• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8prwEJkJ3Ds

• Essentially this is a video “debunking” myths about the Crusades. While I broadly agree with the general idea of the video in the sense that the Crusades impact is often exaggerated and used as false equivalencies, there are so many historical holes in the way Steven has created his argument that I feel it needed to be addressed.

• 1:32 Steven refers to the Crusades proper as the “second” crusades with the argument that the Muslim jihads, were really the first. This of course ignores the fundamental difference between the concept of a Crusade and the concept of Jihad. Although both fall under the banner of a holy war, they are both different in motivation and execution. Jihads were a sort of justification for the expansion of Islamic Empires, a reasoning for the conquests that would inevitably occur with the creation of the powerful Arabian Emperor. Crusades on the other hand were meant as specific expeditions to seize strategic and culturally significant targets rather than a justification for general expansion. They are of course still holy wars but I think calling the first age of Jihad the original Crusade is frankly false.

• 1:45 While it is true that many of the Crusades were done with the purposes of liberating Christian holy sites and defending from Islamic expansion some were Christians attacking non christians and/or heretics because they were weaker or of another faith. Notable examples being the Northern Crusades which were far from defensive. These were not wars against a massive threat but were rather attacks on neighboring pagans. Or the Hussite Crusades which sought to put down the heretical Hussite beliefs in Bohemia, both at least somewhat fit the bill on Christians going around the world killing and conquering non christians for offensive purposes.

• 2:30 This will come up more a bit later but the era of Ottoman aggression in the Christian Balkans was after the golden age of Crusading which most consider to have ended in the late 12000s while Muslim expansion in europe took place in the early 1400s meaning that Ottoman aggression was not a factor in the initial outbreak or even the continuation of real Crusades. Sure a few Crusades were called on the Ottomans but they were much smaller affairs than the massive expeditions of previous centuries and many scholars don't even consider them Crusades proper.

• 2:47 The sacking of Constantinople was not the “big” reason for the Crusades, the first Crusade was called in 1096 in response to Turkish expansion into eastern anatolia, not the sacking of Constantinople which was in 1453 almost 300 year later.

• 3:13 There wasn't anything especially brutal about Islamic expansion, it was rather standard for the time with notable exceptions of course. But as a whole these conquests were relatively normal. In fact many Islamic military practices could be considered much more tolerant for the time, including the lack of forced conversions and the protection of Christians and Jews, as so called People of The Book. The example he cites as being especially brutal being the desecration of the Tombs of 2 saints was also not exceptional for the time and the destruction of Holy Sites as a result of conquests was done by various conquerors Islamic and not, including many Christians.

• 3:20 “Dick move” is not a military term

• 3:27 Islamic torturing was not exceptional for the time, many cultures had extremely brutal techniques for torturing and killing individuals at the time. There's a reason the term “going medieval on someone” exists.

• 3:32 The use of the Jizya tax and the second class citizen status of non-muslims was a problem for individuals living in Muslim controlled areas, but these were still relatively humane compared to the ways many non state religious followers were treated at the same time in other regions of the world Jewish pogroms and pagan conversions by the sword come to mind.

• 3:50 Yes the Muslim slave trade was a massively catastrophic for millions of people, but it also was, once again hardly exceptional for the time. It should also be noted that he talks about how the we don't talk about the Muslim slave trade in American history courses. This is more so due to the trans-atlantic slave trades relevance of American history specifically and the continued massive role it plays in modern American society.

• 4:47 Vlad was not one of the few people who fought off Islamic expansion. Hundreds of leaders have fought off Muslim expansion into the west whether it be Charles the Hammer at the battle of Tours or the generations of Spanish kings who participated in the Reconquista, or Norman conquest of Sicily. These and many more fought against Islamic expansion and I think it is flatly wrong to assume that Vlad was one of the few who noticed the threat of Islam. Also he existed years after the major Crusades occurred so he was following in a long tradition of fighting of the Muslims

• 5:13 When Pope Urban II called the first crusade he was not doing so because the Muslims were going to eradicate his culture, to him the threat of Islamic Empires moving into West Europe was a far off possibility. What he wanted was to improve relations with the Eastern Christians after the great schism and unite Christianity with conquest of Jerusalem not preserve his culture and way of life.

