This historical memory would be reinforced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as imperial Europeans once again arrived to subjugate and colonise territories in the Middle East. Unfortunately, this legacy of bitterness is overlooked by most Europeans when thinking of the Crusades.
Much of the literature about the Crusades can give a Christian perspective. If we read Runciman or Southern, there are clearly areas which talk about the effect of the Crusades on Muslim peoples but it is only recently that there have been Arab historians who have written about the Crusades and historians who have looked at the Muslim perspective. The way in which we look at The Crusades does tend, if we are not careful, to stereotype both Crusader and Muslim.
It is important that students are made aware that the view which says that the Crusaders are a force for good and their opponents a force for evil is a stereotype and an idea perpetrated by the Crusader nations. For many students the Crusades are solely a point of conflict between Christians and Muslims, however, this is not always the case and by tackling such a potentially emotive subject, understanding may ensue. How can we dovetail the Muslim and Christian perspectives of the Crusades into our teaching?
A starting point could be to consider religion. It is important that there is an understanding of both religions and their different strands. Some input from students would be appropriate here and this could take the form of a brainstorming or an investigative exercise. By looking at stereotypes of Muslim and Christians and discussing them, the students are made more aware that modern day caricatures of the period are trying to create a generalised impression of the past for a present day purpose.
Looking at documents which offer the different view points. Maybe looking at the same event through different documents. Asking students investigate and compile the profiles different characters to do with the Crusades and these to include those of Muslim as well as Christian leaders. What are the differences and similarities between the Islam and Christianity? A brainstorming or investigative exercise might be appropriate here and while there are religious differences and similarities, a use of the Islamic calendar as well as the Gregorian calendar, especially for key event is desirable.
Copyright Rex Features Ltd. Reproduced by permission of RexFeatures. We have — though not in the way that many imagine. The legacy of the crusades today is not due to the continuity over time of any medieval crusading institution. After all, the crusade indulgence offered by the church — a central element of the architecture of these holy wars — had effectively disappeared by the 17th century. Surviving crusading orders, such as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, are now devoted to charitable work.
Too much historical water — reformation, revolution, global exchange, the rise and fall of empires, the shock of modernity — has passed under the bridge for any modern community to still bear marks of crusading violence. The legacy of the crusades is, nonetheless, powerful, primarily because of the passions and predilections of 19th- and 20th-century Europeans. They found in the crusades a useful past through which they sought to understand their own world of overseas empires, warring nations and rapid social change.
These modern observers constructed a storehouse of popular images and stories — such as the epic encounter of Richard I and Saladin during the Third Crusade — and used them to make claims about morality and collective identity.
Teachable Moments for an Ill-Used Past? Fordham University Press, Distanced western academics? Self-imagined heirs of victims? The historical crusades were not homogeneous. They affected many communities and regions very differently, from the foundation of Prussia, the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christian schism, attacks on European Jewry and the Spanish nationalist myth of the Reconquista, to the transient and peripheral occupation of parts of Syria and Palestine.
The crusades did not create western imperialism or the state of Israel. Wars fought by populist adherence to an ideological or religious ideology may excite modern recognition of a cause — God Wills It! The 19th-century coincidence of romantic medievalism, Christian mission and the global spread of European empires revived and invented memories of crusading, providing spurious arguments for French and British involvement in north Africa and western Asia.
Western proclamation of crusading precedents informed the counter-ideologies of indigenous regional resistance to foreign intervention. Citing historical precedent is often a sign of historical ignorance. The crusades were fought from religious conviction and material advantage relevant to their time and place, not ours, examples of political and cultural contact as much as of contest and conquest. Tens of thousands of people joined his cause, making it the single largest event of the Middle Ages.
The conflict would rage for over years, transforming Christian and Islamic relations forever. Andrew Jotischky takes readers through the key events, focussing on the experience of crusading, from both sides. Featuring textboxes with fascinating details on the key sites, figures and battles, this essential primer asks all the crucial questions: What were the motivations of the crusaders?
What was it like to be a crusader or to live in a crusading society? And how do these events, nearly a thousand years ago, still shape the politics of today? Unfortunately for them, there was a team-up on the other side of the battlefield as well — Arabian leaders Saif ad-Din of Mosul and Nur al-Din of Aleppo helped Damascus send the Christians packing with another humiliation.
This is the big one people talk about, featuring the battle royale between Richard the Lionheart and Saladin — the Arab leader who retook Jerusalem from the Christians in , courtesy of an unbreakable siege. Richard had been busting for a fight since he took the British throne, raising funds for an eastern sortie from almost day one fortunately his dad — who he killed to seize power — had already begun the Saladin Tithe to build a war chest.
In the end, the Crusaders clawed back a significant amount of terrain, but fell down at the final hurdle: Jerusalem remained in Islamic hands. Sacking Constantinople on a dubious premise was enough battle for these Crusaders Source: Getty.
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