Sunday, October 19, 2008
what was he thinking?
That is what kept running through my mind as i was reading about the first crusade. Pope Urban II initiated the crusades with his speech and call to arms, yet i don't think that the outcome was what he wanted. This leads me to wonder, what DID he want? He apparently didn't want the poor to rush to battle, yet that was who heard his empassioned speech. Why did he make the speech in the first place? What was his intended outcome, and would it have been better or worse for Christianity that what took place? He was a man looking for reform in his church, but i wonder if what he got was his goal or not.
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2 comments:
That question is much debated, Tony. Direct documentation is very thin and none of it unbiased, so we have to read between very few lines. It's not even clear that he intended for the crusaders to go to Jerusalem.
My own guess is that he did indeed intend the "liberation" of Jerusalem and that he intended Adhemar to be selected as Patriarch, who would then dutifully see to it that the see of Jerusalem was under Roman authority. I don't see any evidence that Urban envisioned crusader states; my guess is he didn't think much about that angle.
But there are a number of other interpretations around, each with their own strengths. My only advice: be wary of anyone who claims they *know*.
Ha, it's easy to look at the actions of leaders and think "what were they thinking?" Perhaps it would be a bit of a perspective boost to think "what would i have done?" Every aspsect of life was different then. It's impossible to know what was going on in the heads of yore, but interesting to try and place yourself there.
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