0:03

If you were to see a

0:05

group of nice young men, all

0:07

very fine people, carrying flags and

0:10

shields with the Jerusalem Cross, the

0:12

Celtic Cross, the Red Cross of

0:14

the Knights Templar, and the Black

0:17

and White Knights Templar Cross, and

0:19

they explained to you that these

0:22

things merely symbolized their Christian faith,

0:24

would you believe them? Or might

0:26

there be a second hidden meaning?

0:29

We're going to look into that,

0:31

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1:26

You You're

1:33

listening to Skeptoid. I'm

1:36

Brian Dunning from skeptoid.com.

1:38

Crusades imagery and white

1:41

nationalism. Welcome to the show

1:43

that separates fact from fiction,

1:45

science, real history from fake

1:47

history, and helps us all

1:49

make better life decisions by

1:51

knowing what's real and what's

1:53

not. If there was a

1:55

parade of neo-Nazis or some

1:58

other white nationalist extremes... down

2:01

the street, exercising their First

2:03

Amendment rights, of course. What

2:05

kinds of symbols would you

2:07

expect to see on their

2:09

banners and tattoos and shields?

2:11

Swastikas, obviously. Confederate flags, of

2:13

course. But from there, the

2:16

symbology of hate groups gets

2:18

less familiar. There is the

2:21

blood drop cross of the Ku

2:23

Klux Klan. There is the Celtic

2:25

cross. The double bolt-sig ruin worn

2:27

by the Nazi SS. the triple

2:29

seven triscelian representing South African

2:31

neo-Nazis, and of course countless

2:34

more whose meaning is sometimes

2:36

understood only to the symbologists

2:39

who study these things, and

2:41

often not very well understood

2:44

by the people wearing them. And

2:46

this is where Skeptoid enters

2:48

this topic, under the heading

2:50

of history versus pseudo history.

2:52

For the latest genre of

2:55

extremist symbolism, is one that

2:57

has a specific subculture of

2:59

historians outraged and up in

3:01

arms. Historians of the

3:04

medieval period. Over the recent

3:06

decade, we've increasingly noticed

3:08

white nationalists flaunting crosses

3:10

from the Crusaders and

3:13

other medieval imagery. Universally,

3:15

when questioned about the meaning of

3:18

some motto or cross tattoo, they

3:20

will give an answer of the

3:22

form, it represents my Christian faith,

3:24

which is very nice. But when we see

3:26

a parade of neo-Nazis marching

3:28

down the street, shouting, waving

3:30

teaky torches, and emphasizing those

3:32

very same mottos and crosses,

3:34

it becomes a little harder

3:36

to accept that it's nothing

3:38

more than an expression of

3:40

Christian faith. In

3:42

recent years, medieval historians have

3:45

published quite a few academic

3:47

papers discussing the way white

3:50

nationalists have co-opted medieval symbols.

3:52

The extremists misunderstand and

3:54

misrepresent those symbols, using

3:56

them as tokens of

3:58

racial superiority. wrongly presenting

4:01

a fictional narrative of the

4:03

Crusades as historical justification for

4:05

their racism. In the eyes

4:07

of today's white nationalists, the

4:10

Crusades were symbolic of a

4:12

victory of white Europeans over

4:14

the brown Muslims, the Jews,

4:17

and other religious minorities. But

4:19

in point of fact, that's

4:21

actually almost the exact opposite

4:24

of how the Crusades went

4:26

down. which is why historians

4:28

of the medieval period are

4:31

so incensed by the white

4:33

nationalist appropriation of these ancient

4:35

symbols. Here is what the

4:37

Crusades actually symbolized. By the

4:40

end of the 11th century,

4:42

Christendom was rent in Twain.

4:44

The Pope in Rome presided

4:47

over Western European Christians, while

4:49

the Eastern Orthodox Christians were

4:51

centered in the Byzantine Empire

4:54

in Constantinople. East of that

4:56

was Turkey, and south of

4:58

Turkey, was the Holy Land,

5:01

long and firmly held by

5:03

Muslims. When the Byzantine Emperor

5:05

asked the Pope for military

5:08

assistance defending against skirmishes with

5:10

the Turks, both Eastern and

5:12

Western Christians saw this combined

5:14

force as an opportunity to

5:17

plow all the way through

5:19

Turkey and reclaim the Holy

5:21

Land for the Christians. The

5:25

first crusade launched in 1095

5:27

with this goal. Christian leadership

5:29

sought as an opportunity to

5:32

put nearly all of the

5:34

Eastern Mediterranean under Christian control.

