Okay. So, good morning. Today we are doing the crusades which um will lead us into the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation and the Slamic Revolution. Okay. Um three questions we are looking at today are what are the crusades?
Second question is why did they happen? The third question is why did they stop? Okay, those are the three major questions we are looking at today. In order for me to um explain the answers, I first need to provide a lot of background. Okay, first of all um is in the beginning of Christianity in the Bible um the early Christianity was a religion of two things humility and poverty.
Okay. So let me tell you a story from the Bible to illustrate this. One day Jesus and his disciples were out preaching and then a young man comes to Jesus and says, "I loved your sermon. I want to know how to be a better person." And then Jesus says to him, make sure you follow the ten commandments and the laws of the prophets. And the young man says,"I have a very pious man.
I already do this. I want to do more." And then Jesus says to him, "Then do this. Give up all your wealth. Give it give your wealth to the poor and then follow me and then you will have all the treasure in the kingdom of heaven." The young man was uh really distraught because he was very very wealthy and he didn't want to give up his wealth. So he walked away.
Then Jesus turned to his disciples and he said it is easier for camel to go through the eye of a needle which is say it's impossible okay than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Okay. So here Jesus is negating wealth. And this is a revolutionary idea at that time because for people in the western world, the entire point of believing in God, the entire point of making sacrifices to your gods is to have more wealth in life, right? How do you know if God favors you?
Well, you become wealthy. All right? So what Jesus is saying here is revolutionary meaning you should live a pious life so that you may enjoy um a good life in heaven. Okay. So that's the heart and soul of the Christian religion and what makes it different from previous religions.
That said, the Catholic Church is probably the wealthiest and most powerful religious organization ever in human history. We have absolutely no idea how wealthy the Catholic Church is. Okay, their their wealth is immeasurable. Uh this is St. Peter's Basilica, the church in the Vatican where the Catholic Church is based.
inside this church is a lot of gold. Okay, a lot of gold. So, in its um thousand years um um um close to 2,000 years of history, the Catholic Church has amassed more money than God. All right. So, how do you explain this contradiction?
How is it that the Catholic Church was able to amass so much wealth? Okay. So um as we discussed after the fall of Rome the Catholic Church basically became the new Roman Empire. Um after the fall of church after the fall of Rome for the longest time Europe was poor but starting about the year 1000 Europe became increasingly wealthy for a variety of reasons. The main reason is um something called the medieval warm period.
Meaning it was just easier to grow crops. Okay. That followed the invention of the watermill, windmill and horse collar which made it easier for people um to grow crops. This this is what I call the mini agricultural revolution. Because of this excess wealth, you saw the rise of cities, urban centers and um this allowed Europe to start trading with the rest of the world primarily the um abbiset caliphat which we discussed last week um and as such Europe became increasingly wealthy okay but what's important for us to remember is with wealth comes inequality so this is this also marks the high point of feudalism ism.
You have too many people, too little land, and as a result, uh, you have feudalism, okay? Where the nobility controls all the land. The peasants became poor, dependent, and often indebted. So, as you can see, these are the major city centers of Europe as at this time. Um, this the wealthiest city in Europe is still uh Consenipole, right?
But you have uh Rome, London, Paris all emerging as major um manufacturing and urban centers. What's important for us to remember also is that around this time one of the wealthiest parts of Europe is Spain. Okay, this is important because Spain is not Christian. It's Muslim in the year 1000. All right, and this and this will create conflict between Europe and Spain.
All right. So how was the church able to amass so much power during this time? Well, because the church pioneered a new way of controlling people that was not possible before. Okay. So to illustrate this point, let's compare an empire with a church, the Catholic Church.
First question, who's in charge? Well, in an empire, the emperor is in charge, but he's a human being who is flawed and mortal. He will eventually die. He's also subjective. People understand that he will make mistakes.
So, that's why you must appeal to him. You must try to convince him. But with the Catholic Church, the person in charge is God who is perfect, immutable, and eternal. He can never make a mistake and he will always be there. Okay.
Second difference is an empire demands labor from you. It demands that you toil and sweat. But the church demands your soul, your eternal spiritual obedience, your heart and your mind. Okay. And the third major difference is an empire can only put you to death as the worst punishment.
But the church can sentence you to eternal damnation. The church can have you burn in hell for eternity. Okay? And that's and so this concept of eternal damnation is the source of a lot of the church's uh power. Okay?
So the church had something called a faith monopoly. It was the only religion. It was a true religion. Um, and so there are certain ways that this power would express and benefit itself in Europe at this time. Okay, I I'm I'm I'm going to have to go through um a lot.
This is a lot of information. I apologize, but you will need to know this in order for us to go on in the in the course. Okay, this is especially important for the Protestant Reformation because the Protestant Reformation will be a rejection of a lot of these practices. Okay. All right.
So the first thing you need to understand of the church in about the year 1000 is it's an imperial bureaucracy. The pope is basically the emperor and then each region has um bishops that control the region. It's a huge bureaucracy that's not that's very similar to the bureaucracy in uh consent as well as in China. Okay, it's a top-down hierarchy. Second thing you need to know is the official language of the church was Latin.
During church services, the priest would give sermons in Latin. The Bible was written in Latin. The purpose for this is to tell people that the Bible that theology was not for them. They just had to listen and obey. Okay?
So that gave the priest a lot of power. Um, it was also an explicit rule that only priests could preach the Bible. You you had to be ordained and authorized by the church in order to be able to tell what Christianity meant. Okay. Um, you had to recite nine creed which is a holy trinity.
