This first video is rather accurate, except that it contains the myth that the Crusaders plundered Jews in the Rhine. While mobs did attack the Jews, this was done two weeks after the Crusaders had departed and was perpetrated by those who never went on the Crusade.

This video contains a glaring error, in regard to the town of Ma’arat al’Nu’man, where the video claims the Crusaders massacred the population The truth is that the Crusaders were lured into town on the offer of supplies and food, but upon entering it were ambushed by the population. The Crusaders defended themselves and then imposed capital punishment on the traitors as was their right as the lords of the land.

Also, regarding the siege of Jerusalem, the video repeats the myth of the slaughter of the inhabitants. The truth is that upon entering the City the local population took up arms against the invading Christian forces. While there was scattered incidents of revenge killings, all involved were excommunicated by the Pope and condemned by the Christian Commanders. As for the citizens of the City, the Crusaders had warned them to depart the city or be considered combatants, and yet they chose to remain, Muslim and Jew, asserting their opposition to surrendering the Holy City to the Catholic Army.

The constant myths and falsehoods thrown against the First Crusade emanate from anti-Catholic authors who are religious bigots and who seek a priori to discredit the First Crusade precisely because they fear what Catholics have achieved out of love of Jesus Christ in History. The truth is that Catholics can achieve great and impossible things, if they only trust in God and devote themselves to great and holy works, such as liberating Christians from persecution.

Finally, what this video omits is crucial.

First, for more than 50 years, the Christians of the Holy Land were bitterly persecuted by various Muslim forces, with mass slaughters, rapes, enslavement, pillaging and destruction of Churches and Monasteries. Most historians who are silent about this do so to give ground for the false narrative that the First Crusade was an offensive war, when it was rather a war of liberation.

Second, the Crusade was requested in a vision by Jesus Christ to Peter the Hermit and with a letter from the Patriarch of Jerusalem who was not in schism from Rome. While the Emperor at Constantinople also requested aide, Bl. Urban II received Peter the Hermit’s request first and decided then and there to call the Crusade, before receiving the Emperor’s appeal.

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Last Updated on June 1, 2020 at 9:03 AM GMT +1