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Oct. 28, 2015 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
17:53
#BigMilo Livestream and Accepting Criticism Re： The Crusades
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Hello everyone, I'll be on Milo Nianopoulos' Big Milo livestream in exactly two hours from, well, when I'm recording it now, but when you get it, probably about an hour and a half.
And so it's 10.30 GMT, which is whatever in whatever time zone you're in.
So yeah, I'll be on there, and I'll leave a link to the live stream in the description so you can go and watch it's live now, and it's very good.
He's got some really interesting people on there.
It's going to be good.
In the meantime, so this video hasn't been a complete waste of your time, I'm going to take some medicine.
I had a lovely email from a chap called Joe, and Joe was very concerned about the rife inaccuracies in my Crusades Ramble video, which I did say there were going to be lots of, because I wasn't doing any research for it.
So I was remembering things from about five or six years ago that I had read, and I think it's worth pointing out some of these inaccuracies, because I feel that I would be remiss if I didn't do that.
So he says, Dear Sargon, although most of your videos are well researched, I found that your Crusades video was rife with historical inaccuracies.
Well, it was, because I didn't research it.
But I don't think it takes away necessarily from the broader points that I was making.
That the Crusades aren't an indication of the goodness or badness of Christianity.
They are more a reflection of the times that they were took part in.
I'm sorry if this email is a little bit pedantic.
It is, but that's okay.
As a medieval history enthusiast, I couldn't help it.
No worries.
Firstly, the term Byzantine was invented by a German scholar named Hieronymus Wolf to distinguish between the ancient and medieval Roman states, and thus it's anachronistic for you to say Byzantine Emperor.
I know.
I know.
But most people are familiar with the term Byzantine.
I could have said Eastern Roman or simply Roman, as you go and say Anakomnenus says, but I didn't because it's just easier for other people.
I apologize.
As you can see, Prime Minister from the Alexianda.
The Alexian's a damn fine read, honestly.
I recommend it to anyone.
They were called Greeks by the Crusaders.
They were.
fact I can't remember who it was now but there was a great deal of uproar caused because someone wrote an email, wrote an email, wrote a letter from I think it was the Holy Roman Emperor saying he was the Emperor of the Romans to the Emperor of the Greeks and that was, why would you even say that to us?
We're the Roman Emperor.
We're Roman Empire.
We're legitimate.
You're a bunch of bloody Germans.
You've got nothing to do with the Romans.
We're at least fucking centered on a city founded by the Romans.
But yeah, that's all true, obviously.
Second, it was Pope Urban and Not Innocent.
Did I say innocent?
Shit, this is as simple as me saying it was 1195 and not 1095.
I'm really sorry.
I had gone through Wikipedia briefly, but the thing is, there's something about the name Pope Innocent that I find very interesting, and I don't know why, I just really like it.
And for some reason, I always get Urban and Innocent mixed up.
I think it's because of my just like of the word innocent as a name.
But yeah, I thought I had, I thought I'd check that as well, but I obviously I was wrong.
Right, and this is the important one, and he's obviously not wrong, but I think that it doesn't necessarily counteract what I was saying, but we'll go through it.
Thirdly, your notions about the Middle Ages are rather outdated and Gibbonsian in nature, as all of the clergy, gentry, and the middle classes were literate.
Well, I'm not sure that's true.
I know that some of the middle classes were literate.
I watched a documentary on this the other day.
Now, I mean, this guy probably knows a lot more than I do, so maybe I should just take it as read.
But I'm not certain that that's the case.
I mean, I am aware that there were some free men who did learn to write, and read, obviously.
But I don't know what percentage of the population they would be.
And I would imagine that they're probably quite low.
Now, I know that that's just effectively an argument from ignorance and from incredulity.
So, I'm probably going to look an idiot in the comments here.
But I would need to spend a bit of time looking into this, and I haven't.
I'm really sorry.
I should, though.
And I may well do in the future.
But the thing is, I think it's safe to say the vast majority of people couldn't read and write.
You know, that's the point I was trying to make.
You know, the middle classes were still a reasonably small amount of people in, say, 1095.
And I really would like to see some actual figures, whatever figures we have for this.
I mean, he hasn't provided any sources, which is a shame, but hopefully he'll see this video and he'll think to send me some information that I can actually go on.
And no, I haven't spent the time looking for myself.
And I should have done.
I'm sorry.
Well right, so universities began to exist during the High Middle Ages.
Yeah, but we're not talking about the High Middle Ages, are we?
I should.
I'm just going to check to see where the high middle ages started I should have I should have done this before Okay, the University of Bologna, Italy was founded in 1088.
So that's interesting.
But yeah, we're talking really in the next few centuries when universities still actually became sort of more widespread across Europe.
