Week 8: Early Crusading - Tutorial Discussion Post
Hi everyone!
Remember that this week we will not be having lectures or tutorials due to the ANZAC day public holiday. However, you are all expected to comment on this blog post and your comments this week will form your participation mark for the week.
A couple of quick notes before I get into the topic for this week.
1) You may have noticed that I have set up a poll on the right-hand bar of the blog on the library tutorial. I would be extremely grateful if you could take a second to vote on how useful (or not) you found the library tutorial I ran in Week 6. This will help me improve my lesson in future years and will also provide myself and Clare with valuable feedback on the usefulness of the library tutorial in general.
2) Week 9 presenters - remember that your blog post is due (emailed to me) by 12pm, Thursday April 26th
.........
Right! On to the Crusades!
I know that we have already had a lecture on the First Crusade but we have yet to have an opportunity to discuss it. Now is the time! Our readings for this week, you'll have noticed, consist of a number of accounts of Pope Urban II's speech at the Council of Clermont in 1095 in which he put out the call for the First Crusade. Our secondary source is an article by Christopher Tyerman on the development of the Crusading ideal and how it was intertwined with European society at the time. Christopher Tyerman is a leading historian of the Crusades and later this term we will be introduced to the work of another expert, Jonathan Riley-Smith.
I'd like everyone to focus this week on the tutorial discussion questions in the reader when considering their comments as I think the questions are quite comprehensive. I've added a couple of questions about the primary source to also help get folks thinking about the complex issue of crusading.
Questions:
1) Discuss the accounts of Urban's speech. In what ways do they differ?
2) What reasons can you give for these variations?
3) According to Urban, who are the enemies of Christendom? How are they characterized? (ie. by ethnicity, religion, etc.) Does Urban seem to have any understanding of Islam?
4) Why should Christians go on crusade? What benefits will they receive according to Urban?
5) What goal does Urban set for the crusaders? What is their mission to the Holy Land meant to achieve?
6) Where is the Holy Land?
7) Tyerman locates the origin of the crusades in a particular 'symbiosis of interests and values'. What does he mean by this?
8) Tyerman argues that although crusading emerges out of a distinctive tradition in the Latin West, it also contained unique and novel features. What are these features?
9) What does Tyerman mean when he says that ' crusading was not a monolithic movement'?
10) Tyerman says that the effect of the crusades on Europe and Europeans tended to be of 3 sorts, what were they?
*** As always your posts can reflect on these questions or on any other aspects of the readings you found interesting or challenging ***
http://exhibitions.slv.vic.gov.au/love-and-devotion
Hi everyone!
Remember that this week we will not be having lectures or tutorials due to the ANZAC day public holiday. However, you are all expected to comment on this blog post and your comments this week will form your participation mark for the week.
A couple of quick notes before I get into the topic for this week.
1) You may have noticed that I have set up a poll on the right-hand bar of the blog on the library tutorial. I would be extremely grateful if you could take a second to vote on how useful (or not) you found the library tutorial I ran in Week 6. This will help me improve my lesson in future years and will also provide myself and Clare with valuable feedback on the usefulness of the library tutorial in general.
2) Week 9 presenters - remember that your blog post is due (emailed to me) by 12pm, Thursday April 26th
.........
Right! On to the Crusades!
I know that we have already had a lecture on the First Crusade but we have yet to have an opportunity to discuss it. Now is the time! Our readings for this week, you'll have noticed, consist of a number of accounts of Pope Urban II's speech at the Council of Clermont in 1095 in which he put out the call for the First Crusade. Our secondary source is an article by Christopher Tyerman on the development of the Crusading ideal and how it was intertwined with European society at the time. Christopher Tyerman is a leading historian of the Crusades and later this term we will be introduced to the work of another expert, Jonathan Riley-Smith.
I'd like everyone to focus this week on the tutorial discussion questions in the reader when considering their comments as I think the questions are quite comprehensive. I've added a couple of questions about the primary source to also help get folks thinking about the complex issue of crusading.
 |
| Christians and Muslims in battle during the Crusades |
Questions:
1) Discuss the accounts of Urban's speech. In what ways do they differ?
2) What reasons can you give for these variations?
3) According to Urban, who are the enemies of Christendom? How are they characterized? (ie. by ethnicity, religion, etc.) Does Urban seem to have any understanding of Islam?
4) Why should Christians go on crusade? What benefits will they receive according to Urban?
5) What goal does Urban set for the crusaders? What is their mission to the Holy Land meant to achieve?
6) Where is the Holy Land?
7) Tyerman locates the origin of the crusades in a particular 'symbiosis of interests and values'. What does he mean by this?
8) Tyerman argues that although crusading emerges out of a distinctive tradition in the Latin West, it also contained unique and novel features. What are these features?
9) What does Tyerman mean when he says that ' crusading was not a monolithic movement'?