Okay. So remember we discussed the holy trinity, the idea of monotheism and this is the dominant belief system of the church. There's something called the sacraments, okay? Um, seven holy sacraments that you must pay for. And these are rituals provided to you by priests in the church.
What these rituals are trying to do is they're trying to channel divine energy of heaven and Jesus and God in order to make your life much more fortunate. Okay. So, an example of this is called the eukarist. And and so in the Eucharist employs the principle of transmutation. So during the Eucharist and it's a basically common meal, what the priest will do is he will channel Jesus from heaven and his body will become expressed in bread.
Okay? The bread will become the body of Jesus. And then his blood will manifest in wine or water. Okay? And then you will feast on the bread and wine.
You eat Jesus. You drink Jesus. And Jesus comes into you. All right? And if this sounds weird, it it is weird.
And that's why the Protestants, a lot of Protestants will rebel against this. They think it's superstitious. All right? You also have the church determining who goes to hell, heaven, and purgatory as well as for how long. Hell is where you burn for all of eternity.
Heaven is where you are with God. Purgatory is if you commit sins and you need to you need to cleanse yourself of these sins. So you you might be in purgatory for like one year if you steal, but you might also be there for a thousand years if you killed someone. Okay? And the church, it's up to the church to to determine how long you're in purgatory for.
Um there's something called the canonization of saints where the church can determine who are saints. A lot of Protestants in the future will say this is wrong because only the Bible only Jesus can determine who is worthy. Okay, the church doesn't have the power to to determine this. The last thing is and this is really important. The authority of the clerics was absolute and heretics were those who denied the absolute authority of the church.
Okay. So um this is important because some people think that heretics are those who disagree with the church. For example um they don't really understand the missing creed. Well if you don't understand something it's called ignorance or superstition. You understand?
And therefore the church has a responsibility to educate you. Once the church educates you and you still refuse to emit the authority of the church then you become a heretic which means you will become excommunicated. Okay? Excommunicate means that you will be kicked out of the community of the church which means you will burn in hell forever. as well.
Um, you could also be burnt at the stake for uh being a heretic. Okay, does that make sense? So, so these are the sources of the power of the church. I can as you can see at this time the Catholic Church is a very elitist, very aloof and very distant religion. Okay.
It's designed in a way as we move to be removed from the ordinary struggles of ordinary people. Okay. So as you can imagine with so much power comes corruption. Augustine in the city of God he basically imagine the intellectual blueprint for the Catholic Church. He believed the Catholic Church was this had to be this eternal spiritual force that represented God on earth.
So what's really important was for the church to focus on spirituality but with power the church slowly became more corrupted. Okay. So let's look at some incidents of corruption that were legal practices at this time. Okay. The first is the idea of indulgence.
And this means that maybe you committed a lot of sins, but you have a lot of money. What you can do is bribe the church to make your stay in purgatory shorter. Okay, this is basically bribery. All right, spiritual bribery. And and obviously a lot of Christians would have issues with this.
Okay, second is the idea of simony. simply just means that if you're rich, you can buy yourself into the church regardless of your uh education, regardless of your understanding of of of the theology. Okay, this is called simony. Then you have something called the selling of holy relics. So again, at this time everyone's very sus superstitious.
So they want to buy relics in order to channel the divine power of Jesus, right? Well, the church would sell these relics and a lot of them would be fake. But a lot of Christians, as you can imagine, would find the very idea of the church engaging in commerce to be very offensive. Worldliness means that you have um the conjoining the conflation of the nobility with the church. So a lot of princes became bishops.
Canes could pick who could become uh bishops and priests were supposed to be celibate. They were supposed to devote their their life to God. But a lot of them got married, had kids and own property and became very wealthy. Okay. So a conflation of the nobility and the church, a conflation of temporal power with spiritual power.
Tiffs means that prisoners had to pay taxes. Prisonioners had to pay taxes to not only the nobility but also to the church as well. The very last idea is idea of feudalism. And this means that the church controlled at its height onethird of all the land in Christian Europe and they didn't have to pay taxes to the nobility to the prince. So as a result of all these of all this corruption and special privilege, the church became the most powerful organization in all of Europe.
Okay? And again they had this power because people were afraid of burning in hell for eternity. Okay? Even kings were afraid. But we have to remember this and this is very important.
Ultimately, if you're a church, your power, your legitimacy, your authority comes from your ability to enforce your belief system on everyone. Okay? This what I call orthodoxy. The church must enforce right thinking, correct thinking on people. If people disagree, if an increasing number of people disagree, then your authority, your power will decrease.
Now at this time in the year uh 1000 there are five sources of conflict for the church. Okay. Five things that will question the legitimacy of the church. The first thing is this. The Muslims occupy the holy land.
Jerusalem right now is being controlled by um the fatimates. Okay, which is an Islamic caliphate. And that this is embarrassing, right? Because if you are the true representative of God on earth, why is Jerusalem being controlled by the Muslims? Okay, that's embarrassing.
Second problem is Muslim Spain. Okay, it's more wealthy, more cosmopolitan and innovative than Christian Europe. A lot of the reason why is Muslim Spain, it is much more open, inclusive and tolerant than the Catholic Church. It also trades with the rest of the Muslim world. And as we know from the Islamic Golden Age lecture, the Muslim world right now is very very wealthy.
Jews, Christians, and Muslims all get along very fine in Muslim Spain. Okay? So, and it's just right next door. Everyone can see that Muslim Spain, it's much more wealthy. So that's another problem.
