Talk:Crusades/Archive 7

Fluff piece under criticism
What's with the Christian fluff piece in the "criticism" section. The quote I'm talking about is by Ibn Jubayr. It really doesn't fit with the rest of the article and gives the article a bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Javeezy0 (talk • contribs) 19:03, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * If true, it needs to be "someplace." Maybe a summary here with a footnote? Or (I hate this) the quote in the citation? It is interesting. Biased, but interesting. But all commentary on the Crusades is going to be biased. Particularly those made at the time. It does contrast Muslim life (still in Middle Ages) with Christian life (emerging from the Middle Ages). Student7 (talk) 21:50, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * That quote is interesting but not really relevant to the crusades in general. It's a lot more relevant to the Kingdom of Jerusalem (and it may already be there; it seems like something I might have stuck in there, although not in this form because I wouldn't have got it from Pernoud). It is actually still debated whether Jubayr really meant that, or if it was just a bit of propaganda to influence Muslim leaders to treat their own Muslim peasants better. And since he was only in the kingdom for a few days, and in one specific spot on the way from Damascus to Acre, how could he know how all Muslims were treated? And if it is meant to be propaganda, was he addressing eastern Muslims, or the ones back home in Andalusia? Anyway, it doesn't really fit, and would be better off in the Kingdom article and Jubayr's article. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:16, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Why the obscure reference to St Francis of Assisi right in the middle of the criticism section? It has no bearing on the text.

The criticism referred to is all early, and not about the motives of the crusades but there execution. There should be a separate section, or paragraph, on modern criticism. It is clear that the crusades are to say the least unfasionable, if not vilified. Why, and for what reasons, should be explored.


 * With St. Francis, the aims of the Christians were listened to, perhaps for the first time, by the Turks. They didn't really take him seriously of course, but he did get an audience. The mention is in there twice. Needs expansion if it is going to stay under criticism. A bit too terse IMO. Student7 (talk)

Knowledge exchange

 * Please modify text describing contact between the two as being a one-sided exchange. If Xtians picked up knowledge from muslims, the contrary also happened.  To describe this exchange as if only the Muslims had anything to offer is biased and historically incorrect.  92.162.74.196 (talk) 19:41, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Learning is not all bad. The Muslims most likely ignored Christians as "heretics." While Christians regarded Muslims as the same, because of cultural differences, they did not think that everything the Muslims did was stupid. That is what Muslims often thought of Christians. It was their loss.
 * Regardless, their preservation of Aristotle and other Greek thinkers was a tremendous eye opener for the West. So called "Arabic" numerals (which they had learned from India) was a nice shot in the arm for mathematics. And the West's medicine was quite clumsy. The Muslims was better and perhaps on a more scientific level.
 * The West learned a lot and became the most powerful force in the world. The Muslims perhaps missed the opportunity. There is nothing wrong in admitting this. It does not make the West "look bad." Rather the reverse I think. Student7 (talk) 23:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

1 Historical Context 1.1 Middle Eastern Situation
Jews consider Israel as their ancestral homeland, and had been visiting the city since its sack by the Romans and abandonment by the Hebrews after the Hebrew revolt of AD 66–73.

This sentence should be replaced with:

Jerusalem has been Judaism's holiest city (1), the site of the Head (Second) Temple, the central axis of Jewish life and Jewish religious worship, and the ancestral and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people since the 10th Century BCE. Jerusalem is intimately connected with both Abraham, patriarch of the Israelites, and King David, one of the most important figures in Judaism. The Second Temple was destroyed in the First Jewish Revolt of 70 CE, but it wasn't until the aftermath of the bloody Bar Kochba Revolt that the Jews were actually banned from Jerusalem; many scholars date the Jewish Diaspora to the end of the Bar Kochba Revolt (2). Constantine I allowed the Jews to return one day each year to mourn their defeat and humiliation on Tisha B'Av at the Western Wall (2). Though forbidden to live in their own holy city for centuries, many populations of Jews remained in the area; the holy city of Jerusalem remained a key focus of the national consciousness of the Jewish people everywhere.

Sources: 1) 2)

Lambchopsuey (talk) 05:09, 24 February 2011 (UTC) Lambchopsuey Lambchopsuey (talk) 05:09, 24 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for discussing this first. The article is about the Crusades and Christians and Muslims, essentially. It is important how the Christians felt about Jerusalem, how the Muslims felt about it and, dead last, and maybe not at all, how the Jews felt about it. The above might best be referenced with a link, which may be there already.
 * On talk pages, it is best to omit refs in carats. There is no place for them. Okay to leave raw http. Student7 (talk) 13:50, 26 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that a detailed account of Jewish attitudes to Jerusalem is out of place here, but "abandonment" is not the correct word. After the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70, large numbers of Jews were killed or taken into slavery.  The absence of Jews from the city at the time of the Crusades, however, was the consequence of Hadrian's forbidding them from living there in AD 136.  I will change the passage to, "Jews consider Israel as their ancestral homeland, and had been visiting the city since the destruction of the Temple in AD 70." Marshall46 (talk) 11:18, 2 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I've added a template for the references. I'd be surprised if there were no Jews in Jerusalem at the time of the crusades - they were allowed back in by the Sassanids, then thrown out by Heraclius, but finally allowed back in after the Arab conquest in 638. They were certainly not in control, nor a majority, but, AFAIR, were among the victims slaughtered in the First Crusade. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:37, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Satire and irony
Eddie Izzard does a sketch about the crusades. Something along the lines of (and I paraphrase very loosely)


 * Crusader: "I kill you in the name of Jesus"
 * Saracen: "No, I kill you in the name of Jesus"
 * Crusader: "What?"
 * Saracen: "I kill you in the name of Jesus, he is an important prophet in our religion"
 * Crusader: "What?"
 * Saracen: "Yes, it's true"
 * Crusader: "Well, do you mind awfully if I kill you anyway? I've come a long way and you've got all this nice stuff I'd like to take back with me."

Now I know it's satire - but there seems to be no mention of the irony inherent in the official reason for the crusades, given that followers of Jesus in Islam and followers of Jesus in Christianity were led to fight each other. I'm not sure where I might insert such a comment in the article - and were there any contemporaneous accounts that mentioned it? Was it considered that the rejection of Jesus "as son of god" rather than just "god's prophet" was enough of an affront? or was it just not known? EdwardLane (talk) 19:38, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Islam was sometimes considered a heretical branch of Christianity, so the people who believed that would have known that Jesus played some role in Islam. In that case Muhammad was almost always referred to as a "pseudo-prophet". It's sort of like saying Islam is to Christianity as Baha'ism is to Islam. In actual crusader society in Jerusalem (or in Spain or Sicily), Islam was generally better understood. For Jerusalem, Usama ibn Munqidh probably refers to the varying degrees of comprehension. I know there is one anecdote where a Christian wants to show him an image of "God as a child" (and obviously they both know who Jesus is, and they both know that they know, they just believe different things about him). Less informed crusaders may not have had any understanding of Islam at all, and I'm sure there are examples of that as well. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:19, 29 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the answer - are there citeable references that would let someone create a section on that in the article? Are there any references suggesting/confirming whether the Popes would have known that when they sent people forth? EdwardLane (talk) 09:45, 30 June 2011 (UTC)


 * There should be...I can see what I can find next week. You can see what Urban II had in mind in 1095, in the Council of Clermont article (or at least what other people thought he had in mind). That was more about protecting fellow Christians from barbaric pagan Muslims. But, what Urban thought of Muslims and crusading would have different from what Innocent III or Gregory IX thought, for example. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:37, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 70.48.231.77, 25 July 2011
The country Israel did not exist until after world war two, thus you cannot historically refer to it as Israel, but the middle east. I would ask that someone edit it to be more historically accurate, and a little more precise. Thank you.

70.48.231.77 (talk) 04:48, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Good catch. It's funny how it says Israel then calls it a city. I restored it to what the source said, Jerusalem instead.     ~ AdvertAdam   talk  05:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Better public relations for Reconquista?
The Reconquista talks of an 800 year successful attempt to oust the trespassing Muslims from Iberia. Most of the other articles talk of Latin aggression against the poor innocent Muslims who had expropriated the Holy Land for themselves for 500-600 years or so prior to the (unsuccessful) attempt to oust them. I guess the winners do write history! :)
 * neither the Turks nor the Arabs wrote much history. Who did write it included anti-Catholics (in Europe) who did not like popes esp in the Crusades. Rjensen (talk) 12:38, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Fourth council comments
Just wanted to mention that I made my changes before seeing Rjensen's. I now agree that it is WP:OR to tie this in retrospectively to criticism of the Crusades. Needs something more current. And the quote from Chalcedon should be omitted or imbedded in the reference. Doesn't seem germane. Student7 (talk) 12:42, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Recent re-edit does not properly reflect Kolbaba's work
I had added to the article under "Criticisms" the following

One aspect of the crusades was the formation of military religious orders. It shocked eastern Christian sensibilities I referenced Kolbaba, T. M., (2000),  The Byzantine lists: errors of the Latins (University of Illinois) -Bishops and priests in battle p49ff.

