Cutting Edge

In the last thirty years there has been a growing curiosity for the Crusades. Medieval researches have been writing different synopses of what they believed to have happened and why. This question ‘what were the Crusades?’ baffles many modern experts in Medieval History. Why is it so hard for researches to define the Crusades?

The Crusades’ chronology spans hundreds of years, which makes it very difficult to define it as if it were only a decade. Reasons of why people crusaded differed throughout the history of the Crusades. No matter what all the movies in Hollywood depict, not everyone was fighting for only one cause. The Crusades are also difficult to define because the clashing of cultures formed political, religious, and social tension that we can clearly see today.

Modern research on the Crusades is almost like comparing what you see on CNN to an illuminated manuscript about the Crusades. You can almost draw parallels to what happened nearly a thousand years ago to what is happening in Iraq today. What is supposedly a sensitive subject due to racial tension and many other factors, we don’t hear too much on the comparison of the war in Iraq to the first Crusade.

One might be inclined to refuse that two such major events are similar. History repeats itself. West meets east. Looking at the topic at hand from a very general perspective it isn’t difficult to find similarities. One can discover similarities in political, religious, or social intentions along with others. Will the out come of the War in Iraq mimic that of the Crusades’?

“History teaches everything including the future.”
Alphonse de Lamartine

Works Cited:
Alfred J. Andrea. "Encyclopedia of the Crusades". Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2003
Helen Nicholson. "The Crusades". Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004
Corliss K. Slack. "Historical Dictionary of the Crusades". Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2003