A third problem is something called the great shism of 1054. That's when the Greek Orthodox Bisantine Church in Conanopole, it it broke away. It split split away from the Roman Catholic Church in Rome. Now you have two different churches all claiming to be the one true church of Jesus. Okay, that's a huge problem.
Another problem of course is the corruption that we that we just discussed the conflation of spiritual power with temporal ambition. Okay. Now the last problem is this. The last problem is the set. Now something that we discussed a lot last semester is that humans are first and foremost religious.
Humans have religious needs and these religious needs often trump their material needs. For example, food, water, and shelter. Okay? Humans have a fundamental need for community, intimacy, and truth. But the Catholic Church is denying intimacy and truth to humans.
Humans want to be with God. They want to serve God. But the Catholic Church says, "No, we are the middleman. You have to go through us in order to celebrate God." Okay? So there's a lot of discontent at this point in Christian Europe against the Catholic Church.
All right? So these are five problems. And again, the Catholic Church, the entire source of their power is during their ability to maintain orthodoxy. So they developed a threeprong strategy that they will use basically a lot okay throughout uh the history of Europe. Okay these three-prong strategy are scapegoating, persecuting and crusading okay and you guys need to know this because these three ideas will recur over and over in European history.
The idea of scapegoating is this. In Europe at this time, even though the Jewish community is a lot smaller, it's still present. Okay. Now, the question then is what are the Jews still doing in Europe? And and the answer is, well, a lot of them are working for the nobility.
Okay? The nobility inherit their wealth, but they don't want to do any work. They don't want to manage their land. They don't want to run their business. They don't want to collect taxes and they don't want to run their banks.
So, they get Jews to do this for them because Jews are um clever, they're hardworking, but most importantly, they're completely dependent on the protection of nobility. Does that make sense? Because at this point in Christian history, remember the Catholic Church teaches Christians that the Jews were responsible for persecuting Jesus and therefore Christians really don't like Jews. So if Jews want to stay in Europe, if they want to um stay together as community, they are completely dependent on the protection of nobility and as such they essentially become slaves to the nobility. They have no choice but to serve the nobility.
This is bad for them because the peasants don't like being exploited by the nobility. Remember this is a feudal system where peasants are too poor uh and too indebted to the nobility. Okay. But in their day-to-day interactions who do they work with? They work with Jews, right?
Jews are the one who comes and collects taxes for the nobility. Jews are the ones who sell them goods, right? So what happens over time is the peasants the resentment against nobility is channeled towards the Jews. All right? So whenever there's a major conflict guess who gets killed, guess who gets persecuted?
It's a Jews. All right? And this is a pattern that will be consistent for basically all of European history. Okay? Up until the Holocaust.
If you want to understand why the holoca holocaust happened, this is why it happened. Okay? There's a long-term emity hatred of the European people against the Jews created by the nobility. All right? Um when the conflict becomes too intense, what will happen is the nobility will protect themselves by expelling the Jews.
Okay. So in 1492, Spain expelled the Jews. But before that, the Germans expelled the Jews 1100, France in 1306. Okay. Um, but before then, you have these massacres going on all around uh Europe.
All right. So, the I'm not sure if you're able to see the black skull, but that's this massacre of Jews. Okay. Right. So, being a Jew means to be constantly persecuted.
And again they're being scapegoed by the Catholic Church in order to reduce tensions between the nobility and the peasantry. All right. So that's the first uh mechanism. Then you have uh the crusades. All right.
So to understand the crusades, let me give some some historical background. In the year 638, in the year 638, the Muslims take over Jerusalem from the Bison Empire. Okay? They conquer it. And once they take it over, they make Jerusalem into an open, inclusive and tolerant religious community where Christians, Jews, and Muslims can celebrate their religion openly.
Okay. So after that, what Christians have to do is make these pilgrimages to uh Jerusalem. And for most of this history, it's fine. There are no issues. But what will happen is as the Bison empire becomes weaker and the Abassad caliphate becomes weaker there's now chaos and as such uh bandits roam the land and pilgrims find it more and more um dangerous to venture into Jerusalem.
Okay, does that make sense? All right. So now it's become much more dangerous for Christians to venture into Jerusalem because of all the internal chaos going on in the Muslim land. The people who are creating all this chaos are called the Seljic Turks. Last class we talked about the rise of Genghask Khan, right?
And what what I said last class is the step people are always invading agricultural empires. So this the the the Turks um they are based in central Asia and then slowly over time they will conquer the Abbased Caliphat and in 1071 they will begin to occupy Jerusalem. Okay. And then and the Turks leave Jerusalem alone but because of this conflict what's happening is the way to Jerusalem it's much more dangerous as well. The Turks are now threatening Baantium.
Okay, Conenol right here. In fact, they're conquering a lot of territory in around Conanole. And as such, the emperor of Conseniple, the Bian emperor, he appeals to Pope Urban II, who is the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Can you please help me and save me from the Seljic Turks? And so what Pope Urban II will do, remember popes are politicians.
He sees the opportunity here to unite Christianom under the authority of Rome, right? He sees the opportunity to reclaim Jerusalem as Christian territory. He sees an opportunity to channel the religious energies of the peasantry against the Muslims. Okay. So what he does is in the year 10 um 95 he will give a speech calling for the first crusade which begins the crusading period.
