×ÖÄ» Hi there my nameâ€™s John Green;
×ÖÄ» this is Crash Course World History,
×ÖÄ» and today weâ€™re going to talk about the Crusades.
×ÖÄ» Ohhh, Stan, do we have to talk about the Crusades?
×ÖÄ» I hate them...
×ÖÄ» Hereâ€™s the thing about the Crusades,
×ÖÄ» which were a series of military
×ÖÄ» expeditions from parts of Europe to the Eastern coast
×ÖÄ» of the Mediterranean.
×ÖÄ» The real reason they feature so prominently
×ÖÄ» in history is because weâ€™ve endlessly romanticized
×ÖÄ» the story of the Crusades.
×ÖÄ» Weâ€™ve created this simple narrative
×ÖÄ» with characters to root for and root against,
×ÖÄ» and itâ€™s all been endlessly
×ÖÄ» idealized by the likes of Sir Walter Scott.
×ÖÄ» An there are knights with swords and Lion hearts...
×ÖÄ» No, stan. Lionhearts.
×ÖÄ» Thank you.
×ÖÄ» Letâ€™s start by saying that initially the Crusades were not a â€œholy warâ€?
×ÖÄ» 22 00:00: 00:00:50,700 on the part of Europeans against Islam, but in important ways
×ÖÄ» the Crusades were driven by religious faith.
×ÖÄ» Mr. Green, Mr. Green! Religion causes all wars. Imagine no warâ€? 26 00:00: 00:00:59,020
×ÖÄ» Iâ€™m gonna cut you off right there before you violate copyright,
×ÖÄ» Me-from-the-past.
×ÖÄ» But as usual, youâ€™re wrong.
×ÖÄ» Simple readings of history are rarely sufficient.
×ÖÄ» By the way, when did my handwriting get so much better?
×ÖÄ» I mean, if the Crusades had been brought on
×ÖÄ» by the lightning-fast rise of Islamic empires and
×ÖÄ» a desire to keep in Christian hands the land of Jesus,
×ÖÄ» then the Crusades wouldâ€™ve started in the 8th century.
×ÖÄ» But early Islamic dynasties,
×ÖÄ» like the Umayyads and the Abbasids,
×ÖÄ» were perfectly happy with Christians and Jews living among them,
×ÖÄ» as long as they paid a tax.
×ÖÄ» And plus the Christian pilgrimage
×ÖÄ» business was awesome for the Islamic Empireâ€™s economy.
×ÖÄ» But then a new group of Muslims, the Seljuk Turks,
×ÖÄ» moved into the region and they
×ÖÄ» sacked the holy cities and made it much more difficult
×ÖÄ» for Christians to make their pilgrimages.
×ÖÄ» And while they quickly realized their mistake,
×ÖÄ» it was already too late.
×ÖÄ» The Byzantines,
×ÖÄ» whoâ€™d had their literal-asses
×ÖÄ» kicked at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071,
×ÖÄ» felt the threat and called upon the west for help.
×ÖÄ» So the first official crusade
×ÖÄ» began with a call to arms from Pope Urban II in 1095.
×ÖÄ» This was partly because Urban wanted
×ÖÄ» to unite Europe and heâ€™d figured out the lesson the
×ÖÄ» rest of us learn from alien invasion movies:
×ÖÄ» The best way to get people
×ÖÄ» to unite is to give them a common enemy.
×ÖÄ» So Urban called on all the
×ÖÄ» bickering knights and nobility of Europe,
×ÖÄ» and he saideth unto his people:
×ÖÄ» â€œLEt us go forth and help the
×ÖÄ» Byzantines because then maybe they will acknowledge my
×ÖÄ» awesomeness and get rid of their
×ÖÄ» stupid Not Having Me as Pope thing, and while we are
×ÖÄ» at it, letâ€™s liberate Jerusalem!â€?
×ÖÄ» 56 00:02: 00:02:18,130 Iâ€™m paraphrasing, by the way.
×ÖÄ» Crusades were not primarily military operations;
×ÖÄ» they were pilgrimages.