This was removed with the reason
 * Kolbaba p 50 says it did NOT shock Eastern Emperors, -- & cites numerous Eastern priests & bishops in battle

Firstly note I didn't say it shocked the eastern emperors. I said it shocked eastern Christian sensibilities. This is backed up by the fact it was including in lists of 'errors' given by Orthodox about the Latins (as found in the work I cited).

The second part of the reason is misinformation. It does indeed cite instances of eastern priests and bishops who fought. It also notes what happened to them, if they were found out. One example of this ...it says (page 50) "Demetrius Chomatianos...rules that a deacon who fought to defend the walls of his town and killed many of the enemy with his arrows should be defrocked."

I made no comment on whether large numbers of priests in immediate danger took up arms or not - and thus a degree of hypocrisy is at work in making such complaints. However I have evidenced that they were made against the Latins, and that this conforms with canon law (which I also cited).

If someone wishes to say "Orthodox didn't act according to their own ideals" that would be true, but the ideal is different from the Latins. Montalban (talk) 13:15, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It is one thing to be hypocritical in a teaching (to forbid arms to priests but to turn a blind eye to them); it is an altogether different thing to condone or to propose it as a positive teaching. This seems to be the case here. The note and citation should remain. Laurel Lodged (talk) 20:01, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you Laurel for your comments. I agree as I think that there's a vast difference between individual Orthodox clerics who took up arms and were not supported under canon law for doing so and the western idea of actually institutionalising and sanctifying it as a practice.
 * I've been struggling to find evidence of eastern military orders - although it would go against my point I feel it best to have as much information as possible - regardless of whether it supports my point - the best I've found is a guard of the Holy Sephulcre, but have not found that they are also a religious order.
 * Montalban (talk) 23:23, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Kolbaba clearly says there was no common Eastern view on the matter. The emperor disagreed with the Patriarch--and the Emperor called on the pop for help. As for Chalcedon, the Armenian Church repudiated it--and the Armenians were as Christian and as eastern as the Byzantines. Kolbaba sais it was regionalism--in the capital they did not like fighting bishops but the reverse was true out on the frontier where they did fight (p 51).  Kolbaba lists many trivial complaints--the Byz lists complained that western monks ate pork and bishops wore rings. This is all rhetoric, Kolbab explains, and does not reflect widespread eastern sensibilities.  Rjensen (talk) 00:12, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The fact it was included in several lists of errors shows that it shocked them. The whole purpose of the lists, if you read all of the book and not cherry-pick is that they are in effect to say "Look at what they get up to!"
 * As to 'common view' this only works if you ignore 'canon law'. I again accept that there's a difference between the ideal and what some practice

Page 50 refers to the reaction of a request by the Emperor to grant soldiers killed in battle the status of martyrs Montalban (talk) 01:36, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
 * From the book "The Patriarch and synod apparently responded with horrified rejection."
 * I mentioned above a difference between what some practiced and what was the ideal. This is a far cry from the West that sanctified such as martyrs. Thus on page 193 we see this complaint not once, but on 8 different lists of errors
 * Why not have it shocked 'some'. However rather than do this you've three times edited out EVERYTHING I had, including that it went against canon law - which was also referenced. I don't know why, if you objected (first to a 'lack of citation') of one point you'd remove all of it - even the bit that was cited from the very start.
 * Montalban (talk) 01:41, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * A problem (to me) is any council - they have a laundry list of stuff they agreed upon. But the early councils themselves were often convened for one purpose. Chalcedon is not noted for the proscriptions against fighting monks. And who knows how often or who enforced this or when. The council was mainly about whether Christ had one or two natures. And various factions railroaded through a "list of stuff."
 * And if you appear to be the victim, naturally, you are going to be "shocked", shocked at the other sides having violated something which may never have been enforced in the first place. Maybe instead of saying "shocked", it might be more accurately stated that "X stated that he was shocked at.." Student7 (talk) 16:48, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I am not against the statement that 'some' were shocked. I appreciate the emperors weren't. Certainly the church heirachs were.
 * However what got my goat was having the stuff I wrote edited out several times without any discussion on it... even when at first part of it was referenced. I cited the Council and even that was removed.

Montalban (talk) 22:34, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I dropped a long quote from the Council of Chalcedon a half millennium earlier. That's trivia when it comes to the crusades (it's like theologians quoting the Bible at each other). More interesting--and missing--is the whole relationship of the eastern Church to the Crusades. Did it condemn them or tolerate them or what--? Rjensen (talk) 13:27, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence that canons of the church, made at an Ecumenical Council are trivial? Is there like a list of trivial and non-trivial canons? The eastern Orthodox church is divided from the western just on the west's addition of a single word (single in Latin) to a canonical statement of faith. See:

filioque

You also edited out a criticism on the fourth crusade. It would be helpful if you discuss this first, however, I've re-written it, and edited it into the article again

Anyway, sounds like you have an interesting research project on the Eastern Church and the Crusades. You might want to look for their support for the fourth crusade. Montalban (talk) 13:45, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes I do have evidence they are trivial with respect to the crusades. Fact is the West and East disagreed on the matter--and there was disagreement inside the East as well. Kolbaba gives them the same importance as eating pork and wearing rings. The article is about the Crusades, and a quote form 600 years earlier --and one repudiated by the Emperor and many Eastern priests--certainly is misleading. Is that ALL the Byz church had to say about the crusades? they come across looking petty and stupid by including that trivia -- and just who are they talking about, anyone in particular? The Knights Templar--the Knights Hospitaller or maybe the Teutonic Knights?  I suspect the Byz never said because they were repeating rote formulas to emphasize the growing distance between East and West.  Theologians do that sort of thing but it's not encyclopedic when talking about the crusades themselves. Kolbaba makes clear there was a fight between church and state [Patriarch & Emperor] and that is what is interesting.  What we must avoid is any tone of wiki criticism of the crusades, or taking the side of the Greeks against the Latins, or the Turks against the Greeks, or whatever. That is POV and not allowed. Rjensen (talk) 14:00, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

1) I don't recall Kolbaba calling that criticism trivial. What might appear to you trivial would in fact be a POV. This error appears in 8 different lists. That is that eight compilers of the list thought it important. Whether you do or not is irrelevant to it being a complaint by the Byzantines, and thus a criticism.

For example... "A religion mandates that its followers do certain things in their everyday lives, encourages its followers in certain ritual actions. Seen in this context, complaints about differences in dress or ritual action are religious complaints. To say that such matters are trivial reflects a very modern and intellectual bias" Kolbaba, p3. I do not say that Kolbaba calls any complaints trivial, but I'm not aware that this particular one is deemed such. Kolbaba clearly notes that some people today might see some as trivial.

2) the fact the rule was 600 years earlier is another POV (that the space in time makes the rule irrelevant)

3) you're asking me if that's all they had to say, the article is not about proving that they had more to say, but that they leveled this criticism - and they did.

4) The crusaders themselves ideally wouldn't have gone to war against fellow Christians. That they didn't shows that difference between ideas and actions occurred. However that doesn't mean that one can't be criticised for not meeting a standard.

Simply put... The section is about criticisms. I've evidenced a criticism. Montalban (talk)


 * Trivial canons: The problem is that canon law was not codified (in the Catholic Church) until the 20th century. The list "just grew." It is unlikely that very many scholars were aware of all canons and their effect at any one time, until they were codified. There were ecclesiastical courts and "decisions" that would go into their interpretation.
 * Can you quote any statute from memory from 500 years ago? There is no reason to believe that they could THEN either! Few books. No way to reference them since pages were all different in the hand-copied volumes. Note that I cannot go to an index nor "google" in the 11th century. I can't easily find "all canons referring to military clergy!" I have to depend on some bookish guy whom I probably don't half trust. What if there was a canon later, or ecclesiastical court decision that vitiated it? There are few laws enforced in the US older than a century. They haven't been repealed, just forgotten. And the reason for their passage, unless vital, forgotten as well. Or not understood or not relevant to the current age.
 * While there may be no "trivial" canons, there were "forgotten" ones. More than just that one, doubtless. Like all statutes, constructed for some forgotten purpose, then itself forgotten until the 20th century.
 * (Again did this without reading Rjensen's comment above, which perhaps says the same thing). Student7 (talk) 20:40, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Criticisms
In the 'criticisms of the crusade' section is a number of points a) military orders used by the west shocked some easterners. (The biographer of emperor Alexios I Komnenos is noted by Kolbaba as being shocked by this (p.50))

b) the crusaders went back on previous agreements

c) that the fourth crusade, attacking another Christian state changed the direction of the crusader movement.

In what was called a 'slight re-write' b) was removed even though that editor had previously left it in. No reason for its removal was given.

