04-23-2006, 09:14 PM
Keeping well off of the title topic,
The PBS "Holy Warriors" erred significantly more than "Kingdom of Heaven" in its depiction of Saladin's taking of Jerusalem. Ridley Scott correctly shows that a brief siege did take place, but the defenders negotiated a surrender. This goes a long way towards explaining why there was not looting, rapine, and slaughter. Ransoms were part of the negotiation, but the main point is that the city didn't fall to assault. The PBS program doesn't actually say that Saladin stormed the city, but it certainly showed it - and when a city was taken by storm, then whatever happened to the inhabitants was pretty much up to the victors. The reason Saladin spared the Christians (most of them) of Jerusalem was because he negotiated to do this, and not out of sheer goodness of heart. This is part of the explanation for the slaughter in Jerusalem at the end of the First Crusade (not the whole explanation); the practice of looting and pillaging continued up into the 19th century (see the siege of Badajoz in the Peninsular War).
The PBS "Holy Warriors" erred significantly more than "Kingdom of Heaven" in its depiction of Saladin's taking of Jerusalem. Ridley Scott correctly shows that a brief siege did take place, but the defenders negotiated a surrender. This goes a long way towards explaining why there was not looting, rapine, and slaughter. Ransoms were part of the negotiation, but the main point is that the city didn't fall to assault. The PBS program doesn't actually say that Saladin stormed the city, but it certainly showed it - and when a city was taken by storm, then whatever happened to the inhabitants was pretty much up to the victors. The reason Saladin spared the Christians (most of them) of Jerusalem was because he negotiated to do this, and not out of sheer goodness of heart. This is part of the explanation for the slaughter in Jerusalem at the end of the First Crusade (not the whole explanation); the practice of looting and pillaging continued up into the 19th century (see the siege of Badajoz in the Peninsular War).
Felix Wang