Now we're going to look at very closely at this speech and it's important we do because this rhetoric this philosophy will underpin uh the relationship between Christians, Muslims and Jews for most of European history. Okay. So let's see how the pope thinks. All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. Okay?
The pagans are non-Christians, the Muslims, the Jews. Okay? So this so what the Pope is calling for is a jihad. All good Christians now must go into battle to reclaim Jerusalem. And if you do so, you will be granted immediate access to heaven regardless of what you did and how you sinned.
Doesn't make sense, guys. This is a jihad. He's calling for jihad. All right. The concept people think comes from the Islamic world.
It's it's very much a Christian concept of jihad where if you go to Jerusalem and you die, you're going straight to heaven. Okay? You'll be you you'll be right beside God. Now he also says, "Oh, what a disgrace if such a despised and base race which worships demons." A despised and base race which worships demons. Okay, he's talking about the Muslims.
Muslims don't worship demons. Muslims worship the same God as the Jews and the Christians. In fact, a lot of their religious practice is similar to the Christians and Jews. when Muhammad um and the Muslims came to conquer the Holy Land, they did so in a peaceful manner. Okay?
They try to reduce as much bloodshed as possible. And here, Pope Urban II, he's spreading racism against the Muslims. In fact, what the rumors are is that in Jerusalem, Christian women are being enslaved. Christians are being massacred and kicked out of Jerusalem. Christians are no longer allowed into Jerusalem.
These are all rumors. They're all fake. They're not true. But Pope Or the second, he is trying to whip up this racist anger at the Muslims, okay? Should conquer a people which has the faith of omnant God and is made glorious with the name of Christ.
It is embarrassing for us as Christians that the Muslims control Jerusalem. We must fix this. Okay. All right. Let's continue.
Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now go against the infidels and end with victory this war which should have been begun long ago. Why did we wait so long to reclaim Jerusalem? They've had us in 6 638. It's now year it's now the year 10. It's now the year 1095.
Why are we fighting ourselves? Why why is there war in Europe? we should all be going to to the holy land and kill all the Muslims. Okay, again this is important that that we read because this rhetoric, this logic uh this emotion is going to um basically basically justify the age of conquest, exploration and imperialism which will follow after this. Okay.
Let those who for a long time have been robbers now become knights. Do you understand? You could be the lowest person on earth. You could be a thief. But if you go on a crusade, you are now a nobleman.
You are now a knight. You are now a hero, a valiant hero for for Christianity. Let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in the proper way against the barbarians. Okay? Let those who have been serving as mercenaries for small pay now obtain the eternal reward.
This this is what he's saying. If you go on this crusade, regardless of who you are, you will be honored by God. You will receive eternal reward. Regardless of what you did, okay? You could be the worst criminal in Europe.
It doesn't matter. Once you go on this crusade, you will be saved. Right? So, he makes this bargain with the people of Europe. And as you can imagine, there's a ground swell of excitement.
Okay, a lot of people go on this crusade against the the Turks. All right, so let's summarize and look at the individual reasons why people are going on this crusade. It's a long way and it's very dangerous, but they're very excited to go. Okay, why? All right, so the first reason is penance.
So a lot are violent people who have engaged in war, right? They go on this crusade, they will be forgiven for their sins. It's either e either you go go on a crusade or you go join a monastery. Okay. Uh clical immunity.
What this means is that um if you are a criminal, if you kill someone, if you go on a crusade, you will be immune. You will be absolved of these crimes. So, as you can imagine, a lot of psychopaths go on this crusade. A lot of criminals. Vengeance.
People are hearing rumors that um the Muslims are killing Christian women. So they want to kill Muslim men. Okay. Elite overprouction. So as we discussed when a society becomes much more wealthy you have a problem of elite overp production.
Basically younger sons who cannot inherit any land and so they must go on a crusade to win over their own land. Okay. To obtain their own land and become nobility locally. Second coming. Okay.
And what this means is that okay so in Christianity there are many powerful ideas um the cru crucification of Jesus is a powerful idea but the second coming is the most powerful idea it's the idea that eventually Jesus will return and he will make the world a new okay this is what drives a lot of Christians and so a lot of Christians believe that this crusade it's really the end of the world it's a final battle between the believers and the non-believers and Jesus will return to Jerusalem in order to fight on behalf of the believers and usher usher in a new world order. Okay, people actually believe this um adventurism, romantism. Okay, chivalry. Chivalry means chivalry. Okay, we didn't discuss this but it's important that it's important that you know chivalry is a code of honor among knights.
Um the chivalry the principle um a lot of the principle is loyalty to your lord. So if your lord goes off on a crusade, you have to join him. Okay? You have to be loyal to to your master, to your lord. Uh piety, fanatism, okay?
And glory. Okay? Why am I listing this? Because guys, um these reasons are also what drives the Europeans into the new world. Okay?
uh later on we we will be discussing the age of exploration where the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the French, the British they go into the new world and they're going into the new world for these reasons and a lot are going for with religious fever and religious energy. Okay. So it's important that that that you understand the um complexity and diversity of reasoning. Okay. So um as I mentioned the year 1095 Pope Urban II declares the first crusade but over the course of next 200 years there'll be a series of crusades to uh maintain the holy land.
Okay. Um and um it's a very complicated process because it's not being organized. Okay. It's a very much a grassroots movement. basically local lords are the ones organizing um these crusades and and often um peasants will go by themselves.
