Hans, you make great points about the positive and negatives of the Crusades. Generally, the standard line of thinking regarding the Crusades is Christians doing terrible things. From my preliminary research, Europe lacked a lot of understanding about the Near East and this allowed for some poor decision making that did result in things like regaining custody of Holy Places that are still held today. Additionally, it seems to me that those doing the actual fighting on behalf of the religious rulers seemed to have been fed the lie that this “holy war” would punch their ticket to heaven.
