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Mar. 25, 2005 In the year 1095, Pope Urban II set in motion the centuries-long rampage of murder, robbery and lust commonly known as the Crusades. The Catholic Church identifies eight Crusades from 1095 to 1270, but acknowledges there were others as late as the 14th and 15th centuries. The ostensible motive was to defend Christendom, which was then synonymous with Catholicism, as the rash of Protestant Churches hadn't yet spotted the face of the Earth. There had been a few robberies in the Holy Land, in the vicinity of Jerusalem, committed or alleged to have been committed by Muslims. The Turks had arrived in the Levant around 1000 AD and Urban's charges were plausible. But some writers feel that Urban's accusations amounted to a pretext. In other words, his motives were different from what he professed them to be. And I wonder if it's possible to venture a guess about what was going on in the back of his mind. In 1054, the Greek and Roman Churches had separated. Before that date, the Catholic Church had been governed by five Patriarchates, those of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. Rome was supposed to be considered first among equals but had begun to assert undue authority that the other Patriarchates resented. Relying upon sophistries and trivial debates about theology and liturgy, the Eastern Church separated from the Western Church in that year, and thus today we have the Greek Orthodox Church in the East and the Roman Catholic Church in the West. To my way of thinking, the theological casuistries and chicaneries were a smokescreen to conceal the real cause of this Great Schism, which probably wasn't even authority for its own sake. The Catholic Church didn't and doesn't publish balance sheets, so it's difficult to audit the books, but I would suppose the whole matter was really about money. The formation of a new Church almost always represents an effort to divert the cash flow. In the years following the Great Schism, Popes were having it out with the Holy Roman Empire too. This Empire corresponded more or less to today's Germany. The feud was called the Investiture Controversy. The German Emperor had until then enjoyed the prerogative of appointing the Pope as well as bishops and abbots. In 1059, the College of Cardinals was established, and, thereafter, assumed the privilege of naming the Pope, while the Emperor continued to name bishops and abbots. Naturally, he would select bishops and abbots, who were wealthy and powerful, from among his confederates, thereby strengthening his own political hand. This selection was called the investiture, as the luminaries were "invested" in the robes of office. One of Urban's predecessors, Pope Gregory the VII, began the Gregorian Reform, seeking to disempower the Empire of the investiture and excommunicating the Emperor. The ensuing controversy lasted until 1122, the year of the Concordat of Worms, which finally abolished the German right of investiture authoritatively, and led to the disintegration of Germany, a Humpty Dumpty that was not put back together again till the 19th century under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. So Pope Urban II may have had the feeling that, with Greece gone and Germany going, the Church would end up being a mere remnant of its former self, with the all-important consideration, namely revenues, greatly reduced. He may have been casting about for some sort of cause around which to rally fragmented Christendom, introducing a renewed solidarity. So a few Muslim robberies in the Holy land would have appeared to pose precisely the justification that he needed to mount a Crusade, calling all the Christian countries to stand together against the godless infidel, almost like the modern coalition to find the imaginary weapons of mass destruction. So, if my guess is right, what Urban really had in mind, first and foremost, was power and money for the Papacy, in other words, for himself. Crusading against Islam may then be regarded as a means to an end. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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