Okay. And as you can imagine, as you can see, it's a very long way to Jerusalem and a lot will get killed along along the way, right? Um in the first crusade, the first crusade is extremely successful because at this point in in history, the Muslims don't really care about Jerusalem. it's not that important to them. So the crusaders are able to take Jerusalem and they establish something called the crusader states and um it's very very impressive that they do so because they're completely surrounded by Muslims and by enemies.
Okay. But because of their religious fanatism, they will maintain these crusader states for the next um 200 years. Okay. So, uh the the yellow are crusader states and as you can see the white is all Muslim territory. All right.
Um, in 1099 they take Jerusalem. And as I mentioned, there's a lot of religious finm going on. When the crus crusaders take Jerusalem, they do so with vengeance. They kill all the Muslims. They kill all the Jews.
They basically kill as many people as possible in the city. before the siege um the Fatimids who were in control of the city, they actually expelled the Christians because they were afraid that the Christians would help the um crusaders from inside. Okay, so no Christians were killed but a lot of Jews, a lot of Muslims were killed. It was a very very bloody event and the Christians celebrate this. Okay.
They um for them this is righteous to kill the enemy for the glory of God. It is righteous killing. Okay. This contrast with the year 1187 when the Muslim leader named Saladin. Okay, Saladin is considered one of the greatest warriors in human history.
He's celebrated both by Christians and Muslims. He takes Jerusalem without killing any Jews. Christians or Muslims. Okay? He does so peacefully.
And again, what's important for us to remember is that historically, Christianity has been a very violent religion. And Muslims, there's a lot of violence, but it tends to be much more peaceful, open, and inclusive than Christianity. Okay? I'm not talking about today, but I'm talking about historically this has been true. Um once they control Jerusalem, there are five major military orders um of the crusaders.
Okay, you've probably heard of the Knights Templar. Okay, they're the most famous. But you also have a group called the Tatonic Knights who will go on to found a place called Prussia which will unite Germany. Okay. So, so I I I want you guys to remember the Tatonic Knights uh because they will form the basis of Persian society which will then um unite Germany into modern day Germany.
Um they come from different places in Europe and and that's why there are five different military orders. Okay. Um the Knights Templars are the most famous and they become over time extremely influential and powerful. The reason why is they're really the first multinational organization in Europe. So they were meant to protect pilgrims along the way to Jerusalem.
But what they really did was um pilgrims would give their money to the Templars for safekeeping and then when they got to Jerusalem the Templars would give the money back. Okay? So they were a bank and as you can imagine as a bank they were able to make a lot of investments they were able to trade and as such because they're bankers and they're traders they are much more sophisticated well educated and cosmopolitan than the Catholic church right the Catholic church isn't an imperial bureaucracy it's only cares about maintaining orthodoxy over Europe but the knights templars uh they are bankers they're traders also once Once they take over Jerusalem and now they have to govern a city, they recognize that you need to work with Jews and Muslims. Okay? Because Jews and Muslims have these business connections all around the Muslim world and they're surrounded by Muslims.
So what will happen over time is the night templars will welcome back Jews and Muslims into Jerusalem. And over time what will happen is not only will these templates become much more tolerant but they will start to learn from the Muslims and the Jews and they will pick up better practices from these other religions. Also at this at this uh in Jerusalem are Christians who are considered heretics by the Catholic Church. These are Christians who disagree with the holy trinity um and with other uh concepts and that's why they went over to the Muslim world. Okay.
So what the templates are doing is they're absorbing all this diverse religious belief and as such they become essentially freethinkers. Okay. they become um a lot of the religion now is based on reason and logic because that's really the only way that you can you can manage this religious diversity. Okay, does that make sense? All right, so the night templars really become uh one of the basis for modern Europe.
But as you can imagine this changes these changes will come into conflict with the Catholic church and as a result in the year 1307 the Catholic church begins to persecute the night templars. They burn the leader uh Jack de mole at the stake. Okay they disband the organization but by disbanding the organization you drive the organization organization underground. Okay. and a lot of their beliefs will start to spread throughout Europe and it will incubate the Protestant Reformation and they will actually in even influence the American Revolution.
Okay, we'll discuss this later when we get to the American Revolution. Um um the reason for Jack Dumle being burned is the Catholic Church accuses them of being Satan worshippers. All right, there's no evidence that they were Satan worshippers, but they were definitely freethinkers. they were definitely religiously tolerant and that went against the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church. Okay, does that make sense guys?
Okay, so n templars I want you guys to remember we'll be discussing them later on in the semester. This is just a quick introduction right let's continue. All right now um there are three different directions of the crusades going on at the same time. The first direction is to recapture Jerusalem. The second is to reclaim Spain from the Muslims.
Okay, at this point in history, Spain is called Alandelas. And you guys can still go to Spain and see a lot of this architecture. Okay, it's beautiful. It is extremely uh creative. It and it's very powerful.
Okay, so this is an Aldis the architecture. Um this is some of some of their buildings. Uh Spain is is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. definitely visit if you have a chance. Okay.
Okay. This is a mosque. So, Spain um again was for the longest time the most wealthy cosmopolitan innovative place in Europe because it was open and inclusive. There were a lot of Jews. There were a lot of uh Christians and Muslims all working together uh in other lands.
Okay. This is a process that will take about 200 years where um the where Europe will come and slowly conquer all of Spain. Okay, but that this is also part of the crusade. I won't go into history, but as you can see it it takes some time. All right.
Um the last thing about the crusades is they were also focused in internally against denters and there were quite a few denters throughout this history. Okay. So so let's go over some of the major groups. There are guys there are hundreds hundreds of different groups. I I'm only go going to go through some of them.