I hope this isn't getting into an editing war, but the section is about criticisms. If they're properly sourced then I don't think that it should matter if someone personally feels that they're trivial criticisms. Montalban (talk) 14:42, 7 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I've been following the above arguments about criticism of the military orders, and I should point out that there was also criticism of the orders in the west. There was criticism of the entire idea of crusading in the west, much more so than there was in the east. It does seem a little trivial to focus on what the Byzantines thought. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:22, 7 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I would like to see that criticism added. For my part I only have evidence of what the east thought, which is why I added that. I am aware of western criticism but I have no references
 * It seems to me that one of the objections is that the criticism is partisan. The comment of taking the side of Greeks -v- Latins was raised. It struck me as odd given that there's Islamic criticism there in the article too. Ibn Jubayr is cited in the criticism area. I don't understand how a Greek writer is partisan, but a Moslem one is not. However his comments are not critical talking of the justice of the Franks - so I don't know why his comments are there. Nor why the comment about Francis of Assisi is there either.
 * Montalban (talk) 23:55, 7 October 2011 (UTC)


 * There's usually some discussion of western criticisms in the general histories, but there is also a specific study, "Criticism of Crusading, 1095-1274", by Elizabeth Sibbery. I don't know if she deals with Byzantine criticism, though. Kolbaba's book is good, but I think Byzantine criticism is not really about "the crusades", but about Latins in general (and specific things they did which were detrimental to the Empire, whether they happened to be part of a crusade or not). If we focus on Byzantine criticism, shouldn't we also have a section for western criticism of Byzantium? There was certainly a lot of it. But in both cases, the criticism is tangential to the subject of the crusades. (And you're right, I don't know what Ibn Jubayr and Francis of Assisi are doing in that section either. The whole section is a mess...actually the whole article has always been pretty useless, but oh well.) Adam Bishop (talk) 15:04, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree in part that the Kolbaba book is about Western errors in general, however this one is relative to the crusades, thus I give it there, and only that one criticism. The easterners would only have experienced 'military clerical orders' because of the crusades. Thus in a section about criticisms of the crusade I give this criticism Montalban (talk) 23:40, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Thomas Asbridge,
As a source he seems to think that the Crusades came out of nowhere but the thought of Pope Urban Montalban (talk) 00:47, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It's difficult to understand an historian who makes major over-sights like believing that there was no conflicts between Islam and the west, and thus missing the massive battle of Manzikert
 * Montalban (talk) 00:52, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * All four of Asbridge's books on the crusades have been well received by scholars. 1) Eg the latest book: "What is certain is that no medieval historian alive today tells a better battle tale than Asbridge....Asbridge's reconstructions of strategy and of the intentions and impulses of generals are always convincing....he is at his most scintillating when describing the Third Crusade." (Jay Rubenstein in Historically Speaking April 2011); 2) on The First Crusade: "The main text provides a clear and well written account into which elements of analysis have been very carefully integrated....Asbridge's book is founded, to a much greater degree [than other surveys], on a fine knowledge of recent scholarship....overall, this is a clear, well written, and learned introduction to the First Crusade." [France in Catholic Historical Review(2005) 517].   Rjensen (talk) 02:50, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Except for his massive oversights (such as Manzikert), they are well written Montalban (talk) 09:30, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No crusaders were involved at Manzikert. First the Greeks got it by defeating the Armenians and in turn were defeated by the Turks. Rjensen (talk) 17:45, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe I said that he said that there were crusaders at Manzikert. His premise is that the 1st Crusades simply popped out of the Pope's head in an environment where (aside from Spain) there had been 100 years of so of relative peace between Christians and Moslems - completely ignoring the fact that just 20 years prior to the 1st crusade was the massive battle of Manzikert. Montalban (talk) 23:47, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * That's not exactly Asbridge's premise...he certainly recognizes events such as Manzikert, and that there is actually some debate about its importance, but he is arguing that the concept of a "crusade" was new, created by Urban and used as a political tool by him. (This seems to have gone totally over the heads of everyone writing about Asbridge, Manzikert, or the crusades on Wikipedia, especially in the First Crusade article...) Adam Bishop (talk) 07:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Asbridge of course does analyze the battle of Manzikert. In The Crusades (2010) p 27 he says: "In 1071, the Seljuqs crushed an imperial army at the Battle of Manzikert (in eastern Asia Minor), and though historians no longer consider this to have been an utterly cataclysmic reversal for the Greeks, it still was a stinging setback." In The first crusade p 356 he provides additional historiography, such as the important articles by Cahen, "La campagne de Mantizikert d'apres les sources musulmans," and Angold, "The Byzantine state on the eve of the battle." Rjensen (talk) 15:10, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Indeed. One important point is that Manzikert was not a battle between "Christendom" and "Islam", but rather a battle between the Seljuk Turks and the Byzantine Empire. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:58, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Then the battles in the Iberian Pen. weren't against "Christendom" either. That's a problem with his selective appraisal of the then current state of play between the opponents Montalban (talk) 23:35, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No, they weren't, but I'm not sure what that has to do with Asbridge. But both the Reconquista and the wars against the Seljuks were reinterpreted as wars between Islam and Christendom, which is part of the reason the idea of a "crusade" was so novel. People in Spain didn't seem to think of it like that, which is why Urban and other popes had to specifically tell them to stay behind. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:17, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

That's not the point. The point is that Asbridge is saying that (excepting for Iberia) there was a century or more of peace, and there wasn't - given Manzikert happened. That's not even including the war in Sicily. The idea of a 'holy war' might itself have been novel, but the idea of war between Christian nations and Islamic ones was not. There was war between Georgia (under Bagrat and, King David IV et al) and Islam. The Seljuks under Alp Arslan had attacked Armenia. If he wanted to reconstruct this to say that "Asides from Iberia, Sicily, and the eastern Christian nations there was relative peace until the Pope thought up the novel idea of holy (Christian) war" (because 'holy war' was not novel to Islam), then he'd have a point, albeit a convoluted one. That's the worth of his text as history He might as well have just said that it was a new thing to Christianity; Holy War. Montalban (talk) 03:13, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I think Montalban would be more convincing if a) he actually quotes Professor Asbridge saying any of these things (instead of making up fake quotes) and b) tell us what more reliable source he is depending upon for his views. Rjensen (talk) 03:39, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Fake quotes? Montalban (talk) 04:29, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * yes -- go up a dozen or so lines and Montalban wrote this: a) fake quote = Asides from Iberia, Sicily, and the eastern Christian nations there was relative peace until the Pope thought up the novel idea of holy (Christian) war" go up a bit more and get b) fake paraphrase = " Asbridge is saying that (excepting for Iberia) there was a century or more of peace, and there wasn't.".  And again, which RS  is Montalban using??? Rjensen (talk) 04:45, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Check out the leading If

In grammar, conditional sentences are sentences discussing factual implications or hypothetical situations and their consequences.

Conditional Clause

Montalban (talk) 06:53, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Oops! Forgot this...
 * The sentence Asbridge is saying that... is not in quote marks. If it were a paraphrase, I'm not sure how it would also be a quote???
 * Montalban (talk) 06:55, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok try this grammar for size: "If editor X wanted to get it right and make a useful contribution he would use exact quotes from real scholars and not make up imaginary statements that never existed outside his imagination." Rjensen (talk) 22:29, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

It's a pity that Asbridge seems to think that there was relative peace before the Crusades. I accept that he calls it a 'new' history, and in the context of protests against the Gulf War (II) it has some currency amongst readers and intellectuals alike. Aside from him missing important facts it's worth every cent Montalban (talk) 23:35, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

The First Crusader
John Julius Norwich referred to the Roman emperor Heraclius as the first Crusader. I was wondering who else might claim this title. Montalban (talk) 07:00, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Constantine's conversion to Christianity
Constantine did not convert to Christianity in AD 313. He is believed to be baptized on his death bed by an Arian bishop. So it is more accurate to say that he converted to a Christian heresy - Arianism - in the year of his death. In AD 313, the Edict of Milan was promulgated to legalize the religion of Christianity and marked an official end of the Diocletianic Persecution.
 * Has this some relevance to the Crusades???
 * Montalban (talk) 11:00, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Deus (lo) volt (or vult)
There seems to be a question of what the crusaders' motto might have been. I assumed it was Deus lo volt because that is the name of the book: Even S. Connell, Deus lo volt! Chronicle of the Crusades (Washington, D.C. 2000) ISBN: 1582430659

However see: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/latinlanguage/f/DeusLoVult.htm which implies that Deus lo volt is a lower class corruption of the classical latin: Deus vult. I presume we should change the text to: Deus vult. RobLandau (talk) 15:47, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think "lower class" properly describes it. At the time of the Crusades, few except the clergy would speak "proper" Latin (and even then a medieval church dialect that would probably have been largely incomprehensible to e.g. Cicero). "Vulgar Latin" had already started to differentiate into what would become different romance languages. Also, of course, medieval people were far less concerned about languages and uniform orthography than we are - i.e. they might record a spoken "vulgar" phrase in more formal language without even noticing. So the "motto" might well be any of many different forms, and, IIRC, different reports on the Council of Clermont differ in much more substantial points than the exact pronunciation of the rally cry. Also see Deus vult, which underlines the inconsistency on this particular point. To sum it up: We should probably not belabor this point, but go with any good source. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:51, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Medieval Latin and Ecclesiastical Latin are essentially the same as classical Latin, in the sense that Cicero would have found it strange to hear and read, but not incomprehensible. They're not so different that they would be considered dialects. In any case, Connell's book is certainly not a good source, since it's a novel. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:15, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Connell's book is a very carefully researched novel and mentions the primary references -- readers are informed by it which is what I take the purpose of Further Reading to be.RobLandau (talk) 08:33, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think "Further Reading" is intended to promote a work of fiction, no matter how well-researched. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:49, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It stands to reason that the rallying cry would be the equivalent of "God wills it!" in the native language of given crusaders. The Latin version(s) would probably be universal, but Frankish crusaders probably would have commonly used an Old French version, German crusaders would have used a Middle High German version, and so on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.72.200.10 (talk) 09:29, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Citations needed
I found a citation needed on a claim that there was violence against Jews. I don't have permission to edit, but I do have a source.

