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Posts: 120 Location: New England

Sun 14 Mar, 2004 4:23 am

Before the recent inroads by proselytizing protestants, it used to be said of Haiti that it was 90% Catholic, and %100 Voodoo.

I suspect something similar pertained in Europe.

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Joel Whitmore

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Posts: 342 Location: Simmesport, LA

Sun 14 Mar, 2004 5:45 am

Re: One must be careful about intentions of the Crusaders

Jeanry Chandler wrote:

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What else would cause some 100,000 commoners to uproot and travel thousands of miles but religous fervor. I .

From my reading of the reality of life during the period of the first Crusade, the majority of the pesants were even less religious, or at least less Christian, than than the (for the most part) extremely cynical nobility. There were a few notable religoious zealots, like Bernard de Clairvaux, but the peasantry and the bulk of the infantry and lower ranked knights would tend to have been basically still pagans at that point.

Jeanry Chandler

I understand the contention of your post but I disagree with it. Residual pagan rites were still widespread in Europe during the 11th century. Of course, Catholcism is FULL of pagan rituals in it's services today as are oru religous holidays. Certainly the pesantry was more supersitious than we are perhaps today and had different perceptions of their religon than we currently do. But to call them less religious I think is a grave mistake. Do you really believe the Church was able to attain the power, land and wealth it did but having a populace who did not believe in it? I think not. To call the bulk of the pesants basically pagans is also a grave mistake if your intention is to imply that they did not believe in the Catholicism they were taught from birth. I am not sure who you are reading, but perhaps some differnet sources are in order. Now, if you were to assert that the general pesantry, along with the nobility, were not practicing the exact tenants laid down by Jesus' teachings, then I cna agree with you. But isn't that still a problem in the 21st century?

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