10) Tyerman says that the effect of the crusades on Europe and Europeans tended to be of 3 sorts, what were they?
*** As always your posts can reflect on these questions or on any other aspects of the readings you found interesting or challenging ***
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| Pope Urban II calling the First Crusade |
......
Finally I'd just like to draw everyone's attention here to a wonderful exhibit of medieval Persian manuscripts that is currently on at the State Library of Victoria. In our course we only briefly encounter the medieval Islamic world and for anyone interested in understanding more about the culture of the Middle East in this period I highly recommend going to this exhibit. It's absolutely beautiful!
http://exhibitions.slv.vic.gov.au/love-and-devotion
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| From the State Library Exhibit 'Love and Devotion' |
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| From the State Library Exhibit 'Love and Devotion' |
I didn’t find that the first reading covered anything that wasn’t mentioned in our week six lecture on the topic of the First Crusade. However, it was very interesting nonetheless. I enjoyed reading about the revered status that the crusaders received. Basically, undertaking a crusade made you untouchable – the pope gave assurances of the remission of sins as well as giving legal authority that crusader’s lands should be protected and repayment of debts and any impending law suits would be postponed. It was almost as if whatever else was going on in the life of an individual would be put on pause while they carried out the work of the church. Also the fact that the pope awarded such privileges to other Christian campaigns against the Muslim’s in Spain and even against other Christian heretics within Western Europe was something that I had not previously known. I agree with Tyerman that it was very strange that the act of crusading was never officially codified in law – especially given the strong emphasis on the act of crusading as well as the high emphasis on documentation within Western Europe at the time. As time progressed, the nature of crusading progressed with it. It became possible for people to ‘buy’ their crusade while avoiding the actual act of crusading. This supports earlier comments regarding the massive expense associated with leading a crusade – the church realized that funding the expeditions to Jerusalem was just as important as finding armies willing to undertake these crusades. Finally, and perhaps the fact that I found most interesting of all, was the revelation that contrary to popular belief peasants rarely embarked on crusades. Again, this is largely due to the massive costs associated with doing so. Regardless of their inability to undertake the crusades, peasants were often involved in equipping the Templar knights with food, clothes, weapons, etc – indicative of the communal influence the crusades had on Western Europe and tying in with the three impacts of the crusade as mentioned by Tyerman’s (direct, indirect and destructive).
ReplyDeleteThe second reading provides five different interpretations on Urban’s speech at Clermont (the official version is unknown). The majority of the interpretations contain very emotive and forceful language to try and evoke support towards the crusades. I found it interesting that despite their basis being the same (the speech by Urban) each of the passages present a reason for crusading that was neglected by the others. I liked the structure of Urban’s speech according to Fulcher of Chartres’ account - the Pope firstly questions the faith of the audience before offering them a way of proving this faith by embarking upon crusade. I can see how this speech, issued by such a powerful character as the pope was so successful in garnering support for the ecclesiastical cause. Robert the Monk believed that Urban provided a very graphic depiction of the torture of Christians at the hands of Muslims, while Balderic of Dol’s statement is similar to that of Robert’s, while including reference to abuse of the Christian church - the Muslims were using Christian churches as “stables for the animals”. The final extract, that of Guilbert de Nogent, tells us that among the reasons that the Christians must reclaim Jerusalem is the fact that when the antichrist comes to earth, someone must be there to oppose him. There are numerous possible reasons for the differences between the extracts provided in this reading. Recall of the speech is obviously one of these reasons – particularly as many of the extracts were compiled significantly after the speech was made. Translation might also have caused the difference in interpretations. Even if all those present did speak the same language, accents were likely to differ from region-to-region and dialects might well have been different. Finally, the personal perspectives of the writers of each of these extracts will also have influenced the interpretations of the speech.
When reading through Tyermann's piece, a lot of the material from our lecture on the First Crusade a couple of weeks ago came to mind.
ReplyDeleteAgain it was reiterated that a new and unique feature of the crusades most importantly perhaps, were the remission of sins that the 'soldiers' were guaranteed. Not only this but Tyermann outlines that these men (and I say men because women were considered 'more of a hindrance than an aid'- Robert the Monk's recollection of Pope Urban II speech 1095) also would receive immunity from payments of debt and delays on legal lawsuits.
No wonder crusading was so appealing to the masses. Who could say no to spiritual reform?
Tyermann argues that it was not crusading itself that gave rise to the feeling of the time, but rather the other way around- crusading emerged because of the feeling of the time- the dangerous mixing of war and religion as a culture in Western Europe). He states that crusading emerged from existing traditions and that the changing and disparate needs of society drove crusading.
It was also interesting to note that it was mostly weatlhy men who fought in the crusades (it was an expensive business), and therefore this common misconception that every man took the to the sword to fight for God is skewed- the poor simply could not afford it.