×ÖÄ» Theologically, Christianity didnâ€™t have an idea of a holy war â€? 60 00:02: 00:02:29,190
×ÖÄ» like, war might be just, but fighting wasnâ€™t something that got you into heaven.
×ÖÄ» But pilgrimage to a holy shrine could help you out on that front,
×ÖÄ» so Urban had the key to pitch the
×ÖÄ» Crusade as a pilgrimage with a touch of warring on
×ÖÄ» the side.
×ÖÄ» I do the same thing to my kid every night:
×ÖÄ» Iâ€™m not feeding you dinner featuring animal crackers.
×ÖÄ» Iâ€™m feeding you animal crackers featuring a dinner.
×ÖÄ» Oh, itâ€™s time for the open letter?
×ÖÄ» An Open Letter to Animal Crackers:
×ÖÄ» But first letâ€™s see whatâ€™s in the Secret Compartment today.
×ÖÄ» Oh, itâ€™s animal crackers. Thanks, Stan...
×ÖÄ» Hi there, Animal Crackers, itâ€™s me, John Green.
×ÖÄ» Thanks for being delicious,
×ÖÄ» but let me throw out a crazy idea here:
×ÖÄ» Maybe foods that are ALREADY DELICIOUS
×ÖÄ» do not need the added benefit of being PLEASINGLY
×ÖÄ» Shaped.
×ÖÄ» I mean, why canâ€™t I give
×ÖÄ» my kid animal spinach or animal sweet potato
×ÖÄ» or even animal cooked animal?
×ÖÄ» I mean, we can put a man on Mars
×ÖÄ» but we canâ€™t make spinach shaped like an elephant?
×ÖÄ» What Stan? We havenâ€™t put a man on Mars?
×ÖÄ» Stupid world, always disappointing me.
×ÖÄ» Best wishes, John Green
×ÖÄ» One last myth to dispell:
×ÖÄ» The Crusades also were NOT an early
×ÖÄ» example of European colonization of the Middle East,
×ÖÄ» even if they did create
×ÖÄ» some European-ish kingdoms there for a while.
×ÖÄ» That much later, post-and-anti-colonialist view that comes,
×ÖÄ» at least partially,
×ÖÄ» out of a Marxist interpretation of history.
×ÖÄ» In the case of the Crusades, it was argued,
×ÖÄ» the knights who went adventuring in
×ÖÄ» the Levant were the second and third sons of wealthy
×ÖÄ» nobles who,
×ÖÄ» because of European inheritance rules,
×ÖÄ» had little to look forward to by staying in Europe and lots to gain â€? 92 00:03: 00:03:52,930
×ÖÄ» in terms of plunder â€? 93 00:03: 00:03:53,970 by going to the East.
×ÖÄ» Cool theory, bro,
×ÖÄ» but itâ€™s not true.
×ÖÄ» First, most of the people who
×ÖÄ» responded to the call to Crusade werenâ€™t knights at all;
×ÖÄ» they were poor people.
×ÖÄ» And secondly, most of the
×ÖÄ» nobles who did go crusading were lords of estates,
×ÖÄ» not their wastrel kids.
×ÖÄ» But more importantly,
×ÖÄ» that analysis ignores religious motivations.
×ÖÄ» Weâ€™ve approached religions as historical phenomenaâ€?
×ÖÄ» 102 00:04: 00:04:12,100 thinking about how, for instance,
×ÖÄ» the capricious environment of Mesopotamia led to
×ÖÄ» a capricious cadre of Mesopotamian gods.
×ÖÄ» But just as the world shapes religion,
×ÖÄ» religion also shapes the world.
×ÖÄ» And some modern historians might ignore religious motivations,
×ÖÄ» but medieval crusaders sure as hell didnâ€™t.
×ÖÄ» I mean, when people came up with that idiom,
×ÖÄ» they clearly thought Hell was for sure.
×ÖÄ» To the Crusaders,
×ÖÄ» they were taking up arms to protect Christ and his kingdom.