Okay. The first group I want to talk about are the big wins and the back guards. Okay. The big wins refers to women. The baguards refer refers to men.
um how they come in contact with the church is they want to restore early Christianity. They want to restore the heart and soul of Christianity as a religion of humility and poverty. So they live lives of extreme poverty and charity. They themselves live very simple lives and they give as much they give everything that they have to uh other people. Okay.
So think of the story of the young man who approaches Jesus and Jesus tells him to give give up everything. Well, that's what they do. A lot of them are pretty wealthy people and they give up everything in order to celebrate Christianity. Their problem is first of all they defy the authority of the of the church. Okay?
So they form their own communities. The second problem is if these guys are living simple lives, this contrast with the clerics, right, who are often fat, wealthy, and corrupt. So it's kind of embarrassing. So they were persecuted, right? Then you have a people called the Walt Disneys who also preached a life of poverty.
uh their founder um uh Peter Waldo was actually son of a very wealthy merchant who gave everything up in order to live in poverty and practice the Christian faith. Their problem though is they believe that the pope is the devil. Okay, the Catholic Church it is evil because it's corrupting true Christianity and as a result a lot of them get burned at the stake. Okay, there is a crusade against them and they get uh decimated and destroyed but they're still around even today. Okay, a lot of their beliefs have are still around today.
The main focus of the eternal crusade is something called the albinesian crusade which lasts about 20 years. Okay, so this is complicated but in southern France in a place called albi uh this community practices something called catherism. Okay, Cathism is actually a pretty uh diverse belief. Okay, but its main idea is this. They believe in dualism.
They believe that this world that we live in, it was created by the devil. And why? Because this world is one of pain, one of torment, one of suffering. And there's no way that the true God would create a world like this. But the devil creates this world and what he did was he stole souls from heaven and souls are pure right and he puts these souls into our bodies and that's what gives rise to humans.
So we are these pure um divine souls in these corrupt ugly uh painful bodies. Okay. So the goal of life is to discover that we are in prison and escape um our bodies and return to heaven through good works, through beliefs, through um through knowledge. Okay, noises. So So these people are also also considered gnostics.
Okay. Um their problem is not only are they heresy, but they have their own church structure. Okay, they're they have their own church structure and this church structure is extremely open, tolerant and inclusive. There are women inside this the the hierarchy but there are also Jews inside the hierarchy. And uh what's important for us to remember is this is a belief system in which there aren't that many people but they're deeply admired by the community because they call themselves good Christians.
They practice a life of simplicity of poverty and they are kind and charitable to everyone. So the entire community sees them as good neighbors. Okay. So when the pope declares a crusade against these Cathars, what happens is the entire community rallies around them and tries to protect them. Okay.
Obviously, this is a community uh that is being um besieged by European knights and they will get killed. What's amazing is while the community is protecting them, okay? And they know that the crusades are only wants to kill the Cathars, not the Catholics. Okay? They're Catholics.
The the crusade doesn't want to kill them, but they're willing to sacrifice their lives to protect the Cathars. But also a lot of them will convert to Catharism knowing that they will die because they are so disgusted by the crusades, so disgusted by the Catholic Church and they feel such a strong emotional bond with the Cathars. Okay, so this is a very violent process but it does not destroy Catherism. Why? Because these Cathars don't care if they die.
Remember we are inside uh um corrupt bodies. So when we are martyed we will go straight to heaven. So when they're burnt at the stake okay they go willingly they go happily and this um stuns their neighbors the community but it also frightens the Catholic church. Okay. Because like they know you can't beat people like this and if you keep on persecuting them their religion will spread.
So the Catholic Church adopts two new strategies to deal with them. Okay. The first is they initiate something called the Franciscan order. Uh the the the friars um founded by the Francis of Aisi. And this is a brotherhood focused on a life of humility and poverty doing good works, right?
Just just as Jesus said. The thing though is they're within the church hierarchy. They obey the pope and the Cathars didn't obey the pope. The Walt Disneyians thought the pope was the devil. Okay.
The main um invention, the main response is something called the Dominican order. Okay. So, you might have heard the of the Jesuits, right? The Jesuits were created in order to persecute people during the Protestant Reformation. Well, the Dominican order was created just like the as the Jesuits in order to deal with the Cathar heresy.
These are extremely well educated people who will now use the power of the pen rather than the power of the sword to try to crush the heresy. Okay. What's important for us to to remember is these people who join the the Inquisition, the crusade, they do so out of the puress, the goodness of their own heart. The Cathars have been laid led astray. It is their responsibility to educate them and to save their souls before they burn in hell for all of eternity.
Okay? They do so with compassion, with generosity, with mercy. And so they're fanatical about it. They are absolutely convinced the Cathars have been misled by the devil. So what they will do is they will go and interview Cathars and the entire community.
Okay? Now before the community wanted to protect the carthar so they will lie on behalf of the carthars. Okay but with the power of the pen you're able to write everything down if you're able to take testimony. Okay think of a police interrogation you know exactly who's lying and who's telling the truth. So they were really quickly able to identify who was a cathar and to isolate that person.
Okay. and the power of the pen, this interrogation method was far more effective than uh the crusades. Right? So this is this is part of something called the medieval inquisition and this and this is um something that will repeat itself during the Spanish Inquisition in the um uh the Inquisition against the Protestants. Okay, does that make sense?
