Posted: Aug 03, 2010 3:45 am
Essentially, the "THEY started it!" thesis argues that far from being an isolated, innovative and unprovoked assault on the world of Islam from Europe, the Crusades were in fact a courageous and entirely justified counter-strike against the terror of Islam by a besieged Christendom. In other words, an Eleventh Century equivalent to Bush's doctrine of "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here" or "defending the Homeland".
The problem is that this revisionist thesis, like all ideologically-driven attempts at the analysis of history, is every bit as skewed as the ideas it is trying to revise and correct.
I still don't agree with what you wrote here on your blog though, when we understand the medieval mindset and motivations we can understand that what they did was defensive in nature, it's wrong to say this was an "unprovoked assault on the world of Islam", especially considering the expansionist aggression of dynasties like the Seljuk Turks, that effected the Christians important practice of pilgrimage, the threat to fellow Byzantines Christians, and the damage to churches in their holy land.
Anyway, cheers