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
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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.
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| 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 |
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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' |
Hey Everyone,
ReplyDeleteI have to admit I have been a little lazy with this week’s readings as I have been focusing on my essay. But I have attempted to read the set readings for this week on the Crusades and found them a little confusing and complex. Having one lecture based on the Crusades help with context a lot.
It was interesting to note that the Crusades wasn’t the cause of religious persecution, rather Tyerman describes it as a ‘symptom’ of new spirituality and fresh perspectives. Christendom became suspicious and fearful of those who were not Christians, being increasingly threatened by pagans and Islam in the eighth and ninth centuries, which brought upon the crusading movement. Holy Wars’ were developed, defending the Church, in which those who participated were rewarded spiritually, having guaranteed them forgiveness of sins by the Pope. However, it interests me to see how the Pope and others viewed such wars as holy and acceptable in Gods eyes when such aggressive behaviour goes against the practises of God.
The Crusades had three main affects. 1-Direct: this was the direct affect towards those whom the crusader left behind, normally their family, wives and children who were too look after themselves during this period. 2-Indirect: this was in response to the wider community and the material needs like trading and strengthening the economy. 3-Destructive: the crusade movement saw the loss of many lives of those who participated.
Emily.S :)
I was not at all surprised in the opening comments regarding the crusades, the reference to it being European colonialism, increased trade with the East, the development of inventions and further academia etc. I also enjoyed how it seems to have spawned the whole ‘story telling’ element the Medieval period seems to be so famous for, the concept of a knight in shining armour, of chivalry and of unity. What I did not know, however, was the extent to which it was genuinely believed to be a holy war. There is an awful lot of justification and philosophical discussion amongst members of the church, but apparently not a single legal theory was established, nor suggested or even hinted so far as we know. That strikes me as fascinating to imagine a world where everyone is so engrossed in the word of the church, that no one even attempts to come up with some law, some form of social order that would also allow the crusades to occur. Its almost as if all crusaders simply heard the Church’s word, and then packed up and voyaged. It is certainly interesting then to note the priorities of the crusaders, with holy pardon and glory apparently surpassing social order indefinitely. I agree with Emma in terms of the affects though. That it can be easiest categorized into three main clusters, directly unto family and friend, indirectly through the strengthening of the economy and retrospectively in the death that ensued. Wilson Hill.
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