I'm not 100% sure about the format.

Editor: Jonathan Reilly Smith (1999) Oxford History of the Crusades, Oxford University Press.

With only the best intentions, Hobbit (talk) 11:06, 18 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks, and welcome to Wikipedia. Not sure what you mean about "not having permission to edit." This may be true at your end, but not at Wikipedia! Anybody can technically edit.
 * Since you are looking at the citation and I am not, the citation would need to be entered by you. Here is the format . I would be nice, but not essential, to furnish page numbers, location where printed and isbn for credibility. Because these entries are widely debated it would be "nice", but not always possible, to furnish an online citation that we can all read. But hardcopy is fine. And it never changes! :)  Student7 (talk) 21:38, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Edit request on 19 February 2012 (Old-Prussians were Baltic, not Slavic)
The Prussians are mislabeled as being "Slavic" when they are in truth "Baltic" under the section, "Norther Crusades" sub section Crusades of the Teutonic Order   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades#Crusades_of_the_Teutonic_Order) the 2nd paragraph "In 1229, responding to an appeal from the Duke of Poland, they began a crusade against the pagan Slavs of Prussia." should be changed to "In 1229, responding to an appeal from the Duke of Poland, they began a crusade against pagan Baltic Prussia."

Proof/evidence is found in the detailed articles on wikipedia such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Crusades http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussia_(region)#Old_Prussians http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_Crusade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Prussians Tall mohammad (talk) 06:01, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Not done: I googled "pagan Slavs of Prussia" and found many references to the pagan Slavic tribes which were in Prussia. That is the current meaning and it appears to be verifiable. If you find a reference which says that the tribes were baltic, we could change it to "...pagan tribes of Prussia." Thanks, Celestra (talk) 20:22, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

NEW & ADDITIONAL REFERENCE 14 March 2012 Thank you for considering and taking the time to look into this correction request. I would request that you reconsider this correction request.

It is a very common misconception to confuse the Baltic peoples/ethnicity with Slavic Peoples /Ethnicity

Google search seems to be guilty of this misunderstanding and misconception as well

The Baltic Peoples consist of the currently existing Latvian and Lithuanian ethnicities along with the now extinct Old or original Prussian ethnicity

According to the "Encyclopedia Britannica", the old or original Prussians were a Baltic people who practiced Paganism. It was these same Baltic Pagan Prussians who were attacked and Christianized by the crusades of the Teutonic order.

"The original Prussians, mainly hunters and cattle breeders, spoke a language belonging to the Baltic group of the Indo-European language family.

These early Prussians were related to the Latvians and Lithuanians and lived in tribes in the then heavily forested region between the lower Vistula and Niemen rivers. Their social organization was loose—although some elements of stratified society can be traced—and they were pagans. Early attempts to convert the Prussians to Christianity—notably those made by Saint Adalbert and Saint Bruno of Querfurt at the turn of the 11th century—were unsuccessful. In the 13th century, however, the Prussians were conquered and Christianized by the German-speaking knights of the Teutonic Order, which had been awarded Prussian lands by the Polish duke Conrad of Mazovia for help against Prussian incursions. The Prussian countryside was subdued, castles were built for German nobility, and many German peasants were settled there to farm the land. By the middle of the 14th century, the majority of the inhabitants of Prussia were German-speaking, though the Old Prussian language did not die out until the 17th century. By the 17th century the indigenous population was thoroughly assimilated." (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/480893/Prussia)

I would also refer to wikipedia's own article on the old Prussians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Prussians) that agrees with the the information in the the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Tall mohammad (talk) 06:05, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I've moved my original reply back to where it belongs chronologically. Please always add new posts the end of discussions to avoid confusion. I found the source which is being used to support the current text and corrected the url for the citation. Could someone else help the requester? Thanks, Celestra (talk) 15:15, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Lead Section Assertion
"The Crusades had major far-reaching political, economic, and social impacts on western Europe, including causing the downfall of the Christian Byzantine Empire."

I have a number of problems with this line. The first half of it is bland and really doesn't say much; it's self-evident that a large number of ambitious military campaigns would have such impacts (and not just in western Europe). It strangely also seems to imply that the Byzantine empire was part of western Europe. My biggest problem is that it presents as fact a controversial assertion about the crusades' impact on the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, which seems to be only incompletely addressed (and heavily rebutted) in the Scholarly Debates section on the First Crusade. Unless someone would like to make sure this line is improved and properly addressed in the article, I recommend that it be deleted. (Posted March 1, 2012.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.72.200.10 (talk) 09:01, 1 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I dislike adjectives and will rm some of them. Let the reader decide about "far-reaching." It seems to me that the editor "reached pretty far" in inserting this.
 * The claim of "downfall" refers, I believe, to the Fourth Crusade where, due to an improbable series of events, the Crusaders, originally trying to reach Jerusalem, instead sacked Constantinople. The final goal was to place the "correct" leader on the throne there. The "correct" leader happened to be a Latin Church sympathizer. The Greek Orthodox claim to this day that this so weakened the city-state, that it collapsed in the face of Turkish onslaught in the mid 15th century (i.e. it never recovered). Student7 (talk) 13:27, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * At the very least the two terms ought to be separated. If the second term is to remain, it should probably just confine itself to the city, not the wider empire. Laurel Lodged (talk) 20:29, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't mean to imply I was not aware of the Fourth Crusade, sorry if I was less than clear. However, while some historians place blame on the crusades for this and other consequences, many others would disagree. (After all, it was Constantinople politics and a scheming contender to the throne (Alexios IV Angelos) that brought the crusaders there in the first place. Additionally, the Byzantines had been struggling with and losing to Islamic forces for a long time before the crusades began.) Indeed, though the crusades (particularly the later campaigns like Nicopolis and Varna) ultimately failed in their ultimate goal of preserving Christian Constantinople, it is very arguable that overall the crusades did much to prolong the survival of the city and empire, which otherwise may have withered and collapsed much sooner. I need to dig up some sources first, but I will eventually revert it to reflect the mixed views on the subject and will also add to the Criticisms section to demonstrate many of the varying perspectives; I think it's very important that Wikipedia's articles do not present one-sided historical arguments. Thanks for the input, and also to whomever did the improving revert(s). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.72.200.10 (talk) 08:19, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, I've kind of wondered about that myself - the 4th crusade "ruining" the Byzantine Empire "forever." But that is the claim. Good luck on finding out otherwise! Student7 (talk) 13:12, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

the franks
the franks are not people from France... They were the germans. The article is incorrect. see here: http://www.thenagain.info/webchron/westeurope/Franks.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ddequattro (talk • contribs) 03:36, 5 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Originally they were a Germanic tribe, but that was hundreds of years before the Crusades. That is where the name of "France" comes from, and crusaders from France tended to call themselves "Franks", as did the Muslims and sometimes the Greeks. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:30, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Minor typo
Unfortunately, I have not the chops to correct it, and by the time I do, I'll likely have forgotten it. But it's an irritating typo.

Under: First paragraph, final parenthetical sentence: "(Ironically, they would rest it back less than a year before the arrival of the First Crusade.)" The typo? "Rest" should be "wrest". *Completely* different meanings to those two words.
 * Background
 * Middle Eastern Situation
 * The Political Situation

Many thanks Barefoot Bree (talk) 01:57, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. Thanks! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:49, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 6 May 2012
In the paragraph: In 1229, responding to an appeal from the Duke of Poland, they began a crusade against the pagan Slavs of Prussia. They became sovereigns over lands they conquered over the next century. In a series of campaigns, the Teutonic Knights gained control over the whole Baltic coast, founding numerous towns and fortresses and establishing Christianity.

Poland, history/Duke of Poland should be repaced by Konrad I of Mazovia, which is an existing Wikipedia entry. Also, the later conflict between Teutonic Knights and Christian Poland resulting in Battle of Grunwaldshould be added

Wjkk (talk) 21:34, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done ~Adjwilley (talk) 02:37, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 6 May 2012
In 1229, responding to an appeal from the Duke of Poland, they began a crusade against the pagan Slavs of Prussia. They became sovereigns over lands they conquered over the next century. In a series of campaigns, the Teutonic Knights gained control over the whole Baltic coast, founding numerous towns and fortresses and establishing Christianity.