So, I mean, this is the beginning of that period, but I don't think that that's going to be representative of very many people.
And I could be wrong, and I'm more than happy to accept any sources that show that I'm wrong.
Usually email address or put them in the comments.
If the comment catcher, catch them, I'll just release them.
Many of the people weren't as ignorant as they are seen as being today, as they did not leave the world as far.
I didn't think they believed the world was flat.
It's been known for a long time the world isn't flat.
So I'm going to drink some tea.
Very few witches were burned.
Now this true, but that doesn't make them any less ignorant.
That just means that witch hunting wasn't a big deal.
This was long before Matthew Hopkins being paid to find witches, being paid by the witch.
But again, I didn't say witch burnings happened.
And the Middle Ages produced some of the greatest philosophers of all time.
Well, they did, but not very many of them.
A lot more of the greatest philosophers of all time were before and after the Middle Ages.
Such as, you know, okay.
Yeah, he, lists, St. Augustine of Hippo, Boethius, St. Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, and William Markham.
Yeah, okay.
A couple of examples is interesting, but I mean, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of Greek ones alone in the pre-Middle Ages and the Enlightenment.
So it's, you know, the idea that all medieval people were superstitious and ignorant was created by Edward Gibbon and other Enlightenment historians who are comparing it to the age of reason contemporary to them and to the intellectual golden age of the classical period that they revered so much.
Now, that's true.
But the thing is, that doesn't dismiss the fact that they thought a trial by ordeal was a legitimate form of judgment.
This is the problem I have, right?
Now, I shouldn't have said stupid.
Stupid's unfair, because stupid varies between individuals, as anyone using YouTube will be well aware.
I shouldn't have said stupid.
I should have said massively ill-informed, because some of the things they believed were just ridiculous.
Absolutely ridiculous.
I said stupid as a kind of shorthand, to put in the mind of the layman, presumably listening to what I was saying, that don't expect them to know what you know.
They don't know very much of anything that's actually true.
I mean, they believe that the human body was about balancing for humours.
You know, they thought that you had a certain amount of bile and whatnot.
I can't remember exactly what exactly it contains.
But it was complete nonsense.
Absolutely nonsense.
You know, nothing about it was even vaguely scientific.
Nothing about it even vaguely represents a reality.
They thought that bleeding was a solution to being diseased and to having various ailments.
So, you know, you can say, and I understand the desire to say, look, they weren't stupid, and, you know, they weren't.
They were just really misinformed.
They just didn't know what they were talking about because they didn't have the scientific method.
They didn't have technology to show them or teach them or, you know, to use to extract real information from the world.
All they had was superstition.
And they believed some stupid shit that wasn't true.
In fact, they believed a lot of shit that wasn't true, you know, you can't, and they believed in profits.
And that's the dumbest thing for me.
I don't ask shit on religion or anything, but seriously, I mean, the Peasants' Crusade with Peter the Hermit, they actually thought he was being taught to by God, and a bunch of fucking peasants decided, you know, poorly armed peasants, decided to walk away to Turkey to try and challenge the Turks and the Muslims.
That was dumb.
It's really dumb.
You know, you can say, oh, they weren't all superstitious, but they fucking were.
70,000 of those idiots were.
You know, and I mean, I don't know how the veracity of the Children's Crusade, I've seen arguments for and against, so I don't know.
But assuming it was even based slightly in truth, that's another really dumb thing.
You can say they weren't all superstitious, but by God, they look it!
They look so fucking dumb.
And, you know, I don't like morally judging people by present standards, but these people didn't know what they were talking about.
Now, I mean, when it came to, say, like a siege of a castle or something, they're intelligent people.
They could build things, they could, you know, they'd build siege works, they could see the weak points.
They weren't actually stupid.
they were just wildly misinformed and reality wasn't, there was nothing in reality that was available to necessarily counteract these beliefs, you know.
I mean, what was the reason for the Black Death?
They thought that they had done something wrong.
They thought we were being punished by God.
And you're trying to tell me they're not superstitious?
They don't know.
They were superstitious, I'm sorry, I know this is, I'm not saying that they all were stupid, or they all were massively superstitious, but the fucking overwhelming majority, I'm absolutely, I haven't seen anything to convince me that the overwhelming majority were not massively superstitious.
And hugely religious, but that's not something you contest.
Okay, let's carry on.
The idea that all...
Fourthly, the County of Odessa fell to Imad ad-Dinzenghi in 1144, not 1145, sorry.
In addition, you forget that the Northern Crusades against the Baltic pagans were launched because the pagan tribes would often raid East and Germany and enslave the peasants, meaning the Baltic Crusades were not purely offensive, but a retaliation, rather a retaliation to violence.
