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Today's Neo-Feudalism and The Crusades: by Gerald Rose
Today's Neo-Feudalism and The Crusades: by Gerald Rose
© 2006 EIR News Service Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited.
gratitude of men, won by their lib-
erality, more highly than mute in-
scriptions on arches, columns, and
pyramids, which are subject to the
injuries of climate and all men’s
spite. . . .”
Gargantua then elaborates on
the “clemency” and “generous
treatment” extended to barbarians
who had “pillaged, depopulated,
and sacked” regions of the state, or
practiced piracy, or who simply
were “defeated in fair naval battle.”
This is just the opposite of the
attitude of the Crusades.
Fraud
The entire religious justifica-
tion of the Crusades to liberate the
clipart.com
Holy Land was a fraud. The tipoff
Peter the Hermit (with crucifix), who aided Pope Urban II in recruiting Crusaders. was that the first act of the Crusad-
ers, even before they got to the
Holy Land, was to set off a series
the Papacy, and that kings were only appendages of the Pa- of pogroms against the Jews of Europe, to steal their property
pacy. This is what is known as the “ultramontane” rule of to pay for part of the Crusades, and to kill a large number of
the church. (During the Council of Florence, Lorenzo Valla Jews, just to get into the right spirit before the Crusaders got
proved that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery, with to the Holy Land. These pogroms were to last centuries, and
documents provided by the Eastern Orthodox Church, which the arguments for the Crusades were the justification for hard-
participated in the Council.) core anti-Semitism. (That is why it was so ironic that the neo-
This ultramontane doctrine was imposed by the “Cru- con Israeli Bibi Netanyahu preached such a Crusade against
sades.” The actual policy articulated by the Pope was a Muslims, in front of the America-Israel Public Affairs Com-
radical break with the previous Augustinian concept of the mittee in Washington, D.C., recently. That meeting of AI-
“just war.” In this latter view, although an individual Chris- PAC, addressed by Vice President Dick Cheney and Netan-
tian was called upon to turn the other cheek, and under no yahu, was pretty much a “Madhatters’ Ball.”)
circumstances to kill his neighbor, there were situations, Also, the idea that the Crusades were liberating Jerusalem
such as when tens of thousands of people were under attack, from the Muslims, or that this had anything to do with religion,
when Christians should defend themselves with armed was exposed by the reality that most of the Crusades had
might. The only circumstance under which this may be done, nothing to do with the Holy Land. There were Crusades in
was for defense; such acts must not be taken out of revenge, Spain against the Moorish and Jewish populations. There
or desire for territorial advantage, or to loot the resources were Crusades against “heretics” in southern France (the
of another country. The only goal of such a war was to Albigensian Crusade). But the Crusade that gave the show
impose a “just peace,” not only for oneself, but for those away was the fourth Crusade against Constantinople, which
whom one had to fight. (Also there had to be some chance was the largest Christian city in the world at the time.
of one winning such a fight.)
This concept was defined in very beautiful terms by Rabe- The Fourth Crusade: Venice’s Role
lais. In the first paragraph of Gargantua’s “Address to the It was during the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) that Venice
Vanquished,” Rabelais identifies this idea of a “just peace”: consolidated its power internationally. Venice was the banker
“Our fathers and grandfathers, and ancestors from time for the Papacy and the key beneficiary of the Crusades. In
immemorial have been of such a nature and disposition that the breakup of the Roman Empire into the Western Empire,
as a memorial to the victories and triumphs they have won in whose seat was Rome, and the Eastern Empire, whose seat
battles they have fought, they have preferred to erect monu- was Constantinople, the Roman side of the Empire was being
ments in the hearts of the vanquished by a display of clem- overrun by pagan tribes. So some of the Roman nobility took
ency, than to raise trophies in the form of architecture in the their money and retainers and escaped to the lagoons of Ven-
land they have conquered. For they have valued the lively ice, a location that was defensible because it was approach-