Instead of Duke of Poland it should be Konrad of Masovia

Wjkk (talk) 21:38, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done ~Adjwilley (talk) 02:38, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 20 May 2012
History tells and proves that the catholic church split from the rest (orthodox etc) and please note that the egyptian orthodox church had nothing to do with the crusades.

DONARGUEWIDMEORELSE... (talk) 10:44, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Each Patriarch anathemised the other. Neither claims to the split or departed. Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:18, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

This request is not clear to me. I don't see "egyptian orthodox church" in the article. Please be more specific by quoting from the article and proposing a replacement for the quoted text. David R. Ingham (talk) 16:57, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

oxymoron?
I feel that the revert of my edit by Rjensen is questionable, because I included a reference to a reliable source (which makes this point unhesitatingly but in different words), while the revert lists no source, and also because the comments do not necessarily contradict my edit. Since I know that some people's feelings about this subject are stronger than mine, I am not re-inserting my text. But perhaps someone else can find a less controversial way to make this point. David R. Ingham (talk) 16:36, 21 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, crusading isn't a sin, in fact that's what makes it a crusade and not just random violence. (If it was a sin, that would be the oxymoron.) And is Zoe Oldenbourg really a reliable source? Isn't she more of a novelist? Adam Bishop (talk) 21:46, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * lots of historians discuss the issue: "people believed that penances could also help win God's forgiveness for sins. The crusade, a dangerous undertaking with uncertain outcome, was a particularly rigorous form of penance." (Jaspert, The Crusades - Page 31); "they believed that participation in the crusade would 'remit sins' and help to save a man's soul" (Riley-Smith); "The crusade was God's work, and Martin promised 'absolutely' that 'whoever takes the sign of the Cross and makes sincere confession will be totally absolved of every sin and when he leaves this present life, no matter where, when..." (Phillips, 4th Crusade). Rjensen (talk) 21:59, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * This reminds me of Steven Runciman's three-volume history, where he ultimately concludes that the crusades were a sin...but the medieval legal and theological justification for crusading was quite clear that they were not. I guess if you think sin exists as a thing beyond human definition, they could be a sin...but it's not really Wikipedia's job to define things that way. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

How many died?
This seems like a reasonable, high-level question for such a high profile series of wars. I don't see this information in the, otherwise very detailed, article. Estimates available? --Ds13 (talk) 04:53, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Sentence repeated
The last two paragraphs of "The Northern Crusades" end with the sentence: "A later conflict between Teutonic Knights and Christian Poland resulted in the Battle of Grunwald."; to which paragraph does it rightly belong? Historian932 (talk) 14:36, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

"[...] One historian has written that the "isolation, alienation and fear"[3] felt by the Franks so far from home helps to explain the atrocities they committed, [...]".

I see no reason as to why this should be here, the article is clearly biased into "pardoning" the christian murders and should not be allowed due to the the wikipedia neutrality guidelines. There are no such attempts in the articles about Gengis Khan atrocities for example which makes en.wikipedia suitable for catholic christians while disregarding others points of view and in this case may even offend muslims, orthodox christians or jews.

So please change: "One historian has written that the "isolation, alienation and fear"[3] felt by the Franks so far from home helps to explain the atrocities they committed, including the cannibalism which was recorded after the Siege of Ma'arra in 1098."

to nothing. The cannibalism witnessed in Ma'arra should not be under this section either in my opinion.

Thank you for not ignoring this, it has been discussed before to no avail in Talk:Crusades/Archive 6 section 4. Sinekonata (talk) 19:41, 2 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: It is the opinion of one person. The sentence does not present it as a fact - it it was so, then it would have violated the neutral point of view guideline. Andie  ''  ▶Candy◀  14:31, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

A little correction regarding a picture..
The picture next to the Northern Crusades section (File:Knight livonia.png) claims to be a knight of Livonian Brothers of the Sword, but this is wrong. It's a member of the Order of Dobrzyń/Dobrin. :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.209.116.168 (talk) 13:54, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 15 July 2012
In the introduction; paragraph 5 contains the grammatically incorrect sentence: "It resulted in substantially weakening of the Christian Byzantine Empire, which fell several centuries later to the Muslim Turks." This should be corrected to "It resulted in a substantial weakening of the Christian Byzantine Empire, which fell..."


 * Yes check.svg Done RudolfRed (talk) 22:35, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Parking stuff...
Will replace some of these later after cleanup. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:43, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Article work...
I'll be working on citing and rewriting/formating this article over the next few days as part of the The Core Contest. I don't plan to heavily rewrite the article unless I run into serious sourcing or POV problems. Part of this effort will include switching the reference system to short footnotes (see them in example at Middle Ages) and cleanup of the various long lists of see alsos and further reading. Most of the books in further reading should be used as sources in the article. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:36, 24 August 2012 (UTC)


 * While Roman/Byzantine possession of Holy Sites can be overemphasized, not so sure that deemphasizing it is accurate either. The Christians held the land for several hundred years. The sites were important to them as Religious sites. Some background is needed IMO. Initially the Byzantines cheered the effort on in hopes of "regaining" their lost possessions.
 * Islam did not exist when the Byzantines first controlled these sites. Since the Romans changed faith, the Roman/Byzantine "possession" seemed to them to date from the year zero! Student7 (talk) 00:54, 30 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I've based what to include on what the various sources include and start their histories of the Crusades with - none of them begin nearly as far in the past as this article did. Several just begin with Urban, but a few others start earlier. And I'm not relying solely on academic works - several of the works I'm using as sources are more popular histories, designed for readers without a background in history. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:35, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 9 September 2012
I suggest that the reference to Balian of Ibelin in the section "Crusades in popular culture" be linked to the page about him: Balian_of_Ibelin. Thanks.

Prototypo (talk) 14:53, 9 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svg Done RudolfRed (talk) 19:17, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

small typo
"The Eastern Empire and it's church were officially divided..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.231.251.101 (talk) 01:42, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Duration of Albigensian Crusade
Says decade-long here, but the article on the Albigensian crusade says 45 years. I suppose the ending point is somewhat of a subjective judgment- persecution lasted until 1321, but actual crusade ended much sooner- but a decade seems short by any stretch of the imagination. Busaccsb (talk) 04:11, 1 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I imagine it was supposed to say "decades-long", so I've changed it. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:53, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Polish Crucades - in the region of Little Poland, Levantind (the Holy Land), Prussian and Mongolian
The tombs of Polish crusaders were discovered very recently. Please find more information in the articles:

http://polskalokalna.pl/wiadomosci/swietokrzyskie/news/znaleziono-nagrobki-uczestnikow-wypraw-krzyzowych,1867065,230

http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/1,114871,12922654,Odkryto_nagrobki_polskich_krzyzowcow_sprzed_800_lat.html

Also: http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Forgotten_Crusaders.html?id=l9R2WMhnHHAC&redir_esc=y --81.105.62.223 (talk) 22:01, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Children's Crusade
This section is entirely, it seems, copied from ref 62.Any suggestions? Assistant N 18:10, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * it's a clear copyvio. I deleted it and replaced it with text from Citizendium http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Crusades#The_Children.27s_Crusade_.281212.29 (this is allowed by CC-BY-SA 3.0 ) Rjensen (talk) 18:35, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Role of Women???
Yeah well, I'm sure this a great indication of contemporary social preoccupations that'll be the source of vast amusement for social historians and anthropologists in the future but this section is rather incongruous. Just because some bint has sold a book on the a role of a discreet social grouping of personal interest it doesn't mean it qualifies for inclusion in a perfunctory context of an encyclopedia. I don't see similar sections on cobblers, fletchers, seamstresses or even agricultural laborers all of which represent groupings that had more significant role than the one represented here, get your bloody act together. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.112.236.21 (talk) 14:36, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
 * This is an unfortunate anonymous rant that demonstrates the English school system in Sheffield has not been successful in teaching courtesy, inquisitiveness, or knowledge about the Crusades and how scholars think about the past.Rjensen (talk) 23:37, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Material seems okay. The title seems to hint at PC. "European women support the Crusades?" Sounds worse or I'd change it. Student7 (talk) 23:28, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Absolution of sins
Since this article seems well loved, I'll leave a note here, too. Right now, absolution has no mention of Crusades. This page mentions it, but probably too briefly (one line) given that the most fundamental theme of the Crusades in modern culture is pointing out supposed Xian hypocrisy and militancy. Unlike the OT or Quran, the NT pretty much directly contradicts the idea of holy war: we could use discussion or more prominent links about how it got justified in the first place & what justifications/excuses Xians now offer on the subject. Thanks. — Llywelyn II   12:31, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the Just War section comes close to covering this but could use sources and more details or links about why Greg7 was mulling the idea and how the process worked. — Llywelyn II   12:35, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Reconquista has a little more, claiming (w/o a source) that Pope Alexander II "allegedly promised" (?) the participants of the 1064 War of Barbastro a collective indulgence and that it produced ecclesiastical blowback at the time. — Llywelyn II   13:40, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Third Crusade 1187–1192
First time Wiki poster, long time reader.

