Name: The Crusades - Pilgrimage or Holy War?: Crash Course World History #15
Uploaded: 2013-05-02T09:32:44.000Z
Duration: 11 min 33 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hi there my name’s John Green; this is Crash Course World History,

and today we’re going to talk about the Crusades.

Ohhh, Stan, do we have to talk about the Crusades?

which were a series of military expeditions from parts of Europe to the Eastern coast

The real reason they feature so prominently in history is because we’ve endlessly romanticized

We’ve created this simple narrative with characters to root for and root against,

and it’s all been endlessly idealized by the likes of Sir Walter Scott.

An there are knights with swords and Lion hearts...

Let’s start by saying that initially the Crusades were not a “holy war”

on the part of Europeans against Islam, but in important ways

the Crusades were driven by religious faith.

[non-litigious melody reminiscent of a totally litigious melody plays]

Mr. Green, Mr. Green! Religion causes all wars. Imagine no war—

I’m gonna cut you off right there before you violate copyright,

But as usual, you’re wrong. Simple readings of history are rarely sufficient.

By the way, when did my handwriting get so much better?

I mean, if the Crusades had been brought on

by the lightning-fast rise of Islamic empires and

a desire to keep in Christian hands the land of Jesus,

then the Crusades would’ve started in the 8th century.

were perfectly happy with Christians and Jews living among them,

And plus the Christian pilgrimage business was awesome for the Islamic Empire’s economy.

But then a new group of Muslims, the Seljuk Turks,

moved into the region and they sacked the holy cities and made it much more difficult

for Christians to make their pilgrimages.

And while they quickly realized their mistake,

who’d had their literal-asses kicked at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071,

felt the threat and called upon the west for help.

So the first official crusade began with a call to arms from Pope Urban II in 1095.

This was partly because Urban wanted to unite Europe and he’d figured out the lesson the

rest of us learn from alien invasion movies:

The best way to get people to unite is to give them a common enemy.

So Urban called on all the bickering knights and nobility of Europe,

“Let us go forth and help the Byzantines because then maybe they will acknowledge my

awesomeness and get rid of their stupid Not Having Me as Pope thing, and while we are

Crusades were not primarily military operations;

Theologically, Christianity didn’t have an idea of a holy war –

like, war might be just, but fighting wasn’t something that got you into heaven.

But pilgrimage to a holy shrine could help you out on that front,

so Urban had the key to pitch the Crusade as a pilgrimage with a touch of warring on

I do the same thing to my kid every night:

I’m not feeding you dinner featuring animal crackers.

I’m feeding you animal crackers featuring a dinner.

Oh, it’s time for the open letter? [slides through for chair switcheroo]

But first let’s see what’s in the Secret Compartment today.

Oh, it’s animal crackers. Thanks, Stan...

Hi there, Animal Crackers, it’s me, John Green.

Thanks for being delicious, but let me throw out a crazy idea here:

Maybe foods that are ALREADY DELICIOUS do not need the added benefit of being PLEASINGLY

I mean, why can’t I give my kid animal spinach or animal sweet potato

I mean, we can put a man on Mars but we can’t make spinach shaped like an elephant?

What Stan? We haven’t put a man on Mars?

The Crusades also were NOT an early example of European colonization of the Middle East,

even if they did create some European-ish kingdoms there for a while.

That much later, post-and-anti-colonialist view that comes,

out of a Marxist interpretation of history.

In the case of the Crusades, it was argued,

the knights who went adventuring in the Levant were the second and third sons of wealthy

had little to look forward to by staying in Europe and lots to gain –

First, most of the people who responded to the call to Crusade weren’t knights at all;

And secondly, most of the nobles who did go crusading were lords of estates,

But more importantly, that analysis ignores religious motivations.

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The Crusades - Pilgrimage or Holy War?: Crash Course World History #15

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