×ÖÄ» And what better way to show your devotion to God
×ÖÄ» than putting a cross on your sleeve,
×ÖÄ» spending 5 to 6 times your annual
×ÖÄ» income to outfit yourself and all your horses,
×ÖÄ» and heading for the Holy Land?
×ÖÄ» So when these people cried out
×ÖÄ» â€œGOd Wills It!â€? 118 00:04: 00:04:45,139
×ÖÄ» to explain their reasons for going,
×ÖÄ» we should do them the favor of believing them.
×ÖÄ» And the results of the First
×ÖÄ» Crusade seemed to indicate that God had willed it.
×ÖÄ» Following the lead of roving
×ÖÄ» preachers with names like Peter the Rabbit-
×ÖÄ» Peter the Hermit?
×ÖÄ» Stan; youâ€™re always making history less cool!
×ÖÄ» Fine, following preachers like Peter the Hermit,
×ÖÄ» thousands of peasants and
×ÖÄ» nobles alike volunteered for the First Crusade.
×ÖÄ» It got off to kind of a rough start because
×ÖÄ» pilgrims kept robbing those they encountered on the way.
×ÖÄ» Plus, there was no real leader so
×ÖÄ» they were constant rivalries between nobles about who
×ÖÄ» could supply the most troops.
×ÖÄ» Notable among the notables were
×ÖÄ» Godfrey of Bouillon,
×ÖÄ» Bohemond of Taranto,
×ÖÄ» and Raymond of Toulouse.
×ÖÄ» But despite the rivalries,
×ÖÄ» and the disorganization the crusaders were remarkablyâ€?
×ÖÄ» 136 00:05: 00:05:25,169 some would say miraculouslyâ€? Successful.
×ÖÄ» By the time they arrived in the
×ÖÄ» Levant they were fighting not against the Seljuk Turks
×ÖÄ» but against Fatimid Egyptians,
×ÖÄ» who had captured the Holy Land from the Seljuks,
×ÖÄ» thereby making the Turks none too pleased with the Egyptians.
×ÖÄ» At Antioch the Crusaders reversed
×ÖÄ» a seemingly hopeless situation when a peasant found a
×ÖÄ» spear that had pierced the
×ÖÄ» side of Christâ€™s side hidden under a church,
×ÖÄ» thereby raising morale enough to win the day.
×ÖÄ» And then they did the impossible:
×ÖÄ» They took Jerusalem, securing it for Christendom
×ÖÄ» and famously killing a lot of people in the al-Asqa mosque.
×ÖÄ» Now the Crusaders succeeded in part because the Turkish Muslims,
×ÖÄ» who were Sunnis,
×ÖÄ» did not step up to help the Egyptians,
×ÖÄ» who were Shia.
×ÖÄ» But that kind of complicated, intra-Islamic rivalry
×ÖÄ» gets in the way of the awesome narrative:
×ÖÄ» The Christians just saw it as a miracle.
×ÖÄ» So by 1100CE European nobles held both Antioch and Jerusalem
×ÖÄ» as Latin Christian kingdoms.
×ÖÄ» I say Latin to make the point that
×ÖÄ» there were lots of Christians living in these cities
×ÖÄ» before the Crusaders arrived,
×ÖÄ» they just werenâ€™t Catholic- they were Orthodox,
×ÖÄ» a fact that will become relevant shortly.
×ÖÄ» Weâ€™re going to skip the second Crusade
×ÖÄ» because it bores me and move on to
×ÖÄ» the Third Crusade because itâ€™s the famous one.
×ÖÄ» Broadly speaking,
×ÖÄ» the third Crusade was a European
×ÖÄ» response to the emergence of a new Islamic power,
×ÖÄ» neither Turkish nor Abbasid:
×ÖÄ» the Egyptian Sultan al-Malik al-Nasir Salah ed-Din Yusuf,
×ÖÄ» better known to the west as Saladin.
×ÖÄ» Saladin, having consolidating his power in Egypt,
×ÖÄ» sought to expand by taking Damascus and, eventually Jerusalem,
×ÖÄ» which he did successfully, because he was an amazing general.