I've noticed a few inaccuracies in the final paragraph re: Richard I.

Firstly Richard was known as the Lion Heart 'Cœur de Lion' prior to his accession to the throne. The line "Richard the Lion-Hearted's exploits gave rise to the legends of the Lion Hearted.." written directly after a paragraph outlining his actions during the campaign suggests that this title was gained through his actions on the third crusade.

Secondly saying that, "Richard acquired a greatly exaggerated posthumous prestige" overlooks the fact that Richard and by extension England gained great prestige in the immediate wake of the third crusade, most definitely within his lifetime. Richard has of course subsequently gained something of a mythical status, and like any good rock star, he died young to help it on its way. But to suggest that his prestige is "greatly exaggerated" does suggest that author believes him to be a 'bad' king.

Which brings me onto my third point. The line, "More showman than statesman, a brave knight but a bad king", is a snappy conclusion, but by what standards are you judging him? The fact that he spent less than six months of his reign in England is often raised as evidence of a neglectful kingship, but whilst he is remembered as a king of England he was of course ruler of the Angevin Empire. The years of his reign that were not spent on crusade were largely used in expanding and defending his lands in France. During this time and whilst he was on crusade he left England in the more than capable hands of his mother and regent Eleanor of Aquitaine. She was by all accounts a very shrewd political operator and almost certainly did a better job than her son ever would have. It is true that the costs of his military campaigns coupled with his hefty ransom bled the treasury dry, but the glory that he won on crusade bought a great deal of political capital with the great houses of Europe and the Papacy. Political capital that would continue paying out long after his death.

Hope this helps Mrlegend13 (talk) 03:49, 7 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Point made!
 * Editors doubtless were perhaps over-responding to "Richard, the myth." His ransom (not really his "fault", I guess) cost the English an enormous sum of money, some multiple of gross domestic product, as I recall. And all the legends. And being contrasted as "Richard the Good" vs "John the Bad." The latter no longer considered quite so bad. In other words, reversing "Ivanhoe!"
 * And, yes, his mother was a genius before her time. He shoulda listened to his mother! :)
 * Another problem we have with bios in this time frame is imagining that the country (which it is today) was thought of in the same national way as we do, which is false, of course. Bringing us to another downer: the "great kings of anyplace" were largely freebooting thugs out for their own personal gain. Some more thoughtful or with cleverer biographers than others. Up until maybe 1400 or so?
 * So on what basis should we (look for references supporting...) "bad king/good king?" Whether they feathered their own nest efficiently or not? We tend to judge on whether it was good for our history. Richard's legend was good (good "press" nowdays), but John and Eleanor's reign was "more efficient." But in the prospective of the Crusades, John and Eleanor are almost irrelevant. And certainly Richard's accomplishments or lack of them outside the Crusade is likewise irrelevant IMO (non-WP:TOPIC). Student7 (talk) 00:07, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Glad to see the offending paragraph has been removed, thank you. :) To briefly respond to a few of your points; I understand that 'nationalism' in the modern sense is several centuries away at this point, but some of the sentiments and identity associated with it are present in medieval Europe. The lands held by a great house would gain something of a collective identity of their own, not as permanent as regional identities, but present none the less. The reason I mention this is because of the great damage to the reputation of both the Plantagenet house and the Angevin Empire due to Henry II's actions during and after the Beckett controversy. This was the greatest scandal of its age in Europe and even before Thomas Beckett's murder England was without its Arch Bishop for over five years. All of this combined to give the Plantagenets and by extension their lands a reputation of being cursed and abandoned by God (a very dangerous reputation to carry in a superstitious world). Richards action in the third crusade largely erased this. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that no subsequent English monarch would have a greater international reputation than he did. On the subject of "good and bad" kings, you are right it is a difficult question to answer, what is good for the country in the long run is often the result of folly on the part of the monarch, case in point John and Magna Carta. I would judge a king in his own context, success and failure in his undertakings, ability to keep his kingdom united, etc. Mrlegend13 (talk) 00:57, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Also worth noting
I'm not sure which article or subsidiary article this should go into, but interesting that the HRB account of the Battle of Badon has St. Dubricy handing out absolution to any Briton joining the fight against the Saxons (i.e., turning resistance into a Crusade). Yeah, it's Geoffrey and ahistorical, but it still shows how the idea seeped into the culture. — Llywelyn II   12:31, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I added something a bit lame and short to Absolution. No history there at all. Student7 (talk) 21:47, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Accuracy?
This page is written from a very subjective and inaccurate point of view. While I do not want to excuse the barbarianism of the Christian crusades, the page focuses on and exaggerates the Christian actions and diminishes the Muslim actions. I love this quote, "Although Europe had been exposed to Islamic culture for centuries through contacts in Iberian Peninsula and Sicily, much knowledge in areas such as science, medicine, and architecture was transferred from the Islamic to the western world during the crusade era."

So, "exposed to Islamic culture...through contacts," is a very misconstrued way of saying, "militarily conquered, occupied, and Islam forced on the population, to the point of religious structures being destroyed and rebuilt as Islamic structures."

Nowhere on this page, when speaking of the barbarous acts of the crusading Christians, does it mention that the invading Moors already performed all of these acts on the peoples of Europe, for hundreds of years, BEFORE the crusades ever started. Want to talk about a precursor? There is one for you. The European Christians were taught how to wage a fanatical, holy war, by the Muslims, themselves. You wouldn't know it by reading this page, though. Maybe more facts and less political propaganda, next time? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.216.237.71 (talk) 17:39, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but that is a very confused and oversimplified view of history. Moors is not a very well-defined term. And by the time of the First Crusade, the Normans had taken Sicily, and the Reconquista in Spain was in full swing. The first era of Islamic expansion had been over for more generations than the American revolution and the Napoleonic wars are now.  Sure, if you go back far enough in history, you can always find someone who did something less than admirable. But that is neither an excuse, nor does it establish historical contingency. Anyways, I suggest you make concrete suggestions for improvement, accompanied by reliable sources. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:37, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * IP, the last two words of Stephan Schulz's post are the key ones: if there are reliable sources that support your thesis that "The European Christians were taught how to wage a fanatical, holy war, by the Muslims, themselves" then please add to the article. Otherwise, it's just WP:OR and not relevant. As for the phrase "exposed to Islamic culture", I think you may have misunderstood the reference. The "exposure" in question is not a euphemism for "conquest" and its immediate aftermath, but rather the subsequent osmosis of Islamic culture into the Christian or mixed Christian/Islamic Societies of the west, e.g. the cosmopolitanism of Roger II of Sicily's court. DeCausa (talk) 10:55, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure Mr. 108.216.237.71 has the confused or over-simplified view of history here. The popes felt completely authorized to dispose of the lands of the heretics. The Normans were in their first generation of rule over all Sicily after *2 centuries* under the Muslims (check that: Noto and Malta fell in 1091 – they were in their first decade of non-Muslim rule). Slave raids were common around the Mediterranean (even into Switzerland) and had been particularly savage in Italy: every other story in the Decameron (centuries later) begins "...and then she was abducted by the Moorish pirates". Roland & co. were popular fare, and the church and its historians waffled between assuming the Syrian and African heretics got what they deserved and bewailing how their coreligionists were being mistreated. The reconquista was getting started but was just then being theologically justified to keep the Spaniards aimed south instead of sideways. The speed of change during the last two centuries has nothing whatever to do with a comparative span in the middle ages.


 * The reason Mr. 108.216.237.71 is completely wrong is that the church wouldn't've justified itself on the basis of Islamic scripture or "turnabout is fair play". The wars themselves are easy: retaking old and famous bishoprics from people G-d had permitted to lapse into heresy and who had long mistreated the true believers. But how they justified treating it as penance and absolution could use more detailed discussion, since it so clearly and famously contradicts Xian scripture.