5:36

But many of the 60,000

5:38

knights, soldiers, and commoners who

5:41

followed them sought as a

5:43

religious duty, an opportunity to

5:45

acquire land and wealth, or

5:48

it was a feudal obligation.

5:50

These were not all knights

5:52

in shining armor. Most crusaders

5:54

were poorly armed. poorly trained,

5:57

and were often used as

5:59

a defensive first line in

6:01

battle and took head casualties.

6:03

But ultimately with its large

6:06

force this first crusade accomplished

6:08

all of its goals but

6:10

at a tremendous cost of

6:13

blood and lives. Jews fought

6:15

alongside Muslims in a forlorn

6:17

attempt to defend the Holy

6:19

Land from the Christians who

6:22

captured it plundered it and

6:24

killed every defender they could.

6:26

Along the Rhine and the

6:28

Danube Crusaders attacked Jewish communities

6:31

in what are called the

6:33

Rhineland massacres. So if today's

6:35

white nationalists want to use

6:38

the Crusades as their guiding

6:40

ideology, well, the first crusade

6:42

was probably the best representative.

6:44

The problem with that idea

6:47

is that many of the

6:49

symbols the white nationalists used

6:51

today did not exist until

6:54

after the first crusade. And

6:56

once they came into being,

6:58

all of the Crusades that

7:00

followed for the next 200

7:03

years constituted one great failure.

7:05

Not only was it a

7:07

loss of all the first

7:09

crusade had gained, they lost

7:12

considerably more. Securing the Holy

7:14

Land after they'd seized it

7:16

was going to be a

7:19

problem. It was far away

7:21

from Europe. So the Pope

7:23

authorized the Knights to form

7:25

monastic orders charged with defending

7:28

the four new crusaders' states

7:30

that covered the Holy Lands.

7:32

These orders, which included the

7:34

Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitler,

7:37

the Teutonic Order, the Knights

7:39

of the Holy Sepulcher, and

7:41

lots of others, are where

7:44

today's white nationalist medieval symbols

7:46

came from. So in effect,

7:48

the banners waived by many

7:50

white nationalists represent a decline

7:53

into military defeat and a

7:55

loss of territory to Muslims.

7:57

Although the subsequent Crusades saw

8:00

losses and gains by both

8:02

sides, including at least two

8:04

that were completely disastrous and

8:06

resulted in deaths of nearly

8:09

all participating Christians, By 1453,

8:11

the Muslims of the Ottoman

8:13

Empire conquered and captured Constantinople,

8:15

marking the end of the

8:18

Byzantine Empire, and effectively the

8:20

1500-year reign of the Roman

8:22

Empire as well. Taken as

8:25

a whole, the Crusades resulted

8:27

in a massive loss of

8:29

territory and power by white

8:31

Christians to the Ottoman Turks.

8:34

If today's extremists had studied

8:36

it more before getting it

8:38

tattooed all over themselves, They

8:40

might have been better advised

8:43

to have regarded the Crusades

8:45

as something they'd prefer to

8:47

forget, not to memorialize. Key

8:50

West shipwrecks and more. Enjoy

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special guests Ross Blotcher from

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there too. Come and hang

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miss the boat. And

10:04

here's another point that might

10:06

be a nice exclamation mark

10:08

on this fundamental error made

10:10

by today's white nationalists. The

10:12

victorious Ottomans were a racially

10:14

and ethnically diverse culture, including

10:16

Turks, Albanians, Slavs, Arabs, Jews,

10:19

Jews, and more. In fact,

10:21

the Ottomans codified their nation's

10:23

diversity with a system called

10:25

millets. giving each ethnic community

10:27

self-governance and more. Historians often

10:29

point to the Ottomans embrace

10:31

of diversity and the way

10:33

they used it to their

10:36

advantage as one of the

10:38

keys to their empires great

10:40

longevity and strength. So when

10:42

you see a white nationalist

10:44

with a great big Jerusalem

10:46

cross tattooed on his chest,

10:48

that tattoo might as well

10:50

say, I was conquered by

10:52

the power of diversity. There

10:55

are lessons to be learned

10:57

from history, but generally those

10:59

lessons are only known to

11:01

those who read books, not

11:03

to those who ban them.

