Posted: Aug 01, 2010 4:16 am
U-96 wrote:TimONeill wrote:
"Clearly"? Do tell. Sorry, but the two were inextricably linked. It's not like those "rulers/knights of Europe" were all Buddhists. Guess which faith they belonged to.I've had a bit of time to do some reading on the subject and I'm finding the "defence" idea does have support from many scholars in the area
Such as who? Name them and cite their works.
Thomas F. Madden
The New Concise History of the Crusades
Kenneth M. Setton, Harry W. Hazard
A History of the Crusades: The Impact of the Crusades on Europe
Giles Constable
Crusaders and crusading in the twelfth century
ie
"According to this view, the crusaders were the innocent victims of expansionist aggression. Many scholars today, however, reject this hostile judgment and emphasize the defensive character of the crusades as they were seen by contemporaries"
Crusaders and crusading in the twelfth century - Giles Constable
Nice try, but Constable isn't talking about the Crusades as some kind of defence against Muslim expansion into Europe, which is what Stark argues. He is talking, quite rightly, about them as defences of the holy places in the East. Here's the context of what he says above:
Almost all the historians and chroniclers of the expeditions that were later called the first crusade considered them a response to the Muslim threats to Christian holy places and people in the east.
That's why they were launched against Jerusalem. If Stark was right this would have made zero strategic sense - the only Muslims who were any threat to Europe itself were in Spain and the heart of the Muslim world was in Baghdad or perhaps Cairo. But Jerusalem was the key holy site and it was defence of them that Constable is talking about.