 * Likewise, we should avoid Academian like "exposure" and "osmosis" since it's terribly bad and lazy writing: what was actually going on was trade and raiding by both sides and we should say that instead of implying they were basking peacefully in each other's presence. — Llywelyn II   13:34, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
 * That's an oversimplification. There was much more to the relationship than "trade and raiding" and reducing the complex inter-relationships of Islam, western Christianity, and Byzantine culture in Norman Sicily or Islam, Christianity and Jewish culture in medieval Spain to that is a great misunderstanding. "Osmosis" is precisely the right word. DeCausa (talk) 22:02, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Note the paragraphs in question, regarding "exposure" has no cited source. It is propagating a popular myth that the science of the antiquity was preserved by the Islamic religion. It is as much a misconception as the conception of the Crusades and early Muslim expansion as a "religious" war. The expansion of the Arab Empire was a political war like any other imperialistic expansion as much as it was religiously motivated. In the same way, the Crusades were political wars as much as the propaganda in the West was clearly invoking religious sentiments. Back to the preservation of science and philosophy of the antiquity popularly attributed to Islam, are rather more accurately attributed to the Muslim conquest of the Persian empire with the preservation of the library in Baghdad, as well as the preservation of Greek literature in Constantinople. It always fascinates me just how ignorant Western Culture and Christendom is of the true importance of the 1000 year-long legacy of the Roman Empire and the preservation of the Graeco-Roman Culture in Constantinople long after the Northern Barbarians of Europe had all but extinguished the cultural legacy of the Western antiquity. Gschadow (talk) 21:24, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * There's a substantial and mainstream body of literature on how classical learning was transmitted to the West via Arab scholarship. What on earth are you talking about? Also, to talk about "the Northern Barbarians of Europe had all but extinguished the cultural legacy of the Western antiquity" is an outdated cliché that even primary/elementary schools don't teach anymore. DeCausa (talk) 22:02, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Popular belief does not make truth. You might want to read up on the Imperial Library of Constantinople. Gschadow (talk) 22:19, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * It's not "popular belief". Your "the Northern Barbarians of Europe had all but extinguished the cultural legacy of the Western antiquity" is "popular belief" from about 40+ years ago. The fact that Byzantium was a conduit of classical culture to the West in the latter part of its history does not mean The Islamic world wasn't. That's not "popular belief" that's reflective of a substantial body of academic literature on the subject. DeCausa (talk) 22:27, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I didn't say that it wasn't, I said that the role of Constantinople always gets ignored by the purely Western European POV mixed in this toxic religious battle for or against Islam. Whether or not you like my term "Northern Barbarians", which I put in quotes for a reason, it is not refuted by anyone that those peoples who diminished the Western-Roman Empire were coming from the North and East and were a warring people without a high cultural tradition, so I am not quite sure what you are fighting against here. Gschadow (talk) 22:36, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I wasn't referring to the phrase "Northern barbarians". The concept that the "Northern barbarians" destroyed "the cultural legacy of Western Antiquity" is a Gibbonesque concept that hasn't been strongly put forward by historians for a long time and is largely discredited. This is partly because the so-called "decline" had set in significantly prior to their arrival, and their arrival didn't have the dramatic impact as attested by significant survival of classical culture. There's little support anymore for the assumption that the "barbarian invasions" themselves causing a dramatic change in clasical culture. As far as the "Western European POV" is concerned, that's just POV in itself. It's well-established and widely recognised that the influx from Byzantium was a major spur for the renaissance.DeCausa (talk) 22:47, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Fascinating. If the culture of the antiquity was not raided by the "barbarian invasions" then how come it had to be preserved by non-western cultures, be that Arabs or Graeco-Romans? You can't have it both ways. The page on Transmission of the Classics here is a good example for this West-vs.-Islam popular view that holds no water when looking at the real importance of the Arabic manuscripts for the restauration of Classic literature. As far as I can tell, all the major Aristotle manuscripts were preserved in the Imperial Library of Constantinople and yet that whole Wikipedia page is full of talk about Arab scholars (as if the article was about Arab reception, when it should be about transmission and re-introduction to the west) and contains only one sentence on the library in Constantinople. Gschadow (talk) 23:08, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
 * It's not that fascinating, it's basic well-established stuff. Of course there was a decline in classical learning, it's the absolute causal link with the arrival of the "Northern Barbarians" that's the outdated cliché. With regard to Transmission of the Classics, sounds like WP:SOFIXIT applies and you should add some WP:RS to that article. DeCausa (talk) 14:46, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Not sure where this is going, but there is a popular book "How the Irish Saved Civilization, a somewhat exaggerated title explaining how literate Irish monks conscientiously recopied fading scrolls. They did have time.
 * While their intent may not have been the same, might not Muslim clerics copied Aristotle scrolls, for example? I'm not sure the Crusaders got as far north as Constantinople until the 4th crusade. There was little positive communication between Eastern and Western Christianity for various reasons. Student7 (talk) 00:52, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean, since the crusaders passed through Constantinople during the First Crusade (and pilgrims in the centuries before that often went through Constantinople). Adam Bishop (talk) 22:39, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments like this, is why I am now editing on this page. The skewed disinformation in the west is rampant. The comments by the recent reverter of my edits, that somehow I was trying to "whitewash", are an indication of the problem. This view on history is full of moralizing. While the Arabian/Muslim conquest is labeled "exposure" and "influence" the Crusades are labeled Religious aggression. The Arabs and later Turks were relentless in their aggression against Europe, before Constantinople fell and thereafter when they moved to the doorsteps of Vienna. Of course it was driven by Religious fervor and propaganda from their side. But what is the point of labeling this only a religious war? Do you really think the Normans sacking Italian territory, sacking even Rome itself, and then Constantinople, were primarily driven by religious motivations? Of course not. And the Arabs and Turks, primarily by religious motivations? All this moralizing persecuting POV needs to be removed from these articles. They need to be objective and neutral, not pushing an undercurrent of modern Islamic victim crying nor Western self-despising. Gschadow (talk) 15:08, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, I won't waste my time fighting this alone against the reverters. In fact, what looks like the original article on which this Wikipedia article is based [|How Stuff Works, History, Crusades] is more neutral then this here. I will work here if I can see that a couple others share my desire for more neutrality. Anyone? Gschadow (talk) 15:21, 23 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Before you jump to take the moral high ground, let's take it back to some basics:
 * The edit that was reverted (not by me), and about which you appear to be so upset, (that is, this one) contained typos and poor quality English (for clarification: "Many were Franks, and the more successful were Normans from France, hence "Franks" - sorry, not good enough syntactically and otherwise, see below)
 * The edit you made, referred to above, incorrectly maintained the prior citation, ref name=Asbridge6 Asbridge Crusades p. 6, for your addition. A new source is needed for it.
 * It also makes no sense. Let's analyse your sub-clauses: "many were Franks...hence Franks". That's nonsense. "...the more successful were Normans from France, hence 'Franks'". Equal nonsense.
 * The substantive issue in your edit is "primarily against Muslims in the Levant," versus "primarily ain the Levant and Armenia" (sic). Ignoring your typo, that is a massive change of emphasis. By that edit, you are saying that Crusades were an attack on the "East" not on the "Muslim east". Ok, that's a point of view, a minority point of view but a point of view nvertheless. But you produce no citation or explanation in the text you added to support the change. at minimum, it needs an academic citation and an explanation in the text along the lines of "although the crusades are traditionally considered to be primarily an attack against against Muslims in the Levant in fact they were an attack on the Levant generally and Armenia". This is basic Wikipedia editing requirements. I'm not even touching whether that statement is right or wrong at this point.
 * And I am saying it is wrong. Not totally, of couse. History is never as clear cut as you seem to want to make it. But the irrefutable point is that the crusaders had mixed motivations and to downplay the religious one in the way that your edit does is frankly ridiculous.
 * Your overall point seems to be that the crusades in this article are misrepresented. "While the Arabian/Muslim conquest is labeled "exposure" and "influence" the Crusades are labeled Religious aggression." It's quite clear from the article that the background is aggressive Muslim conquest. It's also quite clear that there was non-religious motivation amongst the crusaders. The original poster of this thread took one sentence out of context to extrapolate that there is a more general "pro-Muslim" POV in the article. That's unsubstantiated utter nonsense.
 * Before you start seeing POV resistance to the pure clarity of your righteous perspective, you need to recognise the poor quality of your edit. DeCausa (talk) 21:47, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree my edit had many typos, because I made them on my cellphone. But, oh my, this sort of punch-by-punch antagonistic flame is why I'm retreating. I just don't have time for getting engaged in such massive charge of hyper-vigilance. I have had my share of time wasted on politically charged subjects on Wikipedia (on the Anti-Brahmanism page, and got sucked into fights by Hindu hyper-vigilantes, who all ended up being banned eventually, but not before I got reprimanded by the "neutrals". On any hot political subjects Wikipedia ends up being a POV pushing mill of the militant victim crying members. I will not have this battle alone. In fact, I want no battle at all. I do not want to engage in this sort of antagonism. Not alone anyway. If any one or few Editors want to join in a measured effort to polish this, please let me know. Gschadow (talk) 05:13, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

