Islamic POV of medieval history

3) I disagree. There are elements that unite these states but I personally have a knee-jerk reflex against sweeping cultural generalizations. I would state also that Muslim states tended to be run by monarchs in it for their dynastic patrimonies more than religion just like their Christian neighbors and historians on both sides grossly exaggerate the influence of religion on any of those men.

5) Well, one of the big criticisms of that then and now was that it was less a crusade than a power-grab by the King of France.

7) In some of the northern and western regions there were outbreaks of pogroms, yes, though less commonly than elsewhere. Too, the official policy of the monarchies was to protect Jews but the weakness of royal government meant this did not always work. It worked to a greater extent in France and England than it did elsewhere, however, because the royal governments there were stronger. I would view the pogroms against Jews in Muslim states as outbreaks of populist-religious demagoguery but it happened less commonly in those states not from goodwill so much as that Muslim state institutions were stronger and more efficient than Christian ones and better able to rein in the violence.
 
3) More accurately the Seljuk-Emirates were trapped in endemic war, the Crusaders removed a great number of them, and this benefited Muslim state builders by dramatically simplifying their job for them and creating the skeleton of a unified administrative structure without the convoluted politics that would have otherwise happened to do that IATLs.
Actually, it wasn't that simple. There was distinctly syrian states, led by vassals of seljuk (or sometimes seljuk themselves) that already began to "simply" themselves. It's true crusaders played the role of historical accelerator concerining that, but many emirates weren't really touched or even weakened, while the Crusade passed trough them.
 
Actually, it wasn't that simple. There was distinctly syrian states, led by vassals of seljuk (or sometimes seljuk themselves) that already began to "simply" themselves. It's true crusaders played the role of historical accelerator concerining that, but many emirates weren't really touched or even weakened, while the Crusade passed trough them.

True, though one of the major elements the Crusaders played was indirect in fostering the rise of Abbuyids by offering an enemy to target in rhetoric while claiming the outright annexation and conquest of those emirates was all about strengthening Islam against the infidel :)rolleyes:) while having nothing to do with the personal gain of Saladin :)rolleyes:). Other Muslims at the time were skeptical about this and this whole pattern is one reason Muslim histories tend to focus more on the Mamluks and Ain Jalut.

Ironically one of the leaders who started really rehabilitating Saladin in Muslim histories was none other than Yasser Arafat, and his quest for a Hattin overlooked many, many, MANY key differences between Arafat and Saladin, not least that Saladin understood the value of keeping to agreements for long-term advantage where Arafat never did. There are extents to which Saladin and his fighting the Third Crusade took over a great deal of Palestinian nationalism which tended to distort it as much as European histories can and do.
 
3) I disagree. There are elements that unite these states but I personally have a knee-jerk reflex against sweeping cultural generalizations. I would state also that Muslim states tended to be run by monarchs in it for their dynastic patrimonies more than religion just like their Christian neighbors and historians on both sides grossly exaggerate the influence of religion on any of those men.
Depend of what you call by exaggeration. It's obvious that religion played a place of first importance during Christian Middle-Ages. it's just that the other interests were mixed to it, and not secondary.
For the Crusades, both the religious and "economical" goal are mixed in one.
Now, if you're saying that "religion" as a sole concern is an exaggeration, it is indeed.

5) Well, one of the big criticisms of that then and now was that it was less a crusade than a power-grab by the King of France.
The criticism is absolutly not based.
The role of King of France is a later one, and really incidental one. Technically, it shouldn't have ended with the Languedoc in the royal desmene. I suggest you to read the works of Michel Roquebère, the specialist on the question.
Or "Le drame albigeois et l'unité francaise". But i don't know if it's translated.

7) In some of the northern and western regions there were outbreaks of pogroms, yes, though less commonly than elsewhere. Too, the official policy of the monarchies was to protect Jews but the weakness of royal government meant this did not always work. It worked to a greater extent in France and England than it did elsewhere, however, because the royal governments there were stronger. I would view the pogroms against Jews in Muslim states as outbreaks of populist-religious demagoguery but it happened less commonly in those states not from goodwill so much as that Muslim state institutions were stronger and more efficient than Christian ones and better able to rein in the violence.
Actually, the great feudal nobles often had the power and the legitimacy to stop these pogroms, and did so. Again, it's basically because of feudal crsis that lower nobles tried to use a "populist-religious demagoguery" to gain power. The difference with pogroms in Al-Andalus are not really great.
I agree on the institutional difference, but that's a matter of different evolution, not of who's barbaric or not.
 
