Were The Crusaders Marytrs?

[Tindomiel]

[quote name='M.SIGGA' date='Oct 29 2003, 10:54 AM']Wasn't St. Louis IX, King of France a crusader? I know he was taked prisoner and got sick and died during one of his crusades. He could possibly be listed as a martyr.
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Many people [i]do[/i] consider him a martyr, though he's not officially listed as such.

[Tindomiel]

[quote name='popestpiusx' date='Dec 23 2004, 09:55 AM']"Chronicles of the Crusades"  Its a two part work.  The first part is a chronicle of the Fourth Crusade written by a French nobleman (Villehardoiun) who was there.  The story is more complicated than many would like to believe (involving Byzantine politics and the Genoese and Vianese merchants). 
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[/quote]As a matter of fact, this fourth crusade was condemned by the Pope of the time, and the Venetians who took part in it were all excommunicated, because the crusaders aboandoned their original purpose and attacked fellow Christians in Constantinople.


Edit:double post, sry.

Edited February 14, 2006 by Tindomiel

[jswranch]

Were The Crusaders Martyrs?

To answer this question, one must first answer 'what is a martyr?'

Those of us choosing to be roman catholic have the disctinct pleasure of having the CCC:

(credit to [url="http://www.scborromeo.org)"]http://www.scborromeo.org)[/url]

2473 Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith: it means bearing witness even unto death. The martyr bears witness to Christ who died and rose, to whom he is united by charity. He bears witness to the truth of the faith and of Christian doctrine. He endures death through an act of fortitude. "Let me become the food of the beasts, through whom it will be given me to reach God."271

2474 The Church has painstakingly collected the records of those who persevered to the end in witnessing to their faith. These are the acts of the Martyrs. They form the archives of truth written in letters of blood:


Neither the pleasures of the world nor the kingdoms of this age will be of any use to me. It is better for me to die [in order to unite myself] to Christ Jesus than to reign over the ends of the earth. I seek him who died for us; I desire him who rose for us. My birth is approaching. . .272
I bless you for having judged me worthy from this day and this hour to be counted among your martyrs. . . . You have kept your promise, God of faithfulness and truth. For this reason and for everything, I praise you, I bless you, I glorify you through the eternal and heavenly High Priest, Jesus Christ, your beloved Son. Through him, who is with you and the Holy Spirit, may glory be given to you, now and in the ages to come. Amen.273



Taking strongholds and defending holy sites are good goals. However, dying in persuit of such goals is not the same as dying while attempting to give witness to the truth of the Catholic faith. That truth is of love and that of Christ crucified and resurected, etc... not a truth of the sword and arrow.

Were the cursades spurred by justified reason for war? Absolutely! The pope had more cause to call for the use of arms than the US did against the Nazis during WWII, the war for us independence, Spanish American war, Vietnam, grenada, korea etc (not that those were not justified).

Check out Crocker's "Triumph.." for more info.

Were The Crusaders Martyrs? Maybe. It is possible that a Crusader emissary executed by the muslims while attempting to negotiate a peace that will prevent violence because he refused to renounce his faith in Christ could be a Martyr. (If St. Francis of Assisi had been executed in his mission to the Moors, would he not have been a martyr like the saints of Toledo?) However, we must put our trust in the Magisterium to decide such things, and to my knowledge, they have answered no. Correct me if I am wrong.

[Resurrexi]

Of course the crusaders are martyrs! at least most of them! They were fighting a good and just war that God willed to take place. They wanted to be able to adore God in the land where he lived in the flesh, and the evil muhammadeans werent letting them do that.

[jezic]

what about those who ransacked Constantinople?

[God Conquers]

Or those that raped and killed the jews in Jerusalem.


Clearly we can't know whether all or just some, or even if none, of the crusaders were martyrs.

I hope that some are, that they were killed for bearing authentic witness to the Gospel.

[Myles Domini]

I think it depends on how you define the word Crusader. If you just mean everyone who went on military expedition to the Levant then well...but if you mean people who actually believed in the Crusading ideal and died for it. Why not?

[Tindomiel]

Plenty of the crusaders were just self-serving people who only fought for their own glory. Still others went because it was a "cheap" way to gain an indulgence. There are also plenty of canonized crusaders, but in general, those type seem to have been the exception.

[Desert Walker]

I did not vote. There is only one answer to this, and it is to define what a Christian martyr is in the red sense:

Anyone who suffers death at the hands of another because they are a follower of Christ.

As soldiers in a war fighting against the soldiers of another world I don't think the Crusaders who were killed in battle can be called martyrs because they were [i]fighting in a battle[/i]. Battles are very unique moral situations in which the motives people have for killing one another are utterly confused by the fact that each individual soldier's identity has basically been absorbed by whatever group he happens to be fighting for. Thus individual culpability for acts of both sin and virtue is difficult to determine without at least some doubt. An example of this fact is simply that a good Catholic Crusader, in running that Arab through with a sword, is not guilty of murder, even though the Crusader himself made the choice to become a Crusader and thus place himself in the occasion of having to kill somebody in the first place.

The Christians who died in the Roman Persecution did not defend themselves with swords. They died like Christ, which is authentic red martyrdom.

Edited February 20, 2006 by Desert Walker