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Nicholas of Cologne


todd520

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This bit of history was intriguing news to me, so I'm sharing it. I'm not sure how accurate it is though :P

In 1212 young Nicholas of Cologne began to preach a new crusade to the Holy land to pilgrims visiting the relics of the three wise men in the local cathedral. Nicholas claimed that recent crusades failed because the participants were overly sinful and unworthy. Children who had not yet participated in the sins of adult life would be blessed by God and succeed
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If true, how sad. :P

Why do you suppose this Crusade was such an abysmal failure? A huge misjudgment of God's will, I suppose...

I wonder why the Pope didn't send adults with the children, to make sure they made the journey safely back home? Sounds like it must have been a very treacherous journey over the Alps.

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If true, how sad. :P

Why do you suppose this Crusade was such an abysmal failure? A huge misjudgment of God's will, I suppose...

I wonder why the Pope didn't send adults with the children, to make sure they made the journey safely back home? Sounds like it must have been a very treacherous journey over the Alps.

The Pope had no idea what was going on. This was nuts on the ground, far from Rome, making the calls to organize the Children's Crusade.

USU "Who in North Africa would ever take slaves?" 78

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If true, how sad. :P

Why do you suppose this Crusade was such an abysmal failure? A huge misjudgment of God's will, I suppose...

I wonder why the Pope didn't send adults with the children, to make sure they made the journey safely back home? Sounds like it must have been a very treacherous journey over the Alps.

The Crusades fell apart because Christians slaughtered the local inhabitants, enslaved those they could, and so never obtained acceptance as leaders. You don't go into a Muslim nation, kill Muslims, Jews, Christians in the name of God, and then say you are there to save them. Nor do you seek the Holy Land to exploit a people.

Also the child crusades (which I believe were not real) were spontaneous and without approval of any papal leaders. Finally the children were sold into slavery by Venitians, according to legend. Venice did a great deal of double dealing in those days.

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The Crusades fell apart because Christians slaughtered the local inhabitants, enslaved those they could, and so never obtained acceptance as leaders. You don't go into a Muslim nation, kill Muslims, Jews, Christians in the name of God, and then say you are there to save them. Nor do you seek the Holy Land to exploit a people.

Also the child crusades (which I believe were not real) were spontaneous and without approval of any papal leaders. Finally the children were sold into slavery by Venitians, according to legend. Venice did a great deal of double dealing in those days.

You believe those who have done research on the subject and declared it to have been a true event have been fooled?

The crusades were a mess all up and down. I think there were about 9 or so different ones but only a couple had any real success. The ones that did succeed managed to hang on for a generation or so but there was too much fighting between the Christian leaders to hold any place for long.

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You believe those who have done research on the subject and declared it to have been a true event have been fooled?

The crusades were a mess all up and down. I think there were about 9 or so different ones but only a couple had any real success. The ones that did succeed managed to hang on for a generation or so but there was too much fighting between the Christian leaders to hold any place for long.

Sometimes when we uncover more information, our view of history changes.

Something to consider:

What does seem to be true is that there was a large group of folks in France wandering the countryside the summer of 1212, possibly with banners and such so as to appear as a Crusade. But none of the contemporary chroniclers wanted to call it one, so maybe it wasn't. Alberic called it one, but should we believe him? Historian D.C. Munro noted no chroniclers in northern France say anything about an expedition headed towards Marseilles, and none south of the Loire saw anybody at all. Could it be that 30,000 people wandered around down there unnoticed? Was it really a crusade? Did they actually make it to Marseilles? As nobody seems to have seen them in Marseilles until Alberic got around to writing about it decades later, we don't think so.

History House

Recent research suggests the participants were not children, at least not the very young. The confusion started because later chroniclers, who were not witness to the events of 1212 and who were writing 30 years or more later, began to translate the original accounts and misunderstood the Latin word pueri, meaning "boys", to mean literally "children". The original accounts did use the term pueri but it had a derogatory slang meaning, as in calling an adult man a "boy" can be condescending.[3] In the early 13th century, bands of wandering poor started cropping up throughout Europe; these were people displaced by economic changes at the time which forced many peasants in northern France and Germany to sell their land
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The Crusades fell apart because Christians slaughtered the local inhabitants, enslaved those they could, and so never obtained acceptance as leaders. You don't go into a Muslim nation, kill Muslims, Jews, Christians in the name of God, and then say you are there to save them. Nor do you seek the Holy Land to exploit a people.

Also the child crusades (which I believe were not real) were spontaneous and without approval of any papal leaders. Finally the children were sold into slavery by Venitians, according to legend. Venice did a great deal of double dealing in those days.

Hi Jeff K.

I thought that the resemblance between one crusade and another can be as dissimilar as the Battle of Agincourt to the Battle of Bunker Hill. There were different enemies, different objectives, and different results of many separate crusades. Varying degrees of success and failure accompanied various crusades over a period of centuries in different places. I must confess that it seems like yours is an over simplified and too sweeping statement in consideration of the length and breadth of crusading history. Naturally, they were discontinued when nation-states became better organized and able to motivate/constrain the populace by non-religious motives to engage in large scale military endeavours.

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You believe those who have done research on the subject and declared it to have been a true event have been fooled?

The crusades were a mess all up and down. I think there were about 9 or so different ones but only a couple had any real success. The ones that did succeed managed to hang on for a generation or so but there was too much fighting between the Christian leaders to hold any place for long.

"...a mess all up and down."

Hi Bluebell.

Long before I was Catholic, in the late 80's or early 90's I think, I obtained from History Book Club the three volume set of Sir Steven Runciman's history of the Crusades. Nobody can accuse him or HBC of being a Catholic shill. I thought he was a respected non-Catholic English authority on this subject. According to him, it just wasn't as negative as you and Jeff K. seem to have been taught. Are you familiar at all with Runciman's work? If you dismiss him, besides Wikipedia, who do you recommend?

