Rick Santorum: The Crusades Get A Bad Rap!
Jillian Rayfield, February 2011:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/rick-santorum-the-crusades-get-a-bad-rap.php?m=1: If you were worried there wouldn’t be a 2012 candidate touting the pro-Crusades platform, then today is your lucky day!
“The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical,” former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) told a South Carolina audience yesterday. “And that is what the perception is by the American left who hates Christendom.”
Santorum’s defense of the Crusades came in Spartanburg, S.C., reports Andy Barr of Politico....
Referring to the “American left,” Santorum observed: “They hate Western civilization at the core. That’s the problem.” Sanoturm also suggested that American involvement in the Middle East is part of our “core American values.” “What I’m talking about is onward American soldiers,” Santorum continued. “What we’re talking about are core American values. ‘All men are created equal’ — that’s a Christian value, but it’s an American value.”
The Crusades were religiously sanctioned military campaigns waged in Europe during the Middle Ages and pre-dated the emergence of the United States by a few centuries. The original goal was to recapture Jerusalem from Muslim rule, though along the way the Roman Catholic forces massacred thousands of Jews, among others.
How the crusaders viewed themselves: From Deeds of God Done by the Franks:
July 15, 1099: Then the emir who was in the Tower of David surrendered to the Count [Raymond], and he opened up the gate.... [O]ur pilgrims chased after and killed Saracens right up to the Temple of Solomon, where they had gathered and wher they fought furiously against our men the whole day, until their blood ran through the temple. When the pagans were defeated, our men captured men and women in the temple and they killed those that they wanted and they let live thos that they chose. On top of the Temple of Solomon were gathered a great many pagans, of both sexes. To these Tancred and Gaston of Beert gave their banners. And then our men rushed throughout the city, seizing gold and silver, horses and mules, and houses filled with all good things.
And finally our men came rejoicing and weaponig with happiness to the Sepulcher of our Savior Jesus to adore it and to render their great debt to Him. The next morning, our men climbed up on the roof of the temple and attacked the Saracens, both men and women, beheading them with naked swords. Some of them jumped from the temple. Seeing this, Tancred was filled with anger.
Then our men took counsel and decided that each one should give alms and pray that God might choose someone who pleased him to rule over the others and to rule the city. They also ordered that all the dead Saracens be thrown outside the city because of the terrible stench, because the entire city was filled with their corpses And the living Saracans carried the dead ones out to thr front of the gate and made mounds of them as high as houses. There were so many dead pagan men that no one has heard of nor seen the like, and they were then laid up on pyres. And as to how many there were, no one knows, except God...
I presume that Tancred d'Hauteville (the Younger), future Prince of Galilee and Regent of Antioch, was filled with anger because the other crusaders were beheading captives who were his valuable slaves, but perhaps I malign him.
