# what were the long term effects of the Crusades? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 4, 2015, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-long-term-effects-of-the-crusades/711789 "2015-02-04T06:54:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Nelson\_Pike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2015, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-long-term-effects-of-the-crusades/711789/61 "2015-02-07T23:04:29Z")
> [@Nelson Pike](#): > > I thought that as of the start of the Muslim conquests 630s&ff the former Roman Empire world was pretty much as fully Christian as it would ever be. If not, what were the non-Christian religions of Spain, aside from the Jews? (Arianism was Christian). > [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Of course the collapse of ERE meant a cultural disarray in much of Europe and a nice couple of centuries of regaining the ímpetus to spend money and time on learning. However, the false concept (I’d call it a myth) of the Dark Ages was that Europe was purposely kept in the dark by the (evil) Church, which supposedly hamstrung or banned science. You are not answering a question I asked. Nor was my question addressed to anything you said. In post #48 Nava Said: “Hispania was mostly Christian…” That is all I was asking about. ---
**Author:** ![Nelson\_Pike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2015, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-long-term-effects-of-the-crusades/711789/62 "2015-02-07T23:11:46Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Visigothic Spain went under 711-714 more or less. But there is some limited evidence for pagan survival ( or possibly revival ) in the 680’s and 690’s when meetings were held to address issues with animism in the Iberian countryside. It is very, very likely that despite the nominal conversion of, for example, the Visigothic elite to Arianism ( later Catholicism in the 6th century ) that the rank and file of the composite Germano-Alanic hordes that entered Iberia were substantially pagan. See [here](http://libro.uca.edu/mckenna/paganism.htm). > > Still by the time Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed over to Gibraltar in 711 it is likely that the population was basically _nominally_ Christian, just in some cases clinging to folk beliefs the church considered heretical. That was a pretty common pattern in Europe in general in that period. Thank you for the information and the cite, for which I will try to set aside time to peruse. This is the first I have ever heard of a pagan substratum in pre-Conquista Iberia, but if it’s documented then OK. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-long-term-effects-of-the-crusades/711789/63 "2015-02-08T04:42:57Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Well, sure - but you could say the same for Egypt and Syria :D. It’s not like there was anything special about Iberia in that regard, other than the conversion to Islam was probably slower and less complete in the 11th century and that it sat on the western edge of the Muslim world. It is by no means a foregone conclusion that Iberia would end up Christian again. > > Otherwise I agree with you - well before the First Crusade was in the offing the collapse of the Caliphate of Cordoba into the taifas had created an opening that the Christian states in Iberia were beginning to take advantage of. Of course on the eve of the Crusades that project had temporarily come to a crashing halt in 1086 thanks to the Almoravids. Not a foregone conclusion, and without the disintegration into Taifas the Christian push would have been slower, but it had been slowly steadily gaining back (much faster in the drier, less-attractive west than in the east). The Almoravids put a stop to further disintegration of the Caliphate (which was itself the product of disintegration), but for example Saragossa was its own taifa at that point; Calahorra was in Christian hands (solidly, no more back-and-forth); Toledo’s definite reconquista took place in 1085. By “mostly Christian” I was thinking both of whatever Paganism was left (quite a bit among my own Basque ancestors, for example) and of the Jews. Spanish Jews didn’t just pop into being sometime during the Middle Ages, they’d been there for a while by the time the Western Roman Empire fell, and as of last check they weren’t Christian. Lots of the paganism ended up being absorbed sincretically. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-long-term-effects-of-the-crusades/711789/64 "2015-02-08T04:48:55Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > (Sorry for the Spanish) > I’m laughing at the idea of a bunch a Spaniards shouting at the TV (in Castillian accent) “Hostia, cómo íbamos a mandar gente a las puñeteras cruzadas si teníamos a los putos moros aquí mismo, coño. Me cago en la leche por estos inglesitos mamones” The appropriate expression when cussing about them Brits is _hijos de la Gran Bretaña_ 😃 (children of Great Britain, lit. One word away from calling them children of something else which wouldn’t be either polite or accurate). ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-long-term-effects-of-the-crusades/711789/65 "2015-02-08T09:52:55Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think one big legacy of the Crusades was it started the idea of European imperialism. You mean, as opposed to Ottoman imperialism, or Muslim imperialism, or Assyrian imperialism, or Persian imperialism, or Pharonic Egyptian imperialism, or Soviet imperialism etc ad nauseam? > [@](#): > > There had been other empires in Europe but those were mostly one country conquering a neighbouring country. And there had been occasions when Europe had been the target of invasions. But the Crusades were the real start of Europeans sailing off and conquering some overseas territory and claiming it as a colony. Aren’t you forgetting the various colonies set up by the Greek city-states, Carthage, etc? A mere 2000 years prior. That area of land has been contested since the dawn of time as the main trade route between Eurasia and Africa. To link it to European imperialism is a bit of a stretch. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-long-term-effects-of-the-crusades/711789.md?page=3)