×ÖÄ» And then the loss of Jerusalem caused Pope Gregory VIII
×ÖÄ» to call for a third crusade.
×ÖÄ» And
×ÖÄ» Frederick â€œI am going to drown
×ÖÄ» anticlimactically on the journey while trying to bathe in a
×ÖÄ» riverâ€?Barbarossa
×ÖÄ» of the not-holy, not-roman, and not-imperial Holy Roman Empire.
×ÖÄ» Both Richard and Saladin were great
×ÖÄ» generals who earned the respect of their troops.
×ÖÄ» And while from the European
×ÖÄ» perspective the crusade was a failure because they didnâ€™t
×ÖÄ» take Jerusalem,
×ÖÄ» it did radically change
×ÖÄ» crusading forever by making Egypt a target.
×ÖÄ» Richard understood that the best
×ÖÄ» chance to take Jerusalem involved first taking Egypt,
×ÖÄ» but he couldnâ€™t convince any
×ÖÄ» crusaders to join him because Egypt had a lot
×ÖÄ» less religious value to Christians than Jerusalem.
×ÖÄ» So Richard was forced to call off the Crusade early,
×ÖÄ» but if he had just hung around until Easter of 1192,
×ÖÄ» he wouldâ€™ve seen Saladin die.
×ÖÄ» And then Richard probably
×ÖÄ» could have fulfilled all his crusading dreams,
×ÖÄ» but then, you know,
×ÖÄ» we wouldnâ€™t have needed the 4th Crusade.
×ÖÄ» Although crusading continued throughout the 14th century,
×ÖÄ» mostly with an emphasis on North Africa and not the Holy Land,
×ÖÄ» the 4th Crusade is the last one weâ€™ll focus on,
×ÖÄ» because it was the Crazy One.
×ÖÄ» Letâ€™s go to the thought bubble...
×ÖÄ» So a lot of people volunteered for the fourth crusadeâ€? 196 00:07: 00:07:57,550 more than 35,000â€?
×ÖÄ» 197 00:07: 00:08:01,839 and the generals didnâ€™t want to march them all the way across Anatolia,
×ÖÄ» because they knew from experience that it was
×ÖÄ» A. Dangerous and
×ÖÄ» B. Hot,
×ÖÄ» so they decided to go by boat,
×ÖÄ» which necessitated the building of
×ÖÄ» the largest naval fleet Europe had seen since the Roman
×ÖÄ» Empire.
×ÖÄ» The Venetians built 500 ships,
×ÖÄ» but then only 11,000 Crusaders actually made it down to Venice,
×ÖÄ» because, like, oh I meant to go but I had a thing come up... etc.
×ÖÄ» There wasnâ€™t enough money to pay for those boats,
×ÖÄ» so the Venetians made the Crusaders a deal:
×ÖÄ» Help us capture the rebellious city of Zara,
×ÖÄ» and weâ€™ll ferry you to Anatolia.
×ÖÄ» This was a smidge problematic, Crusading-wise,
×ÖÄ» because Zara was a Christian city,
×ÖÄ» but the Crusaders agreed to help,
×ÖÄ» resulting in the Pope
×ÖÄ» excommunicating both them and the Venetians.
×ÖÄ» Then after the Crusaders
×ÖÄ» failed to take Zara and were still broke,
×ÖÄ» a would-be Byzantine emperor named Alexius III
×ÖÄ» promised the Crusaders he would pay them if they helped him out,
×ÖÄ» so the Catholic Crusaders fought
×ÖÄ» on behalf of the Orthodox Alexius,
×ÖÄ» who soon became emperor in Constantinople.
×ÖÄ» But it took Alexius a while to
×ÖÄ» come up with the money heâ€™d promised the Crusaders,
×ÖÄ» so they were waiting around in Constantinople,
×ÖÄ» and then
×ÖÄ» Alexius was suddenly
×ÖÄ» dethroned by t he awesomely named Mourtzouphlus,
×ÖÄ» leaving the crusaders stuck in Constantinople with no money.
