Week 8: Early Crusading - Tutorial Discussion Post
Hi everyone!
Remember that this week we will not be having lectures or tutorials due to the ANZAC day public holiday. However, you are all expected to comment on this blog post and your comments this week will form your participation mark for the week.
A couple of quick notes before I get into the topic for this week.
1) You may have noticed that I have set up a poll on the right-hand bar of the blog on the library tutorial. I would be extremely grateful if you could take a second to vote on how useful (or not) you found the library tutorial I ran in Week 6. This will help me improve my lesson in future years and will also provide myself and Clare with valuable feedback on the usefulness of the library tutorial in general.
2) Week 9 presenters - remember that your blog post is due (emailed to me) by 12pm, Thursday April 26th
.........
Right! On to the Crusades!
I know that we have already had a lecture on the First Crusade but we have yet to have an opportunity to discuss it. Now is the time! Our readings for this week, you'll have noticed, consist of a number of accounts of Pope Urban II's speech at the Council of Clermont in 1095 in which he put out the call for the First Crusade. Our secondary source is an article by Christopher Tyerman on the development of the Crusading ideal and how it was intertwined with European society at the time. Christopher Tyerman is a leading historian of the Crusades and later this term we will be introduced to the work of another expert, Jonathan Riley-Smith.
I'd like everyone to focus this week on the tutorial discussion questions in the reader when considering their comments as I think the questions are quite comprehensive. I've added a couple of questions about the primary source to also help get folks thinking about the complex issue of crusading.
Questions:
1) Discuss the accounts of Urban's speech. In what ways do they differ?
2) What reasons can you give for these variations?
3) According to Urban, who are the enemies of Christendom? How are they characterized? (ie. by ethnicity, religion, etc.) Does Urban seem to have any understanding of Islam?
4) Why should Christians go on crusade? What benefits will they receive according to Urban?
5) What goal does Urban set for the crusaders? What is their mission to the Holy Land meant to achieve?
6) Where is the Holy Land?
7) Tyerman locates the origin of the crusades in a particular 'symbiosis of interests and values'. What does he mean by this?
8) Tyerman argues that although crusading emerges out of a distinctive tradition in the Latin West, it also contained unique and novel features. What are these features?
9) What does Tyerman mean when he says that ' crusading was not a monolithic movement'?
10) Tyerman says that the effect of the crusades on Europe and Europeans tended to be of 3 sorts, what were they?
*** As always your posts can reflect on these questions or on any other aspects of the readings you found interesting or challenging ***
http://exhibitions.slv.vic.gov.au/love-and-devotion
Hi everyone!
Remember that this week we will not be having lectures or tutorials due to the ANZAC day public holiday. However, you are all expected to comment on this blog post and your comments this week will form your participation mark for the week.
A couple of quick notes before I get into the topic for this week.
1) You may have noticed that I have set up a poll on the right-hand bar of the blog on the library tutorial. I would be extremely grateful if you could take a second to vote on how useful (or not) you found the library tutorial I ran in Week 6. This will help me improve my lesson in future years and will also provide myself and Clare with valuable feedback on the usefulness of the library tutorial in general.
2) Week 9 presenters - remember that your blog post is due (emailed to me) by 12pm, Thursday April 26th
.........
Right! On to the Crusades!
I know that we have already had a lecture on the First Crusade but we have yet to have an opportunity to discuss it. Now is the time! Our readings for this week, you'll have noticed, consist of a number of accounts of Pope Urban II's speech at the Council of Clermont in 1095 in which he put out the call for the First Crusade. Our secondary source is an article by Christopher Tyerman on the development of the Crusading ideal and how it was intertwined with European society at the time. Christopher Tyerman is a leading historian of the Crusades and later this term we will be introduced to the work of another expert, Jonathan Riley-Smith.
I'd like everyone to focus this week on the tutorial discussion questions in the reader when considering their comments as I think the questions are quite comprehensive. I've added a couple of questions about the primary source to also help get folks thinking about the complex issue of crusading.
 |
| Christians and Muslims in battle during the Crusades |
Questions:
1) Discuss the accounts of Urban's speech. In what ways do they differ?
2) What reasons can you give for these variations?
3) According to Urban, who are the enemies of Christendom? How are they characterized? (ie. by ethnicity, religion, etc.) Does Urban seem to have any understanding of Islam?
4) Why should Christians go on crusade? What benefits will they receive according to Urban?
5) What goal does Urban set for the crusaders? What is their mission to the Holy Land meant to achieve?
6) Where is the Holy Land?
7) Tyerman locates the origin of the crusades in a particular 'symbiosis of interests and values'. What does he mean by this?
8) Tyerman argues that although crusading emerges out of a distinctive tradition in the Latin West, it also contained unique and novel features. What are these features?
9) What does Tyerman mean when he says that ' crusading was not a monolithic movement'?
10) Tyerman says that the effect of the crusades on Europe and Europeans tended to be of 3 sorts, what were they?
*** As always your posts can reflect on these questions or on any other aspects of the readings you found interesting or challenging ***
 |
| Pope Urban II calling the First Crusade |
......
Finally I'd just like to draw everyone's attention here to a wonderful exhibit of medieval Persian manuscripts that is currently on at the State Library of Victoria. In our course we only briefly encounter the medieval Islamic world and for anyone interested in understanding more about the culture of the Middle East in this period I highly recommend going to this exhibit. It's absolutely beautiful!
http://exhibitions.slv.vic.gov.au/love-and-devotion
 |
| From the State Library Exhibit 'Love and Devotion' |
 |
| From the State Library Exhibit 'Love and Devotion' |
I found this weeks reading quite interesting, I have always liked the crusades and things to do with battle.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the extracts of Urban II speech did become somewhat repeditive and sometimes bland. I did like however, enjoy the intricate details it gave about what the "barbarians" did as torture (even though it was cruel) and how there were certain people who shouldn't be going on the mission of Christ i.e. people who needed the permission of others. What I thought odd was how some had to get permission while perhaps others who had already sworn to go on the journey had to stick to their oath or else be regarded as an outlaw; parental commands did not matter. Each account has a different focus at times and aren't all written at the same time,perhaps some of the accouts are of people who didn't even see Urban. However, there are all fairly similar which makes all the accounts believeable. They are merciless describing the enemeies, being the Turks and Arabs; giving them labels such as "accursed rave", "slayers", "wicked race" they are pictured as an abominable race.
I'm not sure if I have understood Tyerman's "symbiosis of intrests and values" but to me it has to do with the constant intertwined relationship of Church and Military. The Church need military support for patronage and protection while in return the Church says that all sins will be gone as a way to honour their support. This definitley makes me believe that people were more inclined to sin as there was a way for them to repent.
Whoops, completely forgot about this weeks blog post, hopefully this still counts.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to note in this weeks readings were the exceedingly different transcripts of the one apparent speech by Urban II. I guess it perhaps serves as another reminder to question the validity of sources as historians? I've since even learned that, besides Fulcher of Chartes, we are not certain any of the authors were present at the speech.
It is also in Fulcher's account where we see Urban II promise the immediate remission of sin for all whom complete the crusade, which was presumably a major motivation for its crusaders. It is interesting that I couldn't find a similar promise in many of the other accounts.