• 5:42 The barbarism of the Crusades while certainly not a sole factor in Islamic distaste for the west, is still most definitely a contributing factor. From their perspective the west has a long history of meddling in Middle Eastern affairs notably with recent colonialism and interferences in local government. While it probably doesn't shape their view of the West it certainly contributes to the narrative of western intervention

• 6:01 While the Christians were technically “taking back” Jerusalem it is worth noting that the Muslims had been living there for the last 500 years and were firmly entrenched in the territory. The Muslims in Jerusalem had lived there for generations. It is also worth noting that the Christians weren't even the original owners of Jerusalem it was built by the Israelites in the age of antiquity and has passed hand dozens of times since then, the Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, and Jews had just as much of claim on Jerusalem as the Christians

• 6:15 It was Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon who were teaming on Israel

• 6:30 The blood up to their knees account while scientifically inaccurate was taken from exaggerated sources from the time and isn't taken literally by most people also just because the streets weren't literally flooding with blood doesn't mean it wasn't a slaughter the entire population was nearly wiped out

• 7:02 I find it ironic that he says that he talks about how the sacking of Jerusalem wasn't that bad and mentions how a Synagogue was destroyed and it members killed, while earlier in the video he discusses how the desecration of religious sites was the sign of the ultimate brutality of Islam

• 7:40 I highly doubt they teach the “blood up to their knees” comment literally or maybe Steven has been taking some really bad classes.

• 8:00 Just because it was standard for siegers to offer deals ahead of time does not that the Sack of Jerusalem wasn't horribly brutal for the time because it was. It has gone down in history as a mythic display of destruction. Plus dring most sieges the entire population would be almost completely annihilated.

• 9:20 Once again the Crusades were not intended to stop Islamic “barbarism”. Also I would hardly call them necessary when they barely accomplished anything in terms of halting Islamic expansion. In fact I’d argue that it helped Islamic expansion by crippling the important barrier between the east and west that was the Byzantine Empire during the 4th Crusade allowing the Ottomans to fill the power vacuum and push into Europe, as far as even Austria up until the 1800s.

• 9:34 The Armenian Genocide while a massive tragedy did not occur because the Ottomans were Muslim and therefore barbaric, ethnic cleansings while terrible, but were not completely extraordinary for the time (though the Armenian one was especially brutal) one simple needs to look a the Holocaust which was perpetuated by many Western European Christians to see that the Ottomans were not unique because they were Muslims.

• 10:01 While it is terrible than brutal executions for seemingly small crimes is a terrible thing to be happening today in the Middle East let us not forget that the these concepts were still widespread through Europe until only the last century where they fell into decline. Let us not forget that the last public Guillotine execution in France was in only 1939 less than a century ago.

• 10:14 Public executions in stadiums weren't a “a warm up act” moreso stadiums are just a convenient venue to kill someone in front of a bunch of people

• 10:23 Islamic brutality once again was not the sole motivation for the Crusades while the killing of Pilgrims was a large outrage prior to the Crusades evidence has shown that these reports were exaggerated and this was only one small piece of the puzzle of motivations for the Crusades.

• 10:31 Being really horrible to people was the entire world back then, everyone was kind of shitty to each other Europe included. Public executions were considered public entertainment back then.

• 11:04 The Islamic World does make progress you dumbass, the Islamic Golden Age was a massive step forward for art, culture,and the sciences, and was a massive inspiration on European progress during the Renaissance. I’m to tired to list individual achievements but let's just say that we wouldn't be in the place we are today without Islamic advancements in all fields.

• 11:15 NOT CRUSADES, JIHADS

• 11:37 No Christians were not advancing into the new world before the Crusades, the age colonization did not take place until the late 1400s way after the Crusades were called. And if you mean New World figuratively it's still wrong. The development of western culture and sciences while often exaggeratedly so was still stunted during the dark ages. It's not like they had to postpone their advancements to go stop the Muslims or something. Plus the Crusades actually pushed Western Culture forward after the end of the wars with renewed contact with the east.

• 11:50 NOT CRUSADES, THEY WERE JIHADS

• 11:58: Arguably that stunting of Islamic development was at least in part because of Western Colonialism, the West did divide the Middle East after WWI creating many conflicts and propping up anti development dictators. JUS SAYIN

• OK finally done, hope you all enjoyed this and sorry for the Grammar errors, it's really not my strong suit.

Edited: Formatting and restructured some sentences as well fixed some grammers