman here and misrepresenting my position. Of course I understand that Islam was incredibly diverse and encompassed a wide variety of dynasties and peoples. I have discussed many of these divisions in my videos. For example, I have discussed the conflict between the Umayyads and the Abasids, the struggles between the Zengids and Ayubids, and the rivalries between the Seljuks and the Danishmends, just to name a few. However, this individual didn’t bother to look at any more than a single of my videos before he dismissed my entire channel, which shows that he in fact is guilty of making broad, ignorant judgments that do not reflect reality.

One thing that thejukeboxhero never does at any point within his commentary is quote me directly. He never addresses a single point I actually make, rather, he sets up straw men of what he believes to be my position, and thereby addresses nothing. Another thing he never does is quote any historical sources. However, I am going to do both those in this post – I am going to deconstruct his actual commentary, and I am going to demolish his inaccurate perception of history with scholarly material.

Thejukeboxhero next says: 

“There is no evidence that if unchecked, Islam (whatever that means, the Ottomans aren't the Almoravids, or the Safavids, or the Fatimids) would have conquered all of Europe.”

Notice how thejukeboxhero keeps referring to the diversity of groups and dynasties within Islam as if that means Islam as a whole has no overarching identity. Earlier he said, incorrectly, that I viewed Islam as a “monolithic hive mind bent on devouring Christian Europe” and he also says “Islam (whatever that means)”. In other words, he is proposing that the term Islam itself isn’t even useful in describing any sort of group identity. This is absolutely absurd. Of course there were dynastic and sectarian divisions within the larger Islamic civilization, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that when we say “Islamic civilization”, we are referring to something unified enough to be given a name. Both medieval Muslims and medieval Christians understood this to be the case, and despite divisions within their own groups, looked at the world this way.

Let’s take an example:

Ibn al-Athir was a Mesopotamian Muslim chronicler who wrote during the late twelfth century and early thirteenth century. He wrote an enormous book entitled, The Perfect History, which covers the whole of the Islamic world. His family was partial to the Zengid dynasty, but nevertheless he did not view his identity as ending with the Zengids. He considered himself part of an overarching Muslim world that stretched across the Mediterranean.

Look at how Ibn al-Athir writes about Muslim societies far away from his own in Spain and Sicily:

‘The power of the Franks first became apparent when in the year 478 (1085-86) they invaded the territories of Islam and took Toledo and parts of Andalusia… Then in 484/1091 they attacked and conquered the island of Sicily and turned their attention to the African coast. Certain of their conquests there were won back again but they had other successes, as you will see.’ Ibn al-Athir in Arab Historians of the Crusades, p. 3.

This passage alone reveals the inaccuracy of thejukeboxhero’s comments. Here Ibn al-Athir, a Mesopotamian Muslim chronicler associated with the Zengid dynasty, is referring to the Latin Christian Kingdom of Leon’s conquest of Toledo, formerly held by the Iberian Umayyad Arabs. He also writes about the Norman conquest of Sicily from the Kalbid Arabs. But he doesn’t describe any of it that way. Instead, he lumps the Iberian Christians and the Normans into one group – the Franks, which, incidentally, was the term used by Arab authors at this time to refer to all Western Christians. He also doesn’t differentiate between the various Muslim dynasties, but simply says “the territories of Islam”.

Ibn al-Athir’s language is far from uncommon. Muslim authors discuss the wider conflict between Christian and Islamic forces like this throughout the Middle Ages. Now this doesn’t mean that individual dynastic and sectarian identities weren’t important, they most certainly were on both sides for Muslims and Christians. But Muslims and Christians also tended to view themselves as part of larger identities as well, and they understood there to be a more overarching conflict at work of roughly Christendom vs. Islam. To deny this aspect of medieval consciousness is to deny history.

Let’s take a look at another example, this time from a medieval Christian author. This is from the Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, an important primary source for medieval Iberia. However, the author also concerns himself with the wider affairs of Christendom, and references the conflicts going on between Christians and Muslims in the Eastern Mediterranean in a manner similar to what we see in Ibn al-Athir. In discussing the Third Crusade, the chronicler says:

“At the same time, Philip, King of the French, and Richard, King of the English, after establishing mutual peace between themselves, crossed over the sea with dukes and counts and many other barons and knights, and landed at Acre, which the Saracens still held. The kings forcefully besieged it; vigorously attacking it, they took it by force. Now King Richard, before he came there, seized the island of Cyprus and subjugated it to himself.