The reaccounts of Pope Urban II's speech in 1095, I found extremely interesting. Robert the Monk and Balderic of Dol I found to both heavily demonize the East, their recollections containing graphic imagery of the Turks torturing 'Christian brothers'- thus the core of both their recollections of the speech, I found to be fuelling the anger of the Christians in order to help do something and free these poor beaten men.
A common theme throughout the recollections is the promise of reward in the form of the remission of sins. Clearly in need of a persuasive tool in order to get people on board with crusading as a notion, the Church needed to 'pay' their 'soldiers' for their hard work.
I found Guibert de Nogent's recollection instead of launching immediately into the reasons for the taking up of arms; instead began with a reinstating of the extreme religious importance of the lands they would be fighting for.
Overall it was interesting to see how 5 recollections of the same speech by 5 men who claimed to be there when it was being delivered, could differ that much (even in length!). I really wish we were able to travel back in time to witness it for ourselves and not have to rely on the not so accurate accounts of others.
I found the readings interesting and a good follow up from the lecture. It's fascinating that Urban called upon Christians to take up arms and capture Jerusalem. It didn't matter that the Jews and Muslims were going to be slaughtered and the synagogues and mosques destroyed, as the "soldiers" were going to have immediate remission of their "sins". Meanwhile the Byzantine civilisation would eventually crumble which was probably not the initial aim of the Emperor Alexious when he asked Urban for help. Urban had no understanding of the Muslims, he called them a vile and evil race doing anti-Christian things like defiling holy places and abusing Christians.
ReplyDeleteI found the 5 versions of Urban's speech were of a similar vein, except for Robert the Monk and Gesta, which were more subdued in urging people to travel with their priests blessing in God's name and to follow the Gospel teachings. It's interesting that all these recollections were written at different times, putting their own beliefs into Urban's speech.
I understand Tyerman's "symbiosis of interests and values" are the opposing forces of war and religion being inseparable. Wars were legitimate because they were defending the Church.
The Holy Land was the whole area of holy places worshipped by the Christians, Jews and Muslims, mainly Jerusalem and the area formally known as Palestine, now known as Israel.
According to Tyerman the effect of the crusades on Europe and the Europeans were of 3 sorts:-
1) Direct - crusaders and their families left behind.
2) Indirect - the economy thrived and spirituality became popular.
3) Destructive - there were many deaths as well as destruction of property etc.
On the whole it proved inadequate in forging a lasting Christian identity, instead it further alienated the West and the Roman Church.
Janice Keirnan
Well I think it's clear here what motivated early crusaders.
ReplyDelete1) To get out and about! Being pious all the time would have been so galling and monotonous, and killing some Jews and Muslims would have alleviated their boredom. Even the journey itself would have been preferable to getting calluses on ones knees if you know what I mean (but not that I mean it in THAT sense, minds out of the gutter).
2) To be absolved of all sins (I've heard developing calluses on ones knees is a sin, in THAT sense). Goodness how vulgar. Anyway, I'm sure this probably was the most important thing to most people and Urban basically cashed in on this belief to accomplish his goal of universal christianity (awks4him).
All of this resulted in a booming economy! WHOOHOO! Thriving spirituality! YEEEHAAA! Families of the crusaders left behind! Yeah...! and, death and destruction. Hmmm. Perhaps not all good.
Well, despite these less than favourable aspects of crusading, they seem to have continued, and with vigour!
Who would have guess remission of sins would have been that popular?
Jess Kopp
I have to say the most interesting information presented for me was in the opening which appeared to me as though it was implying that the Crusades set the ball rolling for religious debate, war and discrimination in that region of the world as we know it today. (Even they technically they're all the same religion).
ReplyDeleteThen quite unsurprisingly the crusades also playing the roll developing Christian superiority or dominance over the Near East and solidifying its place in Europe and kind of acted as a continuation of what Charlemagne started with his eradication of pagan religions in the name of 'God'. But they also helped with the spoils of war that the Crusaders acquired while their as well as whatever medicine or devices they obtained that would help to advance the West. Then this also helped to establish various trading outposts for the West in the East as well, which was the sole reason the Venetians actually chose to participate in one the Crusades that led to the sacking of Constantinople rather than going to the 'Holy Land', because that then led to a monopoly or an opening into the Black Sea.
With all this it seems I'm forgetting the real reason to these ventures and that's to spread the 'Word of God'and also a chance for warriors,knights, lords, kings and whoever to absolve their sins through battle, which makes perfect sense, to cleanse your soul and be forgiven by the Lord through breaking one of his 10 commandments past down to his followers.
This leads to the most confusing thing of the reading and that era and that was "..war and religion were inseparable and Christ Himself could be portrayed as a warrior leader of a warband.." Unless of course they were just using religion as an excuse...