So again there's this um stereotype or this misconception that the Inquisition was a violent um act but there was very little violence and the reason why is the Catholic Church the doctrine forbids them from spilling blood. Okay. So um but but this was a very thorough very effective way to deal with heretics. Okay. All right.
So what brings the crusades to an end? Why did the Catholic Church start to lose power? Okay, so a lot of their power derives from the belief that they represent God, the legitimacy, right? Well, starting in the 14th century, there are a series of crisis. Remember that for 300 years, Europe was in the medieval warm period.
The weather was good, but guess what? Weather will change over time. So starting in year 130 or three, the little ice age begins. Basically, it rains every day and it's very cold. So if you are a good Christian, what do you think?
Well, you read the Bible, you know the Bible, and you know this is the flood, Noah's flood. God is angry at you guys. You guys committed sin. Who do you sin against? Probably the Cathars, probably the Waldians, probably those who led good lives.
And you know they like good lives, but you kill them anyway. Okay. Um this leads to something called the great famine of 1315 or 1317. All right. And then this will lead to something called the 100 years war between France and uh England.
Okay. So all Europe right now is they're either starving or they're at war. All right. And then uh this will create banner. So you have these you know mercenary groups basically these packs of young men who go around killing people.
All right. And what does it the the final thing uh is something called the black death which lasts from 1346 to 1353. This will kill at least half of the European population. Okay. At least half of the European population.
All right. So let's look at the black death. All right. Um it starts in a place called Kyakhstan today in central Asia and because of something called the Pax Mangalaka. Remember we last class we talked about the Pax Mangalaka, right?
Um this disease was able to tre to spread very quickly throughout the world. Um and because Europe at this time it's poor, people are at war, people are starving, the plague decimates the population because people's immune systems are very weak, right? At least half of the people die, right? And at this point, people have lost faith in the Catholic Church. And so now you have rebellions going on.
Okay. Um also and this is really important the Catholic Church in 1378 it splits apart. It's and remember in 1045 the Catholic Church split split away from the Orthodox church. But in 1378 the Catholic Church itself divides into two. There are now two popes.
The first pope is in Rome and he's supported by the countries in blue which is uh Sweden, Denmark, England, Poland, Hungary and Italy itself but you also have a pope in Evan who was supported by France which is a rising power in Europe at this time. Okay. So this causes people to lose even more faith in the Catholic Church. So now you start to have these rebellions um going on. Um so you have something called the Dosinians and what they argue for this is basically a revolutionary party.
They argue for the fall of the church, the fall of feudalism. Um and they want to create an egalitarian society. All right? So in other words, these are protocommunists. Even at this stage in human history, people are longing for uh they're nostalgic for a time when humans were free, open, and egalitarian.
They want to they want to destroy the hierarchy. They want to destroy the feudal order, right? Uh this is John Whitecliffe. He is an Englishman. He is a theo theologian widely respected but he was critical of the church and he wrote a lot of books um promoting reform in the church.
He believed that the priest had too much power. He believed that God should be returned to the people and so he himself translated the Bible from Latin into the vernacular into English so that ordinary people can read it. Okay. Um the eventually the church um deemed him a heretic. Okay, they called him a heretic.
But the problem is at this point he's dead. So what they did was this. They dug up his body and then they burn him burn him at the state. Okay, because that's what you do to heretics. He was already dead, but they burn him anyway.
Um John H is uh a check. He was in a place called Bohe Bohemia and he was preaching the same things and as a result they decide to call him a heretic and burn him at the stake. But this will lead to something called the Husk wars when the local Bohemians will challenge the authority of the uh Catholic Church. Eventually this rebellion this war will be crushed by the Catholic Church but this will give way to another reformer by the name of Martin Luther. Okay.
Martin Luther will start something called the Protestant Reformation and this will end the authority of the Catholic Church in Northern Europe and begin um a new age for Europe. All right. So we'll discuss Martin Luther and the Pro Reformation next week. Okay. So let us conclude by answering the three questions.
What are the crusades? Why do they happen? Why do they stop? The crusades in the western imagination, it's no different from the jihad in the Muslim imagination. It is a religious war.
Okay? It's channeling all that religious energy against your opponent, right? And the crusades, even though technically they end in 1290, they will manifest themselves in the age of exploration um and in the conquest of the new world, which is something we'll discuss later on. Right? Why did it happen?
As I discussed um it happened because the Catholic Church had a legitimacy problem. Um the church was divided between east and west. There were the Muslims in Spain who are more open, more cosmopolitan. Jerusalem was controlled by the Muslims. There was internal disscent.
So the church was trying to unite Christianom in order to channel the religious energy and fanaticism in order to consolidate its power and authority over Europe. Okay. And why do they stop? Well, they stopped mainly because Europe found itself in internal turmoil in the 14th century. But you can also argue, and I'll show you later on, they never really stopped.
Okay, there it's still going on today. uh the wars in the Middle East that you're seeing on the news, it's really still part of the crusading mentality, right? Okay. Okay. So, I know this is a lot, but any questions?
Let's let's try to clarify some things that you didn't really understand. Yep. Okay. Sure. All right, let's talk about let's talk about inquisition.
Okay, sorry. Okay. All right. The acquisition. Sorry.
Let me uh why can't I open this? Oh, okay. All right. Good. Okay.
So, all right. So, let me go over the equation because it's very technical. Okay. So, in Europe at this time, there are two types of authority. There's something called clerical authority and something called secular authority.
Um clerical just means the church. Secular just means the nobility, the prince who who is in charge of that area. So um the clerical authority passes judgment on you. Okay? It it's only responsible for your spiritual life, not your physical life.