“King Philip, however, suffering from a grave illness, so much so that his life was despaired of, crossed the sea again and returned to his kingdom. But King Richard, brave and high spirited, remained and stayed there for a long time in that region, defending what the Christians held and newly acquiring other places.” –Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, p. 64.

Once again, notice how this author, who comes from the Kingdom of Castile in modern day Spain, is not describing Richard as an Angevin or Philip as a Capetian, but as leading the forces of “the Christians”. He also doesn’t say that they were fighting the Ayubids and their coalition of Turkish and Kurdish forces, but “the Saracens”, which is a very general medieval term used by Christians to describe followers of the religion of Mohammed. He says that Richard and Philip “landed at Acre, which the Saracens still held,” and he says that “King Richard, brave and high spirited, remained and stayed there fore a long time in that region, defending what the Christians held.” Thejukeboxhero appears not to grasp the complexities and multi-dimensional qualities of medieval civilizations. Of course this author from Castile had regional perspectives and dynastic perspectives, but he also had a wider, metapolitical worldview of himself and his identity, which included all of Christendom, and which cast Mohammedan regions and kingdoms as “the Saracens”, a generalized, cultural and religious identity that existed in opposition to “the Christians”.           

Let’s continue to explore this issue, this time with a selection from a primary source dealing with the life of the famous Mohammedan ruler Saladin. This is from Baha ad-Din, one of Saladin’s own close associates who wrote an account of this iconic ruler’s life. Here Baha ad-Din quotes his master Saladin discussing his conquest of the Crusader states:

“I think when God grants me victory over the rest of Palestine I shall divide my territories, make a will stating my wishes, then set sail on this sea for their far-off lands and pursue the Franks there, so as to free the earth from anyone who does not believe in Allah.” –Baha ad-Din in Arab Historians of the Crusades, p. 101.

Notice that Saladin doesn’t say, “When I have finished conquering the Latin states in Palestine, I’ll sail to the territories of the Capetians and Angevins and expand the holdings of the Ayubid dynasty there.” No, indeed, Saladin is lumping the Crusader states in with the various dynastic kingdoms and territories of all of Christian Europe. He’s simply referring to Christian Europe as “the lands of the Franks”, “Franks” being a term used by Mohammedans during this period as a general description for all Western European Christians regardless of their dynastic or regional associations. And on top of that, Saladin is casting his designs on “the lands of the Franks” in terms of this larger conflict between Christendom and Mohammedanism, saying he wants to “free the earth from anyone who does not believe in Allah”. You see, like all medieval Mohammedans, Baha ad-Din and Saladin had complex worldviews as well. Saladin himself was a Sunni, who belonged to the Aybud dynasty. He spent most of his career fighting other Sunnis, struggling against the Zengids, and he also fought the Shia Fatimids. So Saladin certainly had concerns for his own personal sub-group within Sunni Islam, and wanted to dominate other local Mohammedan dynasties, but he also participated in this more expansive idea of the Mohammedan world versus the Christian world. His wars against the Crusaders, for example, served multiple purposes, helping establish himself as a champion of Mohammedanism who could claim to be justified in dominating other Sunni groups, but also fulfilling his own personal religious zeal and satisfying his sense of outrage at the presence of Christian kingdoms on Syrian and Palestinian soil. Again, thejukeboxhero just isn’t grasping this complexity.

I have provided just a few primary source examples here, but I could quote passages like this endlessly. The Ottomans, for example, although they rose to prominence in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, saw themselves as continuing the legacy of the early Mohammedan conquerors, the Umayyads, seeing themselves as the heirs to the original caliphs in spreading the religion of Mohammad, and this despite the fact that the Ottomans were Turks and the original Mohammedan conquerors were Arabs. Again, multiple levels of identity existed here. As it is, the examples I’ve provided do the job of debunking the comments of thejukeboxhero on this matter.