And I will rant a bit more now, because every time I read this article I see this undercurrent of this excessive religious focus and Muslim victim crying. The phraseology "against Muslims" or "attacking Islam". The grave misrepresentation here (and I know it's extremely popular in the West), is this view that the Crusades were some illegitimate attack on Islam's holy places. Also, this excessive dwelling on the Reconquista in this article has this same motivational undercurrent. What is happening here is that the earlier occupants of these territories -- or their allies -- were seeking to re-conquer their lands. This is certainly true for the Reconquista. And it is true for the Crusades of the Levant as well. But people don't see it, because they don't take the East Roman point of view. They don't even know how centrally important Constantinople was for the crusades. Note the wondering of our Student7 as symptomatic of this ignorance or the real situation. Since Muhammad himself the Eastern Roman empire had been receiving attacks by the expansionist Muslim aggression that emerged from Muhammad himself. Syria and Jerusalem and Egypt and North-Africa was all Christian Rome. They were not expanding into Arabia, the Arabs were taking these lands. Now, to be sure, peoples in history did fight expansionist territorial wars all the time. There is no need for moral judgement. And hence, taking back a territory which once was held by one people (or their allies) is just as morally indifferent. As the History of Constantinople shows, this culture was eradicated by Muslim aggression. Its people were killed and sold into slavery. (And, the last Crusaders were killed as well, not just "sent home" as this article here euphemizes.) Nobody was nice back then. And I have no problems with stating the massacres on the hands of the Crusaders. I am not a defensive Christian, but I am fed up by Muslim victim-crying. Anyway, back to Constantinople and the Franks. What people don't understand is that the Franks back then were still Franks, a Germanic tribe, not French vs. Germans. See Franks, Legacy. So we had here the Frankish "Holy Roman Empire", which was the Latin antithesis to the real Roman Empire, Greek. Terribly confusing, no? So you have 3 peoples: Latins, Greeks, and Arabs. The Arabs later got followed by the Turks. The Greeks were trying to hold against the onslaught of the Arabs and Turks, and the Franks were so alien with the Greeks that they didn't care. But in all of that, one must Realize the huge importance of the Normans. The Normans were Vikings, who, instead of only pillaging northern France, would actually settle. This Robert the Weasel had a massive impact on Europe, he was one powerful Rogue. His son, Bohemond was disinherited by Robert, and became King of Antioch. The Latins over there in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine seem out of place, but they are just as out of place as the Visigoths in Spain, or, for that matter, the Arabs in Spain. In the end, wars were fought for territory, power, exploration, and religious propaganda has always accompanied these more basic motivations. For this reason, from the perspective of Constantinople (and the Greeks) the Crusades should be described as a continuation of the Arab Roman Wars, a war to recapture territory from Arabian (and later Turkish) invaders. I wrote the above because I love history, and it's all in the books. Gschadow (talk) 05:13, 24 February 2013 (UTC)


 * You've come to this article with a declared POV which seems to be summed up with "I am fed up by Muslim victim-crying" and "they don't take the East Roman point of view". If you want the article to take your simplistic approach then, to have any hope of gaining consensus for it, you need to edit using WP:RS to support what you want to say. So far, you've only introduced WP:OR, and that was done badly in any case. This was the point I was making to you in my preceeding post, which you ignored. DeCausa (talk) 18:09, 24 February 2013 (UTC)


 * You're not helping your case by calling Robert Guiscard "Robert the Weasel". Yes, that's one possible translation of his usename - but it's not one commonly used. You need to use secondary sources to back up your edits I should note that most modern historians of the Crusades do not call them "Franks" - they use the term French or use the regional terms such as Normans, Bretons, etc. Significantly, most of the books recently published on the Crusades lack the word "Franks" in their indices - not Phillips' Holy Warriors, not Ashbridge's The Crusades, not Tyerman's God's War, not Riley-Smith's The Crusades, not Payne's Dream and the Tomb, not Lock's Routledge Companion to the Crusades. Two books DO list "Franks" - but only in context of the actual Crusading states, not in terms of the folks who lived in Europe. By 1096, the ethnic tribes of the Migration period are long gone. For that matter, the Normans are no longer "Vikings" either - as they'd been settled in Normandy for almost 200 years and were intermarrying quite well with the locals for a very long period of time. Trying to downplay the religious element in the Crusades is indeed akin to trying to whitewash the history - the crusaders were very definitely motivated by religion - since very few of them actually stayed in the Holy Land and took up land there. Most returned home, especially those from the later crusades. Ealdgyth - Talk 18:36, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I suspect in large wars (or any endeavor), people have a variety of reasons to participate. And the few will discover "great" reasons for the larger number to join, since they need them in the ranks. Ask people why they voted (or against) for nationally known candidate X in a recent election. The reasons are numerous, some of them wrong or wrongly based, some of them are biased, etc.
 * The reason to involve large numbers of people from either Muslim or Christian countries, when faith was a strong motivator, would be faith. The other side were heretics or infidels. You were fighting for God. The people at the top might be looking for booty or power. They generally were.
 * Even in the 19th century, the North fought the South (American Civil War), in part, because it was a "religious" war. For some Northerners, it was a opportunity to climb the ladder to political success or power. For others, it was access to Southern cotton. For sheep farmers, it would have been the destruction of Southern cotton! The Southerners were convinced that they were "fighting for their way of life," despite the fact that 90% of them did not own slaves!
 * The "religious differences" of the 16th century in Western Europe can be attributed to newly discovered interpretations of the Bible, but equally well, and maybe better to the desire of rulers to be rid of Rome meddling in their political affairs.
 * Until the 15th century or so, most major European Wars were fought for booty, not for "country", their idea of nationhood being ill-formed. But individual soldiers would participate in sacking a village or city and try to carry away preposterous amount of goods, which usually had to be dumped in favor of food or common sense as they traveled (one horse, if they were lucky. And horses had to be fed and tended BTW). Theirs were not modern standing armies receiving 10 "guilders" a month and retirement and free medical care after 20 years of service! You "earned" what you could grab, and appreciated your leader for bringing about opportunities for, what we would term, vandalism.
 * Looking for one reason for a major war is naive IMO. And we should not be surprised to find at least two, if not more, motives. Are "causes" equal to motives? We have to look to WP:RS for the answer to that. Student7 (talk) 14:10, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Indeed, well said. Yesterday I read a little bit in Asbridge's "First Crusade". Seeing that Asbridge is the major informant of this Wikipedia article, the slanted POV is now clear to me. He judges too much. Instead of laying out a rich mesh of motivations behind the actions of the agents in history, he seems to like to prove the religious point, and he has already decided who he needs to reprimand and whom to excuse. This view is shared by liberal people since the 1950s when the myth of the victimized tolerant peace-loving Muslim first found wide reception in the west. Asbridge's book describing the First Crusade as "the Roots of Conflict between Christianity and Islam" is certainly very misleading right there. It's this post-modern western-anti-western POV. I have no problem seeing the things that happened, and acknowledging the brutality, but I am also suspicious how all too easy westerners surrender to the rhetoric of the victim-crying. Check out the 3 sieges of Jerusalem by the Sassanids (Persians), by the Umayyads, and finally by the Franks. You see in the discussion of massacres how the massacres of 637 on Christians are being downplayed and those of 1099 are hyped up. And, why did the 637 not result in a massacre? Because of the "religion of peace"? Or was it because of the surrender? Did Patriarch Sophronius not surrendered to avoid a massacre? And was he not smart to ask for the Calif himself show up, because you can only negotiate good terms with the boss. Had the Emir of 1099 surrendered, what would have happened? Probably not only the Emir and his men would have been allowed out as the 1099 events demonstrate: those who ended with a negotiating surrender were let to go free by the Franks. This is how the account can be and continually is slanted. I won't change that on Wikipedia because I know WP:OR. But still talk about it here, and looking for others who would be willing to cooperate in revising and inserting more neutral perspectives by WP:RS. Gschadow (talk) 23:21, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
 * in the first place it is not true that Asbridge is the main source; he gets 4 footnotes out of 100, usually on minor points. Dozens of scholarly sources have been used. As for hostility to the Crusades as a bad move, that has been a major theme in European thought since the  Enlightenment (and indeed since Luther), so it can hardly be called "postmodern".  As for POV, that is a characteristic of Wiki editors, not of RS scholars.Rjensen (talk) 23:36, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Mistake ? Or disinformation ?
"The background to the Crusades was set when the Seljuk Turks decisively defeated the Byzantine army in 1071 and cut off Christian access to Jerusalem".

Are you joking ? The Seljuk Turks defeated the Abassid Arabs and threw them out of Jerusalem at that date. Jerusalem had been taken away from the Byzantine empire centuries ago. There had been not much trouble for the pilgrims going to Jerusalem when it was ruled by the Arabs (in spite of some troubles for the pilgrims once in a while, more by mere robbers than for religious reasons). However, Turks were much less willing to tolerate Christians, an attitude which might have been motivated by a will to gain some legitimity in that country they had just conquered.

What made the things really bad is that while Jerusalem was indeed occupied by the Turks when the First Crusade finally started (about 20 years after the town fell), it had been taken back by the Arabs when the First Crusade arrived, two years later, giving rise to a total confusion. The French expression of chassé-croisé expresses that. 82.226.27.88 (talk) 06:36, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the reference to 1071 is to the Battle of Mantzikert and the subsequent overrunning of Anatolia, in response to which Alexius called for Western assistance. I suspect that what the sentence in question is really trying to say is that the call from Alexius is the background to the crusade, (but in turn that was prompted by the defeat in 1071). DeCausa (talk) 11:21, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, and I just edited that piece, with reference. BTW, I removed this notion of the cut-off of access to Jerusalem. This issue had been lingering on an off, if there was a specific event of such cut-off, it should be possible to quote a source or specify it. Otherwise it is just part of the POV and propaganda war that is apparently happening over this historical subject. In that regard, the events in the west, especially the conquest of the Normans Robert the weasel and his son Bohemond should not be ignored. These were some powerful war lords, and it seemed at least a reasonable move by Alexius to get them aligned and have them fight in the Holy Land rather than against Constantinople. Gschadow (talk) 22:30, 17 February 2013 (UTC)