×ÖÄ» Christian holy warriors couldnâ€™t
×ÖÄ» very well sack the largest city in Christendom,
×ÖÄ» could they?
×ÖÄ» Well, it turns out they could.
×ÖÄ» And boy did they.
×ÖÄ» They took all the wealth they could find,
×ÖÄ» killed and raped Christians as they went,
×ÖÄ» stole the statues of horses that now adorn St.
×ÖÄ» Markâ€™s Cathedral in Venice,
×ÖÄ» and retook exactly none of the Holy Land.
×ÖÄ» Thanks, Thought Bubble.
×ÖÄ» So youâ€™d think this disaster would
×ÖÄ» discredit the whole notion of Crusading, Right?
×ÖÄ» No.
×ÖÄ» Instead, it legitimatized the idea
×ÖÄ» that Crusading didnâ€™t have to be about pilgrimage:
×ÖÄ» that any enemies of the Catholic Church were fair game.
×ÖÄ» Also, the fourth crusade pretty much doomed the Byzantine Empire,
×ÖÄ» which never really recovered.
×ÖÄ» Constantinople, a shadow of its former self,
×ÖÄ» was conquered by the Turks in 1453.
×ÖÄ» So ultimately the Crusades were a
×ÖÄ» total failure at establishing Christian kingdoms in the
×ÖÄ» Holy Land long term.
×ÖÄ» And with the coming of the Ottomans,
×ÖÄ» the region remained solidly Muslim,
×ÖÄ» as it is is today.
×ÖÄ» And the Crusades didnâ€™t really open up lines of communication
×ÖÄ» between the Christian and Muslim worlds,
×ÖÄ» because those lines of communication were already open.
×ÖÄ» Plus, most historians now agree that
×ÖÄ» the Crusades didnâ€™t bring Europe out of the Middle Ages
×ÖÄ» by offering it contact with the
×ÖÄ» superior intellectual accomplishments of the Islamic world;
×ÖÄ» In fact, they were a tremendous drain on Europeâ€™s
×ÖÄ» resources.
×ÖÄ» For me, the Crusades matter because they remind us
×ÖÄ» that the medieval world was fundamentally different from ours.
×ÖÄ» The men and women who took up
×ÖÄ» the cross believed in the sacrality of their work
×ÖÄ» in a way that we often canâ€™t conceive of today.
×ÖÄ» And when we focus so much on the heroic narrative
×ÖÄ» or the anti-imperialist narrative,
×ÖÄ» or all the political in-fighting,
×ÖÄ» we can lose sight of what
×ÖÄ» the Crusades must have meant to the Crusaders.
×ÖÄ» How the journey from pilgrimage
×ÖÄ» to holy war transformed their faith and their lives.
×ÖÄ» And ultimately,
×ÖÄ» that exercise in empathy
×ÖÄ» is the coolest thing about studying history.
×ÖÄ» Thanks for watching. Iâ€™ll see you next week.
×ÖÄ» Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller,
×ÖÄ» our script supervisor is Danica Johnson.
×ÖÄ» Our graphics team is ThoughtBubble,
×ÖÄ» and the show is written by
×ÖÄ» my high school history teacher Raoul Meyer and myself.
×ÖÄ» If you enjoyed todayâ€™s
×ÖÄ» video donâ€™t forget to like and favorite it.
×ÖÄ» Also you can also follow us on Twitter or at Facebook.
×ÖÄ» There are links in the video info.
×ÖÄ» Last weekâ€™s Phrase of the Week was: Ali-Frazier.
×ÖÄ» You can guess at this weekâ€™s Phrase of the Week
×ÖÄ» or suggest future ones in comments
×ÖÄ» where you can also ask questions that our team
×ÖÄ» of historians will endeavor to answer.
×ÖÄ» Thanks for watching.
×ÖÄ» I apologize to my prudish
×ÖÄ» fans for leaving both buttons unbuttoned
×ÖÄ» and as we say in my hometown,
×ÖÄ» donâ€™t forget to Put A Bird On It.
×ÖÄ» Whoah!
×ÖÄ» Globe, globe, globe...