Well, I mean, yeah, but who didn't raid who in the Middle Ages?
I mean, seriously, who didn't raid each other?
You know, it's.
I can't think of anyone.
I just can't think of anyone who didn't get raided by their neighbours.
You know, it was the most common thing in the world, so, you know, I don't think really crusades are an appropriate response.
I mean, maybe they are.
it seems that there was a lot more.
And someone pointed out to me that, and I did know this, and I completely forgot.
It was stupid.
I forgot.
The Baltic was a major source of amber, which was hard to find elsewhere.
And you had the Amber Road, which went from the Baltic right the way down to the Mediterranean.
And it was a, you know, there was a lot of wealth to be gained there.
And I completely forgot about that.
Hold my hands up.
Completely wrong on that.
And yeah, so there was definitely a financial incentive as well.
So there's financial incentive, a military incentive, like you say, and overwhelmingly, clearly, a religious incentive.
And this is the thing.
No matter what happens, there is always a religious incentive for these things.
Additionally, the reason why Philip Augustus left off the Siege of Acre on the 31st of July 1191 was because the Count of Flanders had died during the siege and thus Philip had wanted to settle his inheritance and in the meantime undermine the existence of the Angevin Empire while Richard was busy fighting Saladin.
Yes, that's true.
I thought that they had had an argument.
I thought they'd had an argument for the leadership of the Crusades.
I should have checked that in advance really, so I could have either made my point or retracted it.
I'll retract it for now.
I mean, I might be wrong.
I'll put a thing in the comments.
But I'm not saying that he didn't also have secondary motives or anything like that.
Also, the reason why Richard had disputes with his knights was because they were desperate to camp Jerusalem and recover all the Christians had lost in 1187, but Richard realised this was logistically impossible and thus tried to negotiate with Saladin.
I think I said that.
Who refused due to pressure from his emirs.
I think I essentially was saying that.
Furthermore, the reason why Richard originally intended to leave before Jaffa was because Philip Augustus of France was trying to seize the territory of France.
uh yeah that's true but i did i not I probably didn't make that clear.
Finally, the reason Saladin consented to the Treaty of Jaffa was because after the Battle of Jaffa, in which Richard and 2,000 Genese Marines triumphed against the superior Ayyubid forces, Saladin realized Richard was unbeatable.
Yeah, I think I said that, didn't I?
I tell you.
If you want a good narration for this, I have it on audiobook from Audible.
What was it?
Flame of Islam.
It's, I think it's by Harold Lamb.
I can never remember.
It's either Harold Lam or...
yeah it's Harold Lam.
It was either Harold Lam or...
What's his fucking name?
Oh, motherfucker.
I can't remember.
Tom Holland.
That's the fucking guy.
But it was Harold Lamb, instantly.
It has the most wonderful description of the Battle of Jaffa.
It's heart-pounding stuff.
When you're reading it, you can see why they didn't want to fight Richard and why Saladin considered him unbeatable.
It was a hell of a thing.
He says, feel free to rebuke my criticism on a different note.
I'd highly recommend the channel Real Crusades History to you.
Yeah, there's a channel called Real Crusades History, and I've watched a few of those, and they're very good.
And a lot more thorough than what I've done here and in my previous one.
And had I the time, I would have produced a sort of little documentary series on this by now.
But I haven't had the time.
And it's a real shame because, holy shit, the Albigensian Crusade is one of the most thrilling things.
Again, you forget that these things really happened.
You know, seriously, you've got the king of Aragon sat across saying a crusading champion demanding that Simon de Montfort fucking stand down because he's attacking part of his kingdom.
He's attacking a thief in his kingdom.
And Simon de Montfort's just like, we've got 1200 knights or so, let's just do it.
And they just steamroll him and they end up killing him.
And it's just like, fuck!
Nobody saw it coming, basically.
But yeah, anyway, fantastic stuff.
And I do recommend Real Crusade History.
I'm going to do a podcast with them at some point in the future.
I've kind of forgotten when that's going to be, but I'll let people know what I do.
But yeah, so this was an interesting ramble where I had to accept criticisms and corrections.
And if you think that I've said anything wrong, again, Joe, please do shoot me another email.
I love talking about this sort of stuff.
So I'm happy to be wrong.
I'm happy to be corrected.
And I will, in a short while, at 10.30 GMT, is it GMT or BST?
I don't fucking know.
God, I tell you what, every time I say this, the time zone Nazis get on my ass.
No, no, no, no, BSTs.
But on earth, GMT, oh, fuck off.
In Britain, right now, in England, in sunny Swindon, at 10.30 in the evening, I will be on Milo's big Milo podcast stream, live stream.
It's going to be good.
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