PS: I believe that the "Children's Crusade" happened and was a terrible tragedy. I do not recall the details, but what has been mentioned here so far seems compatible with my recollection of the events and my image of Catholic life in that era.

3DOP

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3dop

I am not accusing the Catholic church of anything. I do however believe the crusades were at best slightly negative, at worst they destroyed some wonderful opportunities in the West to extend strengthen global trade with the Eastward peoples beyond Jerusalem. All because of some very stupid and belligerent Seljuks who really got the whole thing started.

As to the negatives... When Jerusalem was taken (the first and arguably only successful crusade), they slaughtered all the inhabitants, Christian, Muslim, Jewish. The West was still getting its political feet and by most standards still extremely violent and barbarian. Later when Richard or Cour de Leon literally killed every man woman and child in front of the Muslim armies at Acre, considered brutal even by the standards of the day, it was even less likely the west would succeed. Richard knew this and so after he tried to marry his daughter off to the brother of Saladin, he left to return home.

Barbarossa was probably the best bet for a civilized conquest of the Holy Land, one with a controlled government that might have established a commonality. Of course he dies and we are left with secondary players whose main idea is pillage. I do see it as a dark spot on western growth and development.

My sweeping statement is not because I am not aware of the nuance, but perhaps too aware of its history to go into the greater and sometimes long detail. This was never a close conflict but rather a brutal one, and frankly I think in the end the Muslims come out looking better than the Christians (Seljuks aside).

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3dop

I am not accusing the Catholic church of anything. I do however believe the crusades were at best slightly negative, at worst they destroyed some wonderful opportunities in the West to extend strengthen global trade with the Eastward peoples beyond Jerusalem. All because of some very stupid and belligerent Seljuks who really got the whole thing started.

As to the negatives... When Jerusalem was taken (the first and arguably only successful crusade), they slaughtered all the inhabitants, Christian, Muslim, Jewish. The West was still getting its political feet and by most standards still extremely violent and barbarian. Later when Richard or Cour de Leon literally killed every man woman and child in front of the Muslim armies at Acre, considered brutal even by the standards of the day, it was even less likely the west would succeed. Richard knew this and so after he tried to marry his daughter off to the brother of Saladin, he left to return home.

Barbarossa was probably the best bet for a civilized conquest of the Holy Land, one with a controlled government that might have established a commonality. Of course he dies and we are left with secondary players whose main idea is pillage. I do see it as a dark spot on western growth and development.

My sweeping statement is not because I am not aware of the nuance, but perhaps too aware of its history to go into the greater and sometimes long detail. This was never a close conflict but rather a brutal one, and frankly I think in the end the Muslims come out looking better than the Christians (Seljuks aside).

That Jeff, seems like a more balanced statement than what appeared before, and one with which I am not qualified to quibble. Even though I named my youngest child after the fictional knight of Ivanhoe, I am not committed to his historical liege, Lionheart. I would have to learn more before defending him. Thanks for your reply.

3DOP

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Ivanhoe was a great story and a knight. I can think of worse things to name one's child after. A steakhouse for example.... Kobe Bryant, what was your mom thinking....

As to the more balanced statement. Unfortunately my earlier statement is just as relevant.

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Ivanhoe was a great story and a knight. I can think of worse things to name one's child after. A steakhouse for example.... Kobe Bryant, what was your mom thinking....

As to the more balanced statement. Unfortunately my earlier statement is just as relevant.

Oh Jeff...We did not name him Ivanhoe, but Wilfred...and it was Richard with whose true historical character I am only vaguely familiar. Sir Walter Scott contributes with his considerable talents to a view of the Catholic Church of the age in a light that can only be described as despicable. There is an Englishman named Eamon Duffy, who I believe teaches at Cambridge who has used his talents to uncover the fact that with some warts and pimples, the Church in England prior to the Reformation was more healthy than has been assumed by those who seem informed through works of fiction and sensationalist propaganda. When our youngest boy was born, we were happier with Scott than we are now. But we remain very well pleased with our choice of name.

I am not prepapred to challenge you further with regard to what I characterized as a sweeping statement. Although I disagree, I appreciate your passion about the subject. Again, I would ask whose work you recommend that helps you to summarize the matter as, shall we say, succinctly, as you have done? Thanks.

Regards,

3DOP

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"...a mess all up and down."

Hi Bluebell.

Long before I was Catholic, in the late 80's or early 90's I think, I obtained from History Book Club the three volume set of Sir Steven Runciman's history of the Crusades. Nobody can accuse him or HBC of being a Catholic shill. I thought he was a respected non-Catholic English authority on this subject. According to him, it just wasn't as negative as you and Jeff K. seem to have been taught. Are you familiar at all with Runciman's work? If you dismiss him, besides Wikipedia, who do you recommend?

PS: I believe that the "Children's Crusade" happened and was a terrible tragedy. I do not recall the details, but what has been mentioned here so far seems compatible with my recollection of the events and my image of Catholic life in that era.

3DOP

Honestly, I'm just going off my Medieval History class, which dealt mostly with primary sources (words of the knights and the priests/bishops invovled mostly) but I don't remember who all we read so i'm not much help there. I know there were a lot of sincere people who went, but many truly atrocious things were done, to other christians even, in the name of Jesus. I don't know how to defend a movement that allowed those things to be done and told the men they were already forgiven for them, even if not everyone was doing it.

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Also the child crusades (which I believe were not real) were spontaneous and without approval of any papal leaders.

Um, if you believe they didn't happen, then how can you also argue that they were spontaneous and without approval of papal leaders?

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