11:05

Following the 2017 Unite the

11:07

Right white supremacy rally in

11:09

Charlottesville, Virginia, leaders of 29

11:12

societies of some 5,000 medieval

11:14

historians all around the world

11:16

published and signed an open

11:18

letter on the medieval academy

11:20

blog. It said in part.

11:22

As scholars of the medieval

11:24

world, we are disturbed by

11:26

the use of a nostalgic

11:29

but inaccurate myth of the

11:31

Middle Ages by racist movements

11:33

in the United States. By

11:35

using imagined medieval symbols or

11:37

names drawn from medieval terminology,

11:39

they create a fantasy of

11:41

a pure white Europe that

11:43

bears no relationship to reality.

11:46

This fantasy not only hurts

11:48

people in the present, it

11:50

also distorts the past. Medieval

11:52

Europe was diverse, religiously, culturally.

11:54

and ethnically, and medieval Europe

11:56

was not the entire medieval

11:58

world. Scholars disagree about the

12:00

motivations of the Crusades, or

12:03

indeed whether the idea of

12:05

Crusade is a medieval one

12:07

or came later. But it

12:09

is clear that racial purity

12:11

was not primary among them.

12:13

But it's not just that

12:15

it's wrong. It's sometimes comically

12:17

wrong. Among the white supremacists

12:20

at Charlottesville was a man

12:22

carrying a round plywood shield,

12:24

emblazoned with the symbol of

12:26

a black spread eagle, its

12:28

head turned to the side.

12:30

If you saw it, you'd

12:32

recognize having seen it before.

12:34

One of the co-authors of

12:37

that open letter, Dr. Lisa

12:39

Fagan Davis of the Medieval

12:41

Academy of America, told NPR's

12:43

All Things Considered, who the

12:45

original bearer of that standard

12:47

was. It's kind of ironic.

12:49

He is an African saint

12:51

who carries that standard. And

12:53

I suspect the gentleman carrying

12:56

the shield didn't realize that.

12:58

St. Morris was born in

13:00

Egypt in the third century

13:02

and is usually depicted as

13:04

a black man. He is

13:06

the patron saint of a

13:08

number of things, including the

13:10

German town of Coburg, where

13:13

he is called the Coburg

13:15

Moor. While it's true that

13:17

all the notable leaders of

13:19

the Crusades were from European

13:21

backgrounds, They were mostly French

13:23

and German. It was quite

13:25

a different story among the

13:27

ranks. They included Jews, who

13:30

mostly kept their background a

13:32

secret, Arabs, and a substantial

13:34

number of Armenians. In 2019,

13:36

genetic studies were done on

13:38

16 of the 25 individuals

13:40

found buried in what's been

13:42

named the Crusaders Pit in

13:44

southern Lebanon. Radio Carbon dating

13:47

established them as having died

13:49

during the Crusades. These people

13:51

had all been killed by

13:53

violent injuries and had sufficient

13:55

coins and buckles and other

13:57

artifacts to identify them as

13:59

Crusades. soldiers. Only a minority

14:01

of them were white Europeans.

14:04

The rest were either Lebanese,

14:06

genetically indistinguishable from modern Lebanese,

14:08

or were the offspring of

14:10

Europeans and local people along

14:12

the way. Recall the Crusades

14:14

were very much a multi-generational

14:16

conflict. The notion that the

14:18

Crusades were emblematic of a

14:21

victory of whites over non-whites

14:23

is, as the physicist, Wolfgang

14:25

Pauli said, So wrong that

14:27

it's not even wrong. So

14:29

the bottom line today is

14:31

that if you see a

14:33

person brandishing a tattoo, an

14:35

emblem on a flag, or

14:38

a shield, or a helmet,

14:40

or anywhere else, that shows

14:42

any kind of cross or

14:44

other medieval symbol, and they

14:46

are doing it in the

14:48

context of some kind of

14:50

personal statement, chances are high

14:52

that that person is a

14:55

white nationalist, and the chances

14:57

are even higher. that that

14:59

person lacks sufficient basic reasoning

15:01

skills to have bothered to

15:03

learn anything at all about

15:05

the symbol before having it

15:07

tattooed on his body. We

15:09

continue with more on another

15:11

unlikely class of warriors who

15:14

fought in the Crusades, women,

15:16

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