The Crusades- Was it worth it?

[Azrael]

The Crusades were a series of large military expeditions usually sanctioned by the Pope to invade the Levant, specifically re-take the city of Jerusalem from Muslim rule during the 1090s-1300s, led by secular European military leaders. Its original purpose though was to aid the Eastern Roman Emperor Alexius I Comnenus recover the lands lost in Asia Minor to the Seljuk Turks. Although this didn't succeed as the Turks made their permanent homeland in Anatolia, previously a Greek speaking bastion that provided most of the troops for the Eastern Roman Army.

The Levant and northern Mesopotamia were re-conquered and divided up into Catholic-ruled Crusader kingdoms although not even a century passed, when a man of Kurdish background named Saladin along with others helped weaken the powers of these states forcing them to attack, often in failure, Egypt. Then the Fourth Crusade happened leading to the final weakening and partition of last vestiges of the Greco-Roman civilization that had thrived in the East for almost 1,000 years at the time. More Turkic tribes arrived in Asia Minor, being driven west by the Mongol invasions of the Middle East, furthering the de-hellenization of the area and increasing the Turkic presence. The Ottoman Turks would soon rise promiment among the Turks of Asia Minor and conquered the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in 1453. The monopoly on trade through the East controlled by the Ottoman and Safavid sultans of Turkey and Persia led to the Age of Exploration which led to the Americas being "discovered", explored and conquered.

So was it worth it?

[Oz.]

Originally Posted by Ziz

Although this didn't succeed as the Turks made their permanent homeland in Anatolia


So was it worth it?

I have to disagree with you there. The first Crusade was an incredible success. They not only took Jerusalem, but the Crusaders also took Antioch and Edessa. So not only was the first Crusade a military success, but it was also an economic and spiritual success. Spiritual in the sense that they were able to retake the Holy Land, and secure the pilgrimage for the Christians.

The other Crusades, on the other hand, were utter failures. But some good did come of them. Unlike the Muslims, the Europeans romanticized the Crusades greatly (especially the third crusade). The Europeans benefited greately from their exposure to the Muslim people. It became the source of inspiration for much of the art, and literature of the time. We got characters like Robin Hood and Richard the Lionheart who are still popular today. And through the Muslims, the Crusaders were able to learn new medicinal techniques that were used for hundreds of years afterwards.

So was it worth it? That question is still debated very much among historians, and it is highly subjective.

[Azrael]

Originally Posted by Oz.

I have to disagree with you there. The first Crusade was an incredible success. They not only took Jerusalem, but the Crusaders also took Antioch and Edessa. So not only was the first Crusade a military success, but it was also an economic and spiritual success. Spiritual in the sense that they were able to retake the Holy Land, and secure the pilgrimage for the Christians.

The other Crusades, on the other hand, were utter failures. But some good did come of them. Unlike the Muslims, the Europeans romanticized the Crusades greatly (especially the third crusade). The Europeans benefited greately from their exposure to the Muslim people. It became the source of inspiration for much of the art, and literature of the time. We got characters like Robin Hood and Richard the Lionheart who are still popular today. And through the Muslims, the Crusaders were able to learn new medicinal techniques that were used for hundreds of years afterwards.

So was it worth it? That question is still debated very much among historians, and it is highly subjective.

I didn't disagree whether the "First" Crusade ended in failure. The goal of the European Crusader armies was to recover the Holy Land from Saracen rule, specifically the holy city of Jerusalem. And you are right, they conquered Edessa, Antioch, and Tripoli along with Jerusalem with those four cities becoming the capitals of the four Crusader states:

Kingdom of Jerusalem
Principality of Antioch
County of Edessa
County of Tripoli
Kingdom of Cilicia**
Kingdom of Cyprus**

Yet you are still partially incorrect. The original purpose of the Crusades was for the Pope to gather up groups of Western European mercernaries, then known to the Byzantines as the Franks and Latins so that they could be used as reinforcements to aid Alexios Komnenos, Emperor of Byzantium, in an expedition to recover some lost lands from the Turks.

Despite the Crusader-Byzantine victories in the First Crusade, it wasn't enough to completely repel the Seljuk Turkish presence in eastern and central Asia Minor although it did weaken it incredibly. Yet the Byzantine Empire was weakened and had to, most of the time, work with their own forces in recovering the lost territories which they never got to do because of the very same Crusaders they sought help from.

[violent_anger]

Let's Play! Medieval 2: Total War | Gamers' Quarantine | Cracked.com Forums

Very worth it, the crusading army has no upkeep. Cavalry usually has about 250 upkeep per turn, with infantry around 150. A full 20 stake without upkeep means that you're saving about 4000 florins per crusading army per turn.





