Wikipedia:Peer review/Crusading movement/archive2

Crusading movement


I've listed this article for peer review because a previous peer review disappeared into the weeds and the article really needs a fresh pair of eyes, or pairs of eyes, to move forward. What it needs is actionable suggestions for improvement please rather than opinion, sourcing suggestions are always welcome as well. It is a contentious subject and there have been frequent widespread debates across this article and Crusades that frankly prevent improvement & cause experienced editors to avoid the subject.

You may question why this is raised in Philosophy & Religion, rather than History. This is because this is not about the MILHIST; the various campaigns are more than covered in other articles. It is about the movement that lasted centuries, the instituitions of that movement, its philosphies and historiography.

All help and advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks, Norfolkbigfish (talk) 09:18, 1 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Hey —from your Talk it looks like you are away, hope you had a good time. As an editor whose opinion I value, do you think you can have a quick look over this one and give some possible notes on improvement? If not thanks anyway, love your work on the Hundred Years War.
 * Hey —any chance or some more actionable improvements on this one?
 * Hey —would appreciate any advice you could give on this one?
 * Hey —would you like to add some reasoned works as you usually do?
 * Hey —appreciate this request might fall into the lifes too short/lions mouth category, but I would be grateful if you could give some notes on this one. I think it way have gone as far as I can take it without outside input?

Norfolkbigfish (talk) 06:53, 30 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comments by Johnbod
 * On a first look, though the lead mentions crusading outside the Middle East, there is very little on other crusades below.
 * I must admit I thought this was covered sufficiently, but obviously not. To help me bridge the gap what sort of thing/details would you touch on? The MILHIST is largely out of scope as this is about the movement.Norfolkbigfish (talk) 14:09, 9 June 2022 (UTC)


 * The economic pressures and motivations should be covered. The attitude of some, notably the Italian mercantile republics and their sailors, was pretty frankly commercial.
 * The motivations of non-knights should probably be covered more. Among the cause of the failure of the ME movement was surely that it struggled to attract women, enough farmers, and professionals like lawyers.
 * Maybe more later. Johnbod (talk) 22:45, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks @Johnbod. I must admit I am struggling with this. The challenge is always scope, this has been honed on the advice of other ediors to completely exclude MILHIST on the grounds this is covered elsewhere and concentrate on the instituition of crusade. The IR sources narrow this neatly into the medieval reformed church, the identity of the church as a legitimate war making organisation & the structures that underpinned that. If the scope was an overarching Crusades article I agree whole heartedly that the wider campaigns, the maritime republics, and the lack of migration to the crusader states would be improved with more detail. However that leads us back to a different article and is dangerously close to reopening all the tortuous debates we know it would from previous experience. That said, do you have any sources that tie the topics to the current scope, I could then try to mitigate the advice. I am away now IRL for a couple of weeks so if you do reply I am not ignoring you :-) Norfolkbigfish (talk) 07:56, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Short answer - probably not, beyond those already cited in the article, but there must be more in those. Have a great holiday - I'm sure you deserve it.  Johnbod (talk) 13:31, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Reading through Riley-Smith, his view seems to be that the materialist motivations seem pretty much discounted at the time he was writing. It is clear that the maritime republics had material and ideological drivers. I can't find a source that would link their material motivations with the movement. This implies that the actions would have happened anyway, whether the movement was there or not. This would make it out of scope. He also writes there is little evidence of the activity of the poor so we know little of motivations. The preference of migration to Latin Greece in the 13th century is mentioned with the assumption that migration to the Levant was difficult, dangerous and expensive. Thank you for your time and engagement as ever but I am stuck here without alternative sourcing/views. I'll close the PR and start a GAN to see what that brings. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 08:16, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

—thank you so much for your copyedit on this article. Can I ask for one further favour as you have looked at it in such detail? Do you have any suggestions for improvement? Thanks again. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 12:29, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Actually I do,, and I would have loved to look at it a bit further, but life is calling right now. There is some redundancy in the article that can be improved upon, as some themes are repeated across sections. I enjoyed your article; it's an interesting, well researched piece.

— BroVic (talk) 15:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)