“Deus Vult” is a Latin phrase meaning “God wills it,” historically used as a rallying cry during the Crusades. It signifies the belief that military actions were sanctioned by divine will. The term “crusade” first referred to military expeditions undertaken by European Christians in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries to the Holy Land. The conflicts to which the term is applied have been extended to include other campaigns initiated, supported and sometimes directed by the Latin Church with varying objectives, mostly religious, sometimes political. These differed from previous Christian religious wars in that they were considered a penitential exercise, and so earned participants remittance from penalties for all confessed sins. What constituted a crusade has been understood in diverse ways, particularly regarding the early Crusades, and the precise definition remains a matter of debate among contemporary historian.
But, basically, hundreds of thousands of people were murdered and tortured because some psychopath decided they were carrying out “god’s will”—aka "I’m using religion as an excuse to exercise my desire to control and subdue people to my ends”.
History is like a mystery book that you’ve read the last chapters first and know how it’s going to turn out. The colonialism done by European powers hadn’t yet happened at the time of Crusades. In fact had the various warring factions in Europe hadn’t found common cause, their religion and culture would’ve been wiped out by Muslim colonialism. Yup, the Caliphate was conquering the Christian lands in Iberia and Anatolia and colonizing them. This is what triggered the Crusades.
The Crusades were an anti-colonialism movement, and if they hadn’t found something to unite over, then their cultures, languages, and religion would’ve been wiped out and the whole thing would’ve been a minor footnote in history. They had managed
In the end, the Muslim colonization of Iberia was defeated (with the Spanish and Portuguese becoming brutal colonizers afterwards) while the Byzantine Empire ultimately fell to Muslim conquest and colonization. Today, there’s only a few hundred thousand Christians left in Anatolia because of assimilation and genocide. Some of that has been relatively recent… you ever hear of the Armenian genocide?
So yeah, not exactly a clear cut good guys vs. bad guys kind of thing as popular narratives suggest. The crusades were triggered by Muslim aggression into Christian lands. While that doesn’t excuse the atrocities committed by the Crusaders, the Crusades also don’t excuse the atrocities committed by Muslim empires either. History is complex, and reductive bias towards europe=bad or religion=bad just results in not actually learning anything from history.
Agreed. In the end, there has been too much suffering and atrocities in the name of religion (and politics). People burned alive, beheaded, drawn and quartered. And Kilmar Abrego Garcia torn from his family and sent to El Salvador for now particular reason. And the US saying, “Too bad, he’s not coming back”.
“Deus Vult” is a Latin phrase meaning “God wills it,” historically used as a rallying cry during the Crusades. It signifies the belief that military actions were sanctioned by divine will. The term “crusade” first referred to military expeditions undertaken by European Christians in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries to the Holy Land. The conflicts to which the term is applied have been extended to include other campaigns initiated, supported and sometimes directed by the Latin Church with varying objectives, mostly religious, sometimes political. These differed from previous Christian religious wars in that they were considered a penitential exercise, and so earned participants remittance from penalties for all confessed sins. What constituted a crusade has been understood in diverse ways, particularly regarding the early Crusades, and the precise definition remains a matter of debate among contemporary historian.
But, basically, hundreds of thousands of people were murdered and tortured because some psychopath decided they were carrying out “god’s will”—aka "I’m using religion as an excuse to exercise my desire to control and subdue people to my ends”.
History is like a mystery book that you’ve read the last chapters first and know how it’s going to turn out. The colonialism done by European powers hadn’t yet happened at the time of Crusades. In fact had the various warring factions in Europe hadn’t found common cause, their religion and culture would’ve been wiped out by Muslim colonialism. Yup, the Caliphate was conquering the Christian lands in Iberia and Anatolia and colonizing them. This is what triggered the Crusades.
The Crusades were an anti-colonialism movement, and if they hadn’t found something to unite over, then their cultures, languages, and religion would’ve been wiped out and the whole thing would’ve been a minor footnote in history. They had managed
In the end, the Muslim colonization of Iberia was defeated (with the Spanish and Portuguese becoming brutal colonizers afterwards) while the Byzantine Empire ultimately fell to Muslim conquest and colonization. Today, there’s only a few hundred thousand Christians left in Anatolia because of assimilation and genocide. Some of that has been relatively recent… you ever hear of the Armenian genocide?
So yeah, not exactly a clear cut good guys vs. bad guys kind of thing as popular narratives suggest. The crusades were triggered by Muslim aggression into Christian lands. While that doesn’t excuse the atrocities committed by the Crusaders, the Crusades also don’t excuse the atrocities committed by Muslim empires either. History is complex, and reductive bias towards europe=bad or religion=bad just results in not actually learning anything from history.
Agreed. In the end, there has been too much suffering and atrocities in the name of religion (and politics). People burned alive, beheaded, drawn and quartered. And Kilmar Abrego Garcia torn from his family and sent to El Salvador for now particular reason. And the US saying, “Too bad, he’s not coming back”.