Heh, remember when that fourth crusade sacked Constantinople and wrecked those Byzantiums? Good times.

[Azrael]

Originally Posted by violent_anger

Let's Play! Medieval 2: Total War | Gamers' Quarantine | Cracked.com Forums

Very worth it, the crusading army has no upkeep. Cavalry usually has about 250 upkeep per turn, with infantry around 150. A full 20 stake without upkeep means that you're saving about 4000 florins per crusading army per turn.





Heh, remember when that fourth crusade sacked Constantinople and wrecked those Byzantiums? Good times.

Ahh you have Medieval II Total War, I play the Crusade campaigns of the Kingdoms expansion pack. I always pick the Egyptians so I may smite the infidel Christian kingdoms under me, Saladin.

[Dantés de Divinity]

The Crusades were not as successful as the Christians would have liked so no in that aspect. True there were some military victories but the fact remained that there were a 10000+ Christian knights and other warriors against 100000+ Muslims. Not only that but their enemies all spoke the same language and had technology that hadn't been seen in Europe for decades. It was ludicrous to think that they could take the Holy Lands and hold them as part of Europe.

The Crusades did how ever did affect art, society, moral beliefs, architecture, literature, and technology in a positive manner. The world has not seen such a boom in how the world works too many times before.

In the sense of the campaign against the Muslims, no the Crusades were not worth it. The Christians were vastly outnumbered, communication was hard and at times impossible, there was low morale, inferior technology and methods of war, and were in territory they had not seen and mapped themselves in decades if not centuries.

The Crusades did lead to the renaissances so there was a large victory there.

Culture was the biggest victory from the Crusades.

The question still stands... Was it worth it?

The answer is that it was inevitable and in a sense needed to happen.

[Brandonazz]

Was it worth it?

I'm going to interpret this question in the way that I think most sensible.

Did the amount of suffering it caused ultimately fall below the amount it prevented, that would have otherwise occurred?

This neglects scientific and cultural developments, but seems the simplest means of judging worth.

The crusades themselves were not really justified; they were a conflict brought about by the death cries of the Byzantine Empire, heard across the Adriatic by Mr. Pope man himself. He called upon all of those who thought that war could lead to their salvation, and forced them to fight a war against a people who were hardly evil. Civilians were subjected to wholesale slaughter and the region suffered the afflictions of war for a great length of time.

The immediate religious effects of this could have been the increased religious tensions between the Christian and Muslim worlds, leading to increased warfare in Spain, North Africa, Anatolia, the Balkans, and modern Russia for centuries. There was also the increased weight of Papal authority, which would later intensify the struggle between protestants, reformers, religiously rebellious monarchs, and the like. The thirty years war was not pretty.

The crusades also led to the exploration of the new world, yes. The Reconquista, spawned by increased religious tension, and the economic disparity thereafter, spawned by a taste of the East's wealth and by the war itself, allowed the crown to become desperate enough to send an Italian across the Atlantic.

The Columbian Exchange. Millions perished. 99.9% of the native inhabitants of some Caribbean islands perished within a few decades. Now, contact would have happened at some inevitable point in history, but the nature of the contact was compounded by the issues of the era. Economic problems, poverty-stricken masses, and religious conflict (all partly the result of the crusades) led to mass migration and conquest of the Americas. The natives suffered and suffered and suffered. The colonists suffered. The spawns of European Imperialism developed nuclear weapons.

Was it worth it?

I'm going to have to err on the side of no.

[Aucune Raison]

As Brandonazz said, to the parties that suffered due to the Crusades, the answer is no. However, to the Christian Church, yes. If the Crusades had never occurred, Christianity may not have become the most widespread religion today.

I would have to say no, although I do keep in mind that I may not have existed right now if they didn't happen.

[violent_anger]

Ahh you have Medieval II Total War, I play the Crusade campaigns of the Kingdoms expansion pack. I always pick the Egyptians so I may smite the infidel Christian kingdoms under me, Saladin.

It's always funny when you assassinate the crusading general and the whole army has to disband.

I tried playing a campaign as Egypt, but i am completely unaware of how to deal with Muslim armies, and mostly I was scared by the Mongols invading right in my homeland. Long story short, I pussied out and started a Spanish campaign.







But back to the thread. A piece of trivia is that the crusades introduced a bunch of things to Europe. One of those things was sugar.

