Atlantis Online
March 29, 2024, 06:10:17 am
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Secrets of ocean birth laid bare 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5191384.stm#graphic
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

CRIMES OF CHRISTIANITY - THE CRUSADES

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: CRIMES OF CHRISTIANITY - THE CRUSADES  (Read 330 times)
0 Members and 31 Guests are viewing this topic.
Ceneca
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 1764



« on: December 31, 2007, 03:45:42 am »

CRIMES OF CHRISTIANITY - THE CRUSADES

Gibbon also says of the Crusaders that "in the dire necessity of famine, they sometimes roasted and devoured the flesh of their infant or adult captives." [185:5] Bohemond slew some Turkish prisoners and roasted them publicly. [185:6] Cannibalism was also resorted to at the siege of Marra. One chronicler dryly says there is nothing surprising in the matter, and wonders that they sometimes ate dogs in preference to Saracens. [185:7]



Mutilation of the dead was indulged in as a sport. The heads of two thousand Turks, who fell in a sortie from Antioch, were cut off; some were exhibited as trophies, others were fixed on stakes round the camp, and others shot into the town. On another occasion they dragged infidel corpses from their sepulchres, and exposed fifteen hundred heads to the weeping Turks. [185:8]

Fighting for Christ did not keep the Crusaders chaste. During the siege of Antioch they gave the rein to their passions, and "seldom does the history of profane wars display such scenes of intemperance and prostitution." One archdeacon of royal birth was slain by the Turks as he reposed in an orchard, playing dice with a Syrian concubine. [185:9] Michaud, who on the whole admires the Crusaders, is obliged to deplore that the temptations of a beautiful sky, and a neighborhood once devoted to the worship of Venus and Adonis, "spread license and corruption among the soldiers of Christ."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~freethought/foote/crimes/c9.htm
« Last Edit: December 31, 2007, 03:46:46 am by Ceneca » Report Spam   Logged

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Ceneca
Administrator
Superhero Member
*****
Posts: 1764



« Reply #1 on: December 31, 2007, 03:49:46 am »

"If contemporary accounts are to be credited, all the vices of the infamous Babylon prevailed among the liberators of Sion. Strange and unheard-of spectacle! Beneath the tents of the Crusaders famine and voluptuousness formed a hideous union; impure love, an unbounded passion for play, with all the excesses of debauch, were mingled with the images of death." [186:1]
Antioch at last fell by treachery. Traitors inside lowered ropes in the night, by means of which the Crusaders scaled the walls. They seized ten towers and slew the guards. A gate was then opened and the whole army entered the city with trumpets braying. Shouting "Deus il vult," they began to butcher the sleeping inhabitants.
"For some time the Greeks and Armenians were equally exposed with the Mussulmans; but when a pause was given to murder, and the Christians became distinguished from the infidels, a mark was put on the dwellings of the former, and their edifices were regarded as sacred. The dignity of age, the helplessness of youth, and the beauty of the weaker sex, were disregarded by the Latin savages. Houses were no sanctuaries; and the sight of a mosque added new virulence to cruelty." [186:2]
The number massacred on this night was at least ten thousand. The Turkish commander escaped with a few friends and reached the mountains. An old wound opened in his head, the loss of blood produced giddiness, he fell from his horse, and was left behind. "His groans," says Mills, "caught the ear of a Syrian Christian in the forest, and he advanced to the poor old man. The appeal to humanity was made in vain; and the wretch struck off the head of his prostrate foe, and carried it in triumph to the Franks." [186:3]
The passion for plunder had been stilled by the thirst for blood:

"When, however, every species of habitation, from the marble palace to the meanest hovel, had been converted into a scene of slaughter, when the narrow streets and the spacious squares were all alike disfigured with human gore, and crowded with mangled carcasses, then the assassins turned robbers, and became as mercenary as they had been merciless." [187:4]
The Crusaders ate, drank, and indulged in the wildest debauchery. Unbounded license was given to every passion. In a few days they consumed all the provisions in the city, and they had so devastated the surrounding country that no fresh supplies could be obtained. The citadel, which in the first flush of victory they had left uncarried, was still held by the Turks, and now the victors were themselves besieged by Kerboga. The enemy was without and within. Their former distresses were nothing to the miseries they now suffered. The most nauseous vegetables were greedily eaten. They boiled the leaves of trees and stewed the leather of their accoutrements. Multitudes tried to escape by dropping from the walls at night, and earned the opprobrious epithet of rope dancers. Peter the Hermit was among the number, according to Gibbon; although Mills and Michaud place his attempted desertion in the first siege, when he fled with William the Carpenter, was brought back by Tancred, and only saved from execution by an act of royal clemency. Old Fuller says:
"When the siege grew hot his devotion grew cold; he found a difference betwixt a voluntary fast in his cell, and a necessary and indispensable famine in a camp; so that being well nigh hunger-pinched, this cunning companion, who was a trumpet to sound a march to others, secretly sounded a retreat to himself." [187:5]
The Christians were in despair. They openly rebuked God for deserting them; even the chiefs joined in these blasphemies, and during several days, not only were the ceremonies of religion neglected, but no priest or layman uttered the name of Christ. [187:6] At length the Virgin came to their assistance. Peter Bartholemy, a loose and cunning priest, was informed by St. Andrew that the Holy Lance which pierced the side of Christ was buried under the church of St. Peter. Workmen dug without discovering it, but Peter Bartholemy deposited there in the night the head of a Saracen lance, which was duly discovered in the morning, and exhibited to the troops. The wonderful object excited their courage. They sallied from the town and in a single battle annihilated or dispersed the enemy. But when the peril was over, scepticism asserted itself. Poor Peter was obliged to pass through the ordeal of fire to prove the truth of the miracle, and died from the injuries he suffered. [188:7]
The Crusaders still loitered at Antioch which they continued to disgrace by vice and disorder. Bitter strife broke out among the chiefs as to the division of the fruits of victory. It extended to their followers, whose bloody feuds paralysed every movement. The multitude of unburied corpses bred a plague which destroyed more than a hundred thousand. At last they moved towards Marra, which they captured. They slaughtered all the inhabitants who did not escape by suicide, and devoured their flesh; and it is even said that human flesh was publicly exposed for sale in the Christian camp. [188:8] The streets ran with blood until ferocity was tired. Bohemond then reviewed his prisoners. "They who were vigorous or beautiful," says Mills, "were reserved for the slave market at Antioch, but the aged and infirm were immolated at the altar of cruelty." [188:9]

By this time the crusading host was reduced to twenty thousand foot and fifteen hundred cavalry. Nearly a million soldiers of Christ, of all ages and conditions, and of both sexes, had perished in less than two years; to say nothing of those who fell victims to their cruelty and fanaticism. Yet the holy sepulchre was still in the hands of the infidels, the object of the Crusade was unaccomplished, and only a feeble remnant of the hosts that assembled at Nice were now ranged under the banner of the cross. But the bloody symbol had not lost its power, nor was their enthusiasm quenched; and the cry still broke from their lips, "On to the city of God!"

Lest we should be suspected of exaggerating the number of Crusaders who perished before Jerusalem was reached, we may observe that Mills estimates it at eight hundred and eighty thousand. [189:1] Hallam's calculation is nearly as high.

"So many crimes and so much misery have seldom been accumulated in so short a space as in the three years of the first expedition. We should be warranted by contemporary writers in stating the loss of the Christians alone during this period at nearly a million; but at the least computation it must have exceeded half that number." [189:2]

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~freethought/foote/crimes/c9.htm
Report Spam   Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy