becoming

Loren Rosson III of The Busybody has an much-needed post in Understanding the Crusades in which he says:

People persist in viewing the crusaders as unsophisticated boors — not least Ridley Scott, whose Kingdom of Heaven movie is as laughably anti-historical as Dan Brown's DaVinci Code….

and speaking of its contemporarily significance, he continues:

In the post 9/11 world, understanding what motivated the crusaders is more important than ever before. And what motivated them wasn't money or material gain: on the contrary, they dreaded the dangers of travel and expensive costs involved over the trek to Palestine, and there were few rewards to be won in the Holy Lands. Crusaders were motivated by anything but economic interests. They were motivated by sincere religious zeal.

Read the whole thing here.

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Update (Nov 28 2006): Loren just started a new series on the Crusades.