[Azrael]

Ragione: It was the Roman Catholic Church that became the most widespread religious denomination of Christianity in the whole world. Not really Christianity as a whole. When it did, it happened with the expense of going under foreign occupation and oppression of native cultures. The adherents of the Eastern Orthodox Church as well as the other Christian churches of the East, as well as Muslims and Jews, suffered terribly from the Crusades in that they were treated as second class citzens in the Crusader Kingdoms carved out by foreign European Crusaders of the lands they considered their homeland. The Crusades failed to maintain a minimal Christian presence in the Middle East and actually worsened it as most Christians were later converted by the sword or killed/enslaved by Arabs and Turks. In fact, most of the people who lived in the Middle East was still mostly nominal Christians until the mid 900s AD at worse to the 1200-1300s at best.

The Crusades in the Middle East, especially the ones following the disastrous Fourth Crusades directed at Constantinople, generally did not appeal to many western Europeans at that point. Most of the crusading activities were diverted to areas closer to western Europe than the Middle/Near East. One example was the Iberian peninsula, still mostl under the control of the Islamized Hispano-Berber and Arabs in the south, and the Baltic regions, whose local people such as the native Prussians (No these were not Germans) and Lithuanians still clung to the old pagan gods of old.

I mean in the 1400s, most western Europeans ignored the calls of the remnants of the Eastern Roman Empire they helped destroy and the other Christian states in the Balkans, such as the Second Bulgarian Empire and Hungary, from being wiped out by the invasions of the Ottoman Turks. The invasions of the Ottoman Turks led to Turkic settlement of the Balkans and partial spread of Islam to these regions such as Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo especially. Most of the Balkans had significant Muslim populations until at least a century ago.

Violent_anger: Oh you suck, I played as the Turks and slaughtered the Mongols. You need to take every province of the Middle East and have them developed to minor cities at least to generate enough troops to take down the Mongol, and later Timurid invasions.

[ikkuh2]

As far as i know, there weren't any beneficial things to the crusades. The only consequences was the tightened grip of christians on Europe for the next centuries to come and a lot of victims, on both sides.

[Brandonazz]

Ragione, remarking that they acted in benefit of Christianity doesn't really address the question. It also is much to simple to actually be relevant. As Ziz said, the crusades had unforeseeable effects on the future of the Catholic Christian church, so one religious or political force didn't come to dominate the planet as such. Modern protestants, in America for example, are very much in support of foreign Jewish populations and often consider them religious brothers. More so, in some cases, than other Christian denominations.

Not only that, but whether or not someone likes Christianity more than Islam doesn't really determine whether or not there is a better world. For all we know, international Muslim hegemony could have led to an early, greater renaissance. They were the ones who retained most of Greek and Roman technology, history, and science after all.

[Azrael]

Originally Posted by Brandonazz

Ragione, remarking that they acted in benefit of Christianity doesn't really address the question. It also is much to simple to actually be relevant. As Ziz said, the crusades had unforeseeable effects on the future of the Catholic Christian church, so one religious or political force didn't come to dominate the planet as such. Modern protestants, in America for example, are very much in support of foreign Jewish populations and often consider them religious brothers. More so, in some cases, than other Christian denominations.

Not only that, but whether or not someone likes Christianity more than Islam doesn't really determine whether or not there is a better world. For all we know, international Muslim hegemony could have led to an early, greater renaissance. They were the ones who retained most of Greek and Roman technology, history, and science after all.

Not only did they retain much of the Greco-Roman technological and scientific achievements as well as literature, they enhanced it with their own with the introduction of Arabic numerals.

The Crusades, particularly the Baltic Crusades, led to the ethnic cleansing and force assimilation of the Baltic Prussians and Lithuanians until Prussia became mostly German-speaking by the end of the Middle Ages. The Reconquista led to the explusion of most Muslims and Jews from Spain leading to the quick decline of the Spanish Empire during the late 1500s.

[Square Ninja]

Of course the Crusades were worth it. They pulled Europe out of the Dark Ages. Do you have any idea how many medical and academic advances knights and monks brought back from the Holy Land? Hell, the Knights Templar created banking.

[Firo]

In a sense of spirituality it wasn't worth it. Back then yes but not anymore. Back then it was the ultimate honor to die in service to god. Look at Christianity now....it's become another avenue to make money. People would deny god now but never ever ever back then. Look at the muslim faith. They still follow there doctrine to the very last sentence. Just as Salah-din did. So in the long run they're the true victor of the crusades.

I say, if you look at the economical advances of the crusades you miss the whole reason of them. The knights Templar were knights first then bankers or whatever there apprenticeship was. Plus they only held on to the belongings of christians going on pilgrimage to keep them safe from bandits on there to jerusalem.