The secular authority only cares about your physical life, not your spiritual life. Okay? That's where the division is. So the secular authorities are those who have the power to kill you. Okay?
The secular authority are those who have the right who have who have the power to declare you a heretic or unorthodox. All right. So um what's happening during in inquisition? Okay. So the inquisition is trying to figure out the truth okay or the soul right because it is possible that your religion for example if you're Cathar that you can lie.
Why? Why? Because this world is fake. Who cares, right? I'm fake, you're fake.
As long as your soul is pure, that's what matters. So, um you you try to look for these cathars, but they wouldn't tell you the truth. But not only that, but the community was also protecting them. So, what would happen is they they knew you you were going to come in and ask questions. You were basically like the police.
You want to interrogate them, right? Well, before then they the community would get together and make up a lot of lies, okay? To protect the minority of Cathars within that community, right? These these are neighbors trying to protect each other. Okay?
So, what they would do is they would have these informants who tell them maybe one and three, okay, person one and three in this community of 10, they are cathars. So now the problem is how do you find them out? Well, what you do is like the police, you would interrogate them individually. And because the Dominicans were well educated, they could write everything down. Okay?
They could write everything down. And they were tenious. They were persistent because again, they are they think they're doing God's work. This is a crusade. They're trying to save people, right?
So, it's possible they stay in the community for like a year and they might interview you once a week, right? If you if you're lying to them, eventually your story will fall apart. Okay? Does that make sense? And the trick is to make sure that you separate one and three from two, four, five, six.
Okay? Do you understand? Because during the crusades, you didn't separate them. You killed everyone. Okay?
which is problematic because a lot of crusaders didn't want to kill Catholics. They only want to kill Cathars and then and then the pope said God will know his own, right? I mean like let God decide who's a real Cathar, who's a real Catholic. All right? But but you know that that but that was that felt unjust and unnecessary, right?
So this was a much more precise methodical way to figure out one and three and then you burn them for stake, okay? to send a message to the community, right? Because what you're really trying to do is threaten everyone else to cooperate. Okay? And then eventually over time people recognize that resistance is futile.
These people are so persistent they will figure out the truth and then they'll punish the Cathars. So there's really no uh point in resisting. Okay? And again remember this is really important. The Cathars own only a small minority of people in southern France in France.
Okay? Before they were killing everyone in southern France and this was uniting all southern France against the Catholic Church. Now because of the Inquisition they're able to be much more precise. Does that make sense, Eva? Okay, great.
Yep. Any more questions? Great question. Any more questions? Can you explain more about Okay.
Yeah. Okay. Skateboarding. All right. So, so in the Jewish religion, in Judaism, um there's a ritual where the sins of the community will be um put on a goat.
Okay? So basically all all the sins of the community um of that year it will all be placed in a goat and then they will let the goat run away or they might sacrifice the goat in order in order to cleanse the community of the sins. Okay. So the idea of scapegoating is to blame someone else for your troubles. Okay.
Or to divert people attention to something else that distracts them. Right. So for so remember in the idea of feudalism the conflict is between a small nobility right and a large peasantry. The peasants often um were enslaved by the nobility. They were basically called surfs.
And as you can imagine people would get angry. Okay, they would get frustrated and if they rebelled the nobility would have a problem. Okay, first of all, uh there were a lot of peasants so the nobility might get killed. Another problem is this is your economy, right? This is your property.
You you don't want to burn on your own property. All right, so the idea of scapegoing is this. You have Jews who work as middlemen. They're the tax collectors. They're the um uh people who manage the land.
They're the merchants. They So, what you would do is this. You would now and then let the peasants kill the Jews. And you think of this as a ritual sacrifice. Just as in Judaism, they would ritually sacrifice a scapegoat in order to cleanse the community of its sins, right?
Well, you would allow a ritual sacrifice of certain Jews in order to cleanse the peasants of their anger. Does that make sense? Like, like I know this is hard and I and I I know this is disgusting and wrong, but it is a very powerful political tool. And so, you will see the idea of scapegoating throughout human history. Right?
So, now that once the peasants have satis satisfied their anger on the Jews, they go back to work. Does that make sense, guys? All right. So, echo, is that clear? Okay, great.
Great question. Okay, any more questions? Okay. No. Um, so In this religion, this world doesn't matter.
What matters is once you die. Okay? So, everyone while alive is thinking like how do I ensure a peaceful, happy afterlife. Okay? And the Catholic Church is what uh allows you to have a hap ho to have a happy afterlife.
Okay? Okay. But if you piss off the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church can tell you that nope, you're going to burn in hell. Okay. So, the priority then is to be on good terms with the Catholic Church.
That's how you ensure uh eternal salvation. Okay. So, they just simply tell you um yeah, it's a religion. It's a belief system. It's a worldview.
Okay. Remember religion is the culture which is the worldview. Right. Right. And this this is what people believe.
All right. Um so in China, people believe that if I get good grades in school, I'll go to good university and then I'll have a really good life. Right? That's that's a religion. That's a belief system.
It's not necessarily true, but that's what people believe and that's what drives her actions. that that that's why your parents make you study so hard. All right, good. Is that clear? Okay, good.
Any more questions? Great questions, guys. But any more questions? Yeah. So, I I I need you guys to really know this material because we will have to use this material um in future classes.
Okay. So, um next week we start the Renaissance. Okay. The Renaissance will take us to the possible reformation,