re: #338 LudwigVanQuixote

Excuse me? The kind of historians who say that are the smae types who try to say that the INquistion wasn’t all that bad, that slavery wan’t all that bad ot hat the holocaust was inflated.

A simple and very basic thing to do might be to read Urban II’s cal to crusade. He was pretty clear about why they were going, and I assure you it wan’t for defensive reasons.

How anyone could make such a statement (as a scholar) without, oh I don’t know, going to the primary sources and reading the damn history, is beyond me.

Why not look at the council of Clermont?

[Link: en.wikipedia.org…]

Why not, indeed !
Did you even bother to read the wikipedia link that you provided? The link proves my point that it was considered (by the church as well as historians) as a counter-attack, a defensive measure.

from the wikipedia link you provided:

Urban does not mention Jerusalem at all. Urban does however cite the need of the eastern Byzantine Empire for aid against Muslim attack:

” For your brethren who live in the east are in urgent need of your help, and you must hasten to give them the aid which has often been promised them. For, as the most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania [the Greek empire] as far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont, which is called the Arm of St. George. They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire. If you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impurity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them. “

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Given that you don’t even bother to read the information you link to it’s not very surprizing that you were able to make such an ignorant and bigotted statement as you did in comment # 2.