The Crusades corrected

The Catholic Education Resource Center - to which you should subscribe - passes on a helpful article by Paul Crawford entitled, "Four Myths about the Crusades."

The four myths he addresses are:

1. The crusades represented an unprovoked attack by Western Christians on the Muslim world;
2. Western Christians went on crusade because their greed led them to plunder Muslims in order to get rich;
3. Crusaders were a cynical lot who did not really believe their own religious propaganda; rather, they had ulterior, materialistic motives; and
4. The crusades taught Muslims to hate and attack Christians.

The brief article is well footnoted and worth your read.