Crusades and Romantic Era

Amidst smoke and ruins, chaos and destruction, a heroic platoon of proud knights charge into the foreground. All around them, buildings are crushed, their dust swirling in the streets, blurring the ungodly massacre that splits the city apart, as soldiers forgo all vows, their blades slashing at all that dared cross their destructive paths. With spears held aloft, their pennants soaring in the breeze, the knights bear down upon piteous and pathetic civilians who lay on the earth, their hands outstretched, in a heartrending plea for mercy, forcing the commander of the horsemen to stay his sword, his heart and his mind caught in a heroic battle. With an unyielding brush, and an even more stoic focus, artist Eugène Delacroix captures the epic struggle of emotion against reason, a war that has raged within humanity since its very existence, through his masterful paint-strokes in his ingenious The Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople.
The year is 1202. Two hundred ships sail on an unthought-of mission, banners flowing from their towering masts; the blood-red flag, emblazoned with its mighty golden lion, of Venice, and the beautiful coats-of-arms of the greatest of French knights fluttered gaily. The quest of these 20,000 men: to sack the greatest and most powerful Christian city in world: Constantinople; to coronate an emperor whose throne was usurped; and to violate the orders of the Bible itself. Thus, the Fourth Crusade is often called the Ungodly War, as it set Christians upon Christians, further rending the mighty Christian religion, as it enlarged the chasm that had opened up between the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches.
Years before this infamous event, Pope Innocent III took control of the papacy, and with him came the desire to marshal another crusade to free the Holy Land from its Muslim rulers. At a tournament in France in 1199, his desire was realized as hundreds of French knights pledged to release the Holy Land from the Muslims’ clutches.... [continues]

Read full essay