Crusades (or the state of history education)

[hjernespiser]

Starting this thread since we're starting to get off-topic on the other thread...

Basically, the subject is that the Crusades are generally taught in Western schools as being something good. Eastern Europeans had a different experience.

For example: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloman,_King_of_Hungary#Facing_the_Crusaders

This brings up the problem of teaching history from a specific point of view.

[ancalimon]

Crusades = Stopping Muslims from conquering Europe ?

[Temüjin]

it is common occurance of pre-modern armies to loot and misbehave in foreign lands, particularly if the logistics and/or pay isn't great. no crusade was ever directly aimed at Hungary, but Hungarians themselves participated as crusaders and were hosts of the Teutonic Knights after they were expulsed from Outremer before they moved on to the Baltics.

[Modu Tanhu]

The leaders of Christianity during the crusades was corrupt. They started crusades in order to 'stop the saracens' but it was all for money, control and power.
What they did was insane, massacring innocent children and women.
MILLIONS suffered because of the crusades. Mostly the pagans, not muslims, even the jews suffered in Jerusalem. Jews and muslims fought together against crusaders in Jerusalem.

They wanted to take over Jerusalem to 'spread Christianity', but it was just greed and to control the Middle-East by conquering Jerusalem.

The muslims weren't that active towards Europe.
Otherwise they would have done crusades in the Ottoman Empire for 600 years.

[hjernespiser]

It was just an excuse to go to war.

[ancalimon]

They wanted to make some people accept that they were inferior. Christianization=Colonization

They did not go there to spread Christianity. They went there to change the past. Changing and\or erasing the past is the main idea behind Christianization-Colonization.

[jamyangnorbu]

Sept 22, 2011 17:34:44 GMT 3 hjernespiser said:

Basically, the subject is that the Crusades are generally taught in Western schools as being something good. Eastern Europeans had a different experience.

My experience in junior high and high school history classes does not accord with this. (To give some context, I finished high school in 1996 in the Chicagoland area) In my classes the atrocities committed by crusaders were taught (massacre of jews in jerusalem etc) and the various reasons for the launching of the crusades were certainly not painted in a positive light. As I said, this was in the 1990s in the midwestern United States. Other peoples' experiences may vary.

[Modu Tanhu]

What's strange is Universities indeed see it as a bad act and that normal schools see it as a good act. High schools tend to be more independent, normal schools are under authority of its country.

[hjernespiser]

In America, schools don't have a national curriculum standard like in other countries. Individual states may have a statewide standard and most, afaik, do. I just remember that one of my homework assignments was to pretend you were the Pope and write a speech to convince people to go on Crusade. I guess it was to ensure you've learned the reasons behind the Crusades, but the way it was taught to me seemed so devoid of morality. I'm sure things have improved since then.

Here's from the current California standard which was adopted in 1998, well after I graduated HS.

"Discuss the causes and course of the religious Crusades and their effects on the Christian, Muslim, and Jewish populations in Europe, with emphasis on the increasing contact by Europeans with cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean world."

I'll note that this is the ONLY mention of the Crusades in the entire California K-12 system. Basically they only teach the Crusades and the Medieval period in 7th grade. In HS world history is more about understanding the world historical events that lead to the American political system, its theoretical basis, and ongoing shaping of it.

[Subu'atai]

Basically, the subject is that the Crusades are generally taught in Western schools as being something good.

Wait... WHAT?!?!!!! O.O

I just remember that one of my homework assignments was to pretend you were the Pope and write a speech to convince people to go on Crusade.

=/
What did people write? "Thou must cleanse thy holy land from thee heathens!" or "To kill an infidel is not murder - it is the will of God" (hehe, Kingdom of Heaven), or "You will be rewarded 69 virgins in Heaven?!" (terrorists) lol but I guess that was way before 9/11

I don't know though, was your teacher trying to make the students realise the utter stupidity of the crusades or was he really trying to encourage people to see it as a good thing?

[ancalimon]

Sept 22, 2011 21:22:21 GMT 3 Modu Tanhu said:

What's strange is Universities indeed see it as a bad act and that normal schools see it as a good act. High schools tend to be more independent, normal schools are under authority of its country.

If that is true for most of the schools;

You plant the ideas to the subconscious of children, they subconsciously hate non-Europeans and subconsciously think that non-Europeans are inferior. They subconsciously think that they have always been the good ones and they will always be the good ones.

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

Speaking of the Crusades, not to mention the Albigensian Crusade in Occitania of France against "heretics", or the Baltic Crusades of the Teutonic Knights against Orthodox Russians and Pagan Baltic peoples.

[hjernespiser]

Subu'atai,

Sorry for being a bit out-of-context. That was the assertion in the other thread. I can't speak personally to it since it was long ago and I'm actually pretty terrible at remembering stuff from that long ago. The assertion only reminded me of the assignment I had during my own schooling on the subject. I remember the assignment because I actually still have it. I saved a lot of what I wrote. Yes, it is basically full of stuff like what you wrote, real juvenile! I'll have to dig it up at some point...

[aynur]

The Crusades turned into mainstream sources of looting and plundering and -- like I've said in the previous thread -- their religious orientation was minimal. Even though I acknowledge the film 'Kingdom of Heaven' doesn't have much to do with this issue, I think it perfectly depicts the difference between a common bandit pretending to serve the greater good and a knight who sees the flaws and decides to do the morally and ethically right thing anyhow.

But the vast source of income wasn't the only reason nobles and peasants alike joined the Crusades. You have to remember that Europe at the time of the Middle Ages was literally rotting from within as more and more wealth was being centralized towards the nobility though outrageous taxing and costly wars between lords and fiefs over petty disputes. Some people simply went along with it to find better opportunities for them and their families and to escape poverty in Europe.

There were a number of other reasons as well. The Christian (namely Catholic) hierarchy at the time was corrupt and the Pope became a political tool for assimilation. Palestine had also been under Roman/Byzantine control back when they became Christian, so many Europeans who had long been under the influence of Christianity wanted to recover those lands for themselves.

But one should remember that the Muslims weren't the only people who fought with the Crusades hordes. The Orthodox Christian Byzantines and Russians often faced hardship when coming into contact with them, in many cases leading to all-out war. For example, a contingent of Crusaders blatantly took control of Constantinople in 1204 and declared it the 'Latin Empire.' It fell back to the Byzantines in years to come. The Russians on the other hand deflected a number of attacks of the Teutonic Order.

Christianity isn't the only political tool that has been used as an excuse to assimilate and oppress other nations. Islam, for example, attacked Roman Palestine that at the time had Christians, Jews and pagans. They later launched a military campaign against Persia that was Zoroastrian. Muhammad of Ghazni on the other hand lead countless of attacks into India in the early Middle Ages that resulted in great amount of murder, looting, burning and plundering in a very similar fashion to the Crusades.

Basically, the subject is that the Crusades are generally taught in Western schools as being something good. Eastern Europeans had a different experience.

I disagree. I remember when we talked about this in history class back when I was in comprehensive school. Our teacher specifically told us about the atrocities and namely the massacre of Jews and insisted that they had very little to do with Christianity.

[Subu'atai]

I personally find the fourth crusade rather humorous! Especially the hypocrisy of the pope who accepted the crusaders back only after they turned over stolen artifacts and loot lol

The Balkan crusade however was truly bloody, a pity too that the last "pagan" stronghold in Europe got converted eventually; even if they managed to win strategically, they lost culturally.