Let’s continue to reveal the problems with his comments:

“The notion that crusading proved to be the crucial event that united Europe is silly as well. It is certainly symptomatic of the more universal identity pushed by the reforming popes of the eleventh century, and while the international scale of the conflict is certainly novel, to suggest that crusade (sic) saved Europe assumes that there was actually a concerted effort by the Islamic world to destroy it.”

Nonsense. Crusading extended far beyond the ambitions of the reform popes of the late eleventh century, and the crusades were not merely “international”. The Crusades represented an enormous movement in European Christendom, which would echo down the centuries. I’ve discussed this in many videos. To start with, the First Crusade created a universal shared experience by the bulk of European Christian societies, with each region having heroes they remembered from that conflict, and whose exploits in this Crusade would be commemorated for generations. After the First Crusade, for centuries to come, Europe’s kingdoms, constantly embroiled in regional and dynastic conflicts with one another, would nevertheless draw on this Crusading consciousness to unite in times of struggle against a threat which they believed transcended petty rivalries among Christian princes, and threatened Christendom itself: the civilization of Mohammed, or as the medievals referred to it, “The Saracens” or “The Moors” or “The Turks”. Wars as far removed from one another as the campaign at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 and the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 both drew on this shared legacy. Europeans viewed their own wars with each other very differently than they did the wars called Crusades – wars sanctioned by the popes as holy and for which the participants earned spiritual rewards. For example, when Fernando III of Castile and Leon achieved a stunning victory over the Moors of the Iberian peninsula, Louis IX, the King of France, sent him a thorn from the relic of Christ’s crown of thorns as a symbol of the sacredness of Fernando’s victory over the ancient enemy of Christendom. Louis would have never done that had Fernando won a war against the King of Portugal or the King of Aragon or one of his other Christian rivals. What I am talking about here is how European Christians themselves perceived of these things.

I would like to pay particular attention to this comment from thejukeboxhero:

“to suggest that crusade saved Europe assumes that there was actually a concerted effort by the Islamic world to destroy it.”

This is a strikingly inaccurate comment. How could one honestly look at the history of Christendom’s 

interaction with Mohammedan civilization and conclude that there was no long-running ambition in the Muslim world to take control of as much of Christian Europe as possible? Islam emerged in the 7^th century, and within a few decades had taken control of some two-thirds of the Christian world: the bulk of Christian Asia and Africa. Two well-run military campaigns in the early 8^th century, one led by Charles Martel in modern day France, and one led by Emperor Leo III at Constantinople, put an end to that expansion at that time. Now this is usually the point at which more left-leaning commentators might like to insist that a sort of equilibrium settled in between Christendom and Islam, without much effort from the Muslims to conquer any more Christian territory. But all throughout the ninth and tenth centuries the Byzantines were engaged in a desperate struggle with the Arabs for control of Asia Minor and Syria, as is clearly displayed in sources like the chronicle of John Skylitzes. During this period the Muslims also penetrated into Sicily and southern Italy, which they would rule for two centuries. They even tried to conquer Rome. The rise of the Seljuk Turks in the eleventh century would see renewed expansion by Islam into Byzantine territory, and the Almohad and Almoravid dynasties in North Africa would renew the expansive energy of Islam in the Iberian Peninsula. Finally the rise of the Ottoman Turks in the late Middle Ages would see the Muslims win some of their most extensive conquests yet, with enormous portions of Eastern Europe falling under their rule, and Italy itself being threatened with conquest on numerous occasions. It wasn’t really until the late seventeenth century, during the Great Turkish War, that Ottoman designs on Western Europe would be put to an end, and by then the long-running conflict between Christendom and Islam spanned a thousand years.

Now through all this long history of many wars, there were quite a few Muslim dynasties, kingdoms, ethnic groups, etc. This was by no means some single, monolithic Mohammedan super-state responsible for a thousands years of imperialism. But all of these various Muslim powers shared a conception of themselves as custodians of this thing called Islam, which was at the heart of their sense of identity. They all agreed that Islam was the truth, and that the world should submit to it. Whether you were an Umayyad or an Almoravid or a Seljuk or an Ottoman, your popular culture embraced the notion that the Christian kingdoms of Europe should rightly be ruled by Muslim princes, and that Islam should one day reign supreme where the cross is now dominant. What sort of blindness would make a student of history unable to grasp this basic historical fact?

