Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Christian Knighthood

This began in the 12th Century when spiritual Pilgrims who were Christians often were murdered, robbed or worse on their way to the Holy Lands where Jesus lived in the Middle East. It had many different effects on both the Christian World and also the Middle Eastern World both good and bad depending upon where you lived, what culture you were raised in etc.

However, for Europe and England Christian Knighthood began to typify what we first read about in the Legends of Merlin and King Arthur where Knights were often like judge and jury trying to make just judgements with their minds and swords. From Knighthood we have the beginnings of Juris prudence in the Western World. I'm not sure there is anything exactly like this in Middle Eastern Traditions.

However, springing from "Just Knights" protecting the weak and helpless, we find police forces, Christian Armies, and Lawyers and Judges springing up among the populace to address grievances.

So, the beginning of Christian Knighthood was the beginning of Christian Systems of Justice that have evolved in Christian Secular nations ever since.

In understanding this we can move away from the Crusader versus the Muslims point of view.

However, it is true that for example some of the first crusaders killed every man, woman and child in Jerusalem and sacked the city. The problem being that it wasn't just any group of people that were killed. They killed all Christians there too in their ignorance of religious and political facts and so Crusaders ever since are considered a "Dirty Word" to Middle Eastern People.

However, Christian Knighthood was the springboard to all justice as it is now practiced in the Western World. So, for secular Christian nations it was the beginning of Justice systems for the whole western world.

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