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DID THE GEORGIANS TAKE
PART IN THE CRUSADES? Excerpt from the book “Sketches of Text: Archdeacon
Theodore E. Dowling |
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"There is also in the East another
Christian people, who are very warlike and valiant in battle, being strong in
body and powerful in the countless numbers of their warriors. They are much
dreaded by the Saracens and have often by their invasions done great damage
to the Persians, Medes and Assyrians on whose borders they dwell, being
entirely surrounded by infidel nations. These men are called Georgians,
because they especially revere and worship St. George, whom they make their
patron and standard-bearer in their fight with the infidels, and they honor
him above all other saints. Whenever they come on pilgrimage to the Lord's Sepulchre, they march into the
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Joseljan
in his Short History of the Georgian Church, ch. vi.
p. 110, states that “” History tells us that the Georgians, although
separated from Europe, were yet near enough to it to share in the spirit
which at that time roused the whole of Europe , and with it they also took up
arms for the Crusades. Flattered at the
thought of conquering the world, and of rescuing the grave of our Lord from
the enemies of Christianity, The glory of the victories, and
the report of disasters carried here and there over the world, and as he
Greek writer (Anna Comnenna
Hist. of Emp. Alexis)
says, shaking the whole of The following extracts are translated
from Michaud’s Histoir des Croisades,
Vol 1, p.131: “Another Christian power had
developed in the vast regions of “William of Tyre[2]
celebrates the bravery and the services of the Georgian people, who about the
middle of the twelfth century checked the power of the Persian nations, and
closed the passage of the Caspian ports to the barbarians of Tartary.” In
Vol. III. p.5 he adds: “Rumours of Frederick’s
preparations had reached the peoples of If Michaud’s statement is correct, it probably explains why there is no allusion to The Georgians in Stevenson’s The Crusaders in the East, 1907, and Besant’s and Palmer’s Jerusalem the City of Herod and Saladin, Chatto and Windus, 1908. Mr. Walther Gordon, M.A., who
constantly studies in the Bodleian library, informs me hat he has read
through more than one account of the taking of Gibbon’s History of the Decline
and fall of the Archdeacon Ward, of Click on the below mini-maps to get high resolution images |
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[1]
Archdeacon Sinclair, The Churches of the East, p.33, 1898
Eliot Stock, under the heading of the
Eleventh Century, speaks of
[2] William
of Tyre, at the end of A.D. 1174, became Chancellor,
and in June, 1175, was consecrated Latin Archbishop of
[3]
Frederick II of Germany took the Crusader’s vow, A.D. 1215, on the day when he
was consecrated king.
[4]
Neale, History
of the Holy Eastern Church, Vol. I. p. 63, asserts that the second Georgian
armament was moore successful than the first, and
shared the peril and glory of the capture of
[5]
Lectures on the History of the Eastern
Church, p.12,