Throughout the centuries of warfare between Muslims and Christians, one thing alone prevented Mohammedans from expanding further: Christian military victories. Regardless of how we might think of the Crusades, for Europeans during this period, Crusading was the way they conceived of their resistance to Muslim expansion. The popes called Crusades in every region where there was a frontier with Islam, in Spain, Italy, Eastern Europe, Syria and Palestine. Christians from various regions would unite on these occasions, often after only recently and temporarily putting aside their own rivalries with each other, to recapture some city or prevent the advance of some Muslim army. It was broad, it transcended regions, and it was a tradition that went on for centuries. So when I stated in my video that the Crusades were a unifying force that facilitated the survival of European Christendom, I was entirely correct.

Now, let’s get back to thejukeboxhero’s comments:

“Again, check out my post on the justifications of crusade in the years following the conquest of Jerusalem. The author of the video seems to take such rhetoric for granted and is generally uncritical of the (two) primary sources he cites.”

No, wrong. I’m not using those two primary sources uncritically. I’m not “taking the rhetoric” of these sources for granted at all, I’m merely providing them as an example of a commonplace way of viewing the world among medieval Europeans during the age of the Crusades. My video “How the Crusades Saved Europe” is all about how medieval Europeans conceived of themselves and conceived of the Crusades. The two primary sources to which thejukeboxhero is referring are Fulcher of Chartres and Guibert of Nogent. There is absolutely no doubt that these two sources represent an attitude that was mainstream and widespread among Europeans in the aftermath of the First Crusade and for centuries to come as Europeans continued to engage in warfare with Mohammedan powers. So without question, I used those two primary sources effectively.  

“The video is concerned with proving that the Crusades were, in the long run, a 'good thing'. From an academic and educational point of view, this line of inquiry is problematic at best, intellectually dishonest at worst.”

No, again, wrong. Where in my video “How the Crusades Saved Europe” do I state that the Crusades were, in the long run, a “good thing”? I never said that. Thejukeboxhero made that up himself. In that video, I set out to explain one thing: how the Crusades as a new paradigm provided Europeans with a way of conceiving of themselves engaged in a sacred, united effort to defend their societies against Islam. That’s all I set out to say in that video, and that’s what that video demonstrates. At the end of the video I do state that if you like diversity you should probably like the Crusades, because the Crusades ensured that Christendom and Islam existed in a territory where only Islam might have existed as a dominant power otherwise, but that was a bit of a tongue in cheek remark poking fun at the concept of “diversity”, which is often championed by people who get very indignant about the Crusades.

“You're better off finding a solid introductory text to the period, such as The Crusades: A Short History by Jonathan Riley-Smith.”

I certainly agree with thejukexboxhero that this book by Jonathan Riley-Smith is excellent, as I have used it and many other books by Riley-Smith in my videos as sources. Unlike thejukeboxhero, I make liberal use of primary sources and Crusades scholarship from top-level Crusades historians in all of my videos. I am constantly encouraging viewers to explore the many fantastic works that deal with the Crusades, from authors such as Malcom Barber, Jonathan Philips, Jonathan Riley-Smith, Thomas Madden, Christopher Tyerman, Helen Nicholson, Joseph O’Callaghan, Roger Collins, Edward Peters, Susan Edgington, and on and on and on. If you’ve consistently watched my videos over the years, you have been exposed to the works of a tremendous amount of quality historians. My videos are meant only as an introduction to the Crusades, with my goal being to inspire viewers to get their hands on some books and start exploring this era for themselves.

So there you have it, the comments of Thejukeboxhero on reddit thoroughly debunked.   

Sources:

-Arab Historians of the Crusades, trans. Francesco Gabrieli, (Barnes and Noble, 1993)

-The Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, trans. Joseph O’Callaghan, (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002)

-Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095-1127, trans. Frances Rita Ryan, (University of Tennessee Press, 1969)

-Baha ad-Din, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, trans. D.S. Richards, (Ashgate, 2002)

-Ibn al-Athir, The Chronicle for the Crusading Period, Part 1, trans. D.S. Richards, (Ashgate, 2010)

-The First Crusade: The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and Other Source Materials, ed. Edward Peters, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998)