3) I don't really see that, I think secular motivations played an equal and arguably greater role in the Medieval era, and that the rise of the Papacy represented the failure of those attempts then, not some greater religiosity. Medieval clerics didn't have a means to just ignore the Interdict by successfully starting their own church and back that up with sufficient force, Early Modern rulers did have that option. Late medieval history is also more of a tale of the successful steps to nation-building by dynasties than it is any straightforward history of religious warfare/politics. The biggest medieval war, after all, was not the Crusades but the Hundred Years' War, which was not about religion but about the collapse of the Angevin Empire.

7) Certainly, by the point of view of a number of moderns. By most standards, however, the Crusader *armies* were indisputably barbaric even by the standards of the time. Given how little qualms the papacy had over use of things like torture as a standard interrogation practice or in the Albigensian Crusade, it's worth noting that they did object and regularly so to the brutality of Crusader armies. Which means even *those guys* were not exactly unambiguously accepting of what those armies did.
 
3) I don't really see that, I think secular motivations played an equal and arguably greater role in the Medieval era, and that the rise of the Papacy represented the failure of those attempts then, not some greater religiosity.
And yet, there's many collective and individual facts that can't be explained without a great religiousity.
Just an exemple among others, the tradition of the last wills to repair the wrongs did to vassals or clients for the bourgeois : it's a real common practice that cost the family a big ammount of money or land.
I don't know if you saw secular sources from Middle-Ages or study them, but if you did, you certainly saw the interconnexion between secular and spiritual references.
Again, the First Crusade make sense only if you consider that this interconnexion existed, as it was far more easy prey to have, with a more direct benefit (Spain mainly, if the OTL First Crusade didn't happened, i think we would have Latin States in Al-Andalus around 1100)

Medieval clerics didn't have a means to just ignore the Interdict by successfully starting their own church and back that up with sufficient force, Early Modern rulers did have that option. Late medieval history is also more of a tale of the successful steps to nation-building by dynasties than it is any straightforward history of religious warfare/politics. The biggest medieval war, after all, was not the Crusades but the Hundred Years' War, which was not about religion but about the collapse of the Angevin Empire.[/QUOTE]
*cough*Joan of Arc *cough*
More seriously, it's a sign on how much religion and "political" interest were linked. It's interesting to see how the sole Parlementar and judicial action didn't managed to get the Lancaster enough legitimacy to keep the throne of France, while a less based judicial legitimacy with religious fervour helped the Valois.

For the legendarium of monder states, i agree, but it's not because this legendarium exist that we have to ignore the facts on what it's based. An exemple : Rome's mythos about origins is totally recomposed even in the republican times. But we don't deny any legitimacy to this mythos : we're treating it as such and be careful about it.

7) Certainly, by the point of view of a number of moderns. By most standards, however, the Crusader *armies* were indisputably barbaric even by the standards of the time. Given how little qualms the papacy had over use of things like torture as a standard interrogation practice or in the Albigensian Crusade, it's worth noting that they did object and regularly so to the brutality of Crusader armies. Which means even *those guys* were not exactly unambiguously accepting of what those armies did.
Actually, the Crusader army was as criminal that the occitan lords. You maybe heard about Bram, where the people was enucleated, ears cutted, lips cutted, face burned and lead by a guy who have still an eye. It's often taken against the Crusaders.

But when people do it, they forgot that the Occitan lords did exactly the same some months earlier. Again, these acts were normal (not fully acceptable, but normal as a policeman killing a suspect by exemple) for the era, and in a circular logic.
 
3) Eh, there's a definite element of religion in the *First* Crusade, not least because it represented an attempt by the Papacy to legitimately enter Rome as much as anything else, at least in the view of contemporary sources, and was one of many weapons wielded by the Papacy in the Lay Investiture feud. Crusading was definitely instrumental in the ultimate victory of the Papacy over the Emperor, but that again is more of a secular motivation than anything pious and it laid the groundwork for the warrior-popes of the Renaissance era.

While the Muslim states at the time were a bunch of petty, feuding emirates shaken up by one of the latest and newest waves of migrations. The emirs were more motivated in expanding their own territory than anything particularly pious as regarded Islam, which is one of the biggest reasons the First Crusade worked at all. It's also worth noting that a unified Muslim bloc pre-Abuyyids stomped the Second Crusade, indicating what would have happened to the First if it had run into a unified Muslim bloc.

7) Eh, either way that's still barbarism by modern standards, and it was still objected to by the standards of the time. It being objected to by Crusaders as opposed to heretics still made sense as in theory Medievals expected literally anything of heretics but not so much of good, pious Catholics.
 
3) Eh, there's a definite element of religion in the *First* Crusade, not least because it represented an attempt by the Papacy to legitimately enter Rome as much as anything else, at least in the view of contemporary sources, and was one of many weapons wielded by the Papacy in the Lay Investiture feud. Crusading was definitely instrumental in the ultimate victory of the Papacy over the Emperor, but that again is more of a secular motivation than anything pious and it laid the groundwork for the warrior-popes of the Renaissance era.
It's not because you have a "secular" reason that the religious one is automatically exclued. Again, in all the sources i have to study so far for the middle-ages, the spirituel need was present everywhere, not as a pretext (even if i said that it can be interconnected) but as a real factor.
Crusading is not only a Papacy's instrument, in fact it is such only at the beggining before the feudal great nobles take care of it and that the papal influence is reduced to nothing.
But nevertheless, even with the Papa's interests gone with the Crusade, it remained spiritually-related.

Again, you show me one secular reson, and not the biggest, but you didn't showed me why it was a pretext instead of a interconnexion, while i see every week the contrary.

While the Muslim states at the time were a bunch of petty, feuding emirates shaken up by one of the latest and newest waves of migrations. The emirs were more motivated in expanding their own territory than anything particularly pious as regarded Islam
That's quite true for the majority of them, but here too, religious reasons were interconnected with secular ones without any of them being the pretext of another.

which is one of the biggest reasons the First Crusade worked at all. It's also worth noting that a unified Muslim bloc pre-Abuyyids stomped the Second Crusade, indicating what would have happened to the First if it had run into a unified Muslim bloc.
I never disagreed with that, the problem was about religious as an important factor.

7) Eh, either way that's still barbarism by modern standards, and it was still objected to by the standards of the time. It being objected to by Crusaders as opposed to heretics still made sense as in theory Medievals expected literally anything of heretics but not so much of good, pious Catholics.
You said it "modern standards". And for the standards of the time no. Church objected but it's different, the Catholic Church never had a real grasp on what was considered normal as war crimes. Hell, it even didn't cared about its own objection when Papal States were on war.
 
3) It was a pretext because the Papacy wanted to get an advantage by securing an actual power base in Rome as the See of Rome, and it was a pretext for the secular rulers in that it offered a chance to end feuding and collectively to make potential gains in the form of pillage and plunder.

3.1) I disagree. It's pretty clear whatever motivations animated the First Crusade's Crusaders, their emirate opponents, and then Outremer's inhabitants and their Abbuyid/Mamluk opponents religion was given lip service at the most.

7) True, but then the Papacy was hardly about to admit the Papacy might make mistakes. :p
 
3) It was a pretext because the Papacy wanted to get an advantage by securing an actual power base in Rome as the See of Rome, and it was a pretext for the secular rulers in that it offered a chance to end feuding and collectively to make potential gains in the form of pillage and plunder.
Once more, i don't disagree with the secular part, just saying that because it's existing doesn't make the religious factor non-existant or being a factor in medieval society. If you don't agree with the existence of interconnected factors in this case, i think we should stay on it.
Just it's in great contradiction with all about History that i learn or was taught to me since 4 years, but it's maybe a cultural difference.

3.1) I disagree. It's pretty clear whatever motivations animated the First Crusade's Crusaders, their emirate opponents, and then Outremer's inhabitants and their Abbuyid/Mamluk opponents religion was given lip service at the most.
Again, interconnexion, see before.

7) True, but then the Papacy was hardly about to admit the Papacy might make mistakes. :p
"We didn't made any mistakes, you priests did!" - Resume of Countil of Trent :p
 
Last edited:

Esopo

Banned
Well, technically the Crusaders *were* barbarians by comparison to the ERE *and* the Syrians.

The crusaders maybe. Not the west, though. Christianity wasnt just scotland or normans. It is difficult to call italy at the time of crusades barbaric, even if compared with bizantines or arabs.
 
Top