The Church That Demanded Your Soul

The first move is to make Christianity strange again. Source trail 0:001:242:27 Okay, so good morning. Today we are doing the Crusades, which will lead us into the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Simon Revolution, okay? Three questions we are looking at today are, what are the Crus...And the young man says, I'm a very pious man. I already do this. I want to do more. And then Jesus says to him, then do this. Give up all your wealth. Give your wealth to the poor. And then follow me. And then, you will... Older sacrifice systems make divine favor visible as wealth: if God favors you, you prosper. Christianity reverses that. Live piously now so you can enjoy the good life in heaven. The religion begins by negating wealth.

That is why the gold matters. Source trail 2:273:234:44 believing in God the entire point of making sacrifices to your gods is to have more wealth in life right how do you know if God favors you well you become wealthy all right so what Jesus is saying here is revolutionary...Inside this church is a lot of gold, okay? A lot of gold. So in its thousand years, close to 2,000 years of history, the Catholic Church has amassed more money than God, all right? So how do we explain this contradictio... The Catholic Church is probably the wealthiest and most powerful religious organization in human history, and Jiang does not treat that as an accident. After the fall of Rome, Europe is poor for a long time. Around the year 1000, warmer weather, mills, horse collars, crops, cities, and trade create wealth. But wealth creates inequality, and inequality creates feudal dependence.

The church's answer is not just money. Source trail 5:586:55 It's Muslim in the year 1000. There's także一个亦是俄国。 And this will create conflictiques two different countries says. All right, so how was the church able to rematch so much power during this time? All right. So how was...He can never make a mistake, and he will always be there. Second difference is an Empire demands labor from you. It demands that you toil and sweat, but the Church demands your soul, your eternal spiritual obedience, yo... It invents a control form stronger than empire. An emperor is mortal, flawed, subjective, and negotiable. The church speaks for a perfect and eternal God. Empire demands labor. The church demands your soul, your eternal spiritual obedience, your heart, and your mind.

The church is an imperial bureaucracy with bishops as regional rulers, but it also monopolizes meaning. Source trail 8:069:12 I'm gonna have to go through a lot. This is a lot of information, I apologize, but you will need to know this in order for us to go on in the course, okay? This is especially important for the Protestant Reformation, be...They just had to listen and obey, okay? So that gave the priest a lot of power. It was also an explicit rule that only priests could preach the Bible. You had to be ordained, and authorized by the Church, in order to be... Latin tells ordinary people that the Bible and theology are not for them. Only authorized priests can preach Christianity. The listener's job is to listen and obey.

The sacraments make that monopoly bodily. Source trail 9:1210:1511:2112:27 They just had to listen and obey, okay? So that gave the priest a lot of power. It was also an explicit rule that only priests could preach the Bible. You had to be ordained, and authorized by the Church, in order to be...And so the Eucharist employs the principle of transmutation. So during the Eucharist, and it's basically called a meal, what the priest will do is, he will channel Jesus from heaven, and his body will become expressed i... In the Eucharist, the priest channels Jesus into bread and wine. You eat Jesus, you drink Jesus, and Jesus comes into you. The same church determines hell, heaven, purgatory, saints, excommunication, and the boundary between ignorance and heresy.

Once that authority exists, corruption is not outside the system. Source trail 13:4314:4315:49 So what was really important was for the church to focus on spirituality. With power, the church slowly became more corrupted, okay? So let's look at some instances of corruption that were legal practices at this time,...So they want to buy relics in order to channel the divine power of Jesus, right? Well, the church would sell these relics, and a lot of them would be fake. But a lot of Christians, as you can imagine, would find the ver... It is built into the way power expresses itself: indulgences as spiritual bribery, simony as buying office, relic sales, worldly clerics, tithes, and church land that does not pay noble taxes. People fear hell, so even kings fear the church.

The key word is orthodoxy. Source trail 15:4917:1418:2019:33 The very last idea is the idea of feudalism. And this means that the church controlled, at its height, one third of all the land in Christian Europe. And they didn't have to pay taxes to the nobility, to the prince. So...Five things that will question the legitimacy of the church. The first thing is this. Muslims occupy the Holy Land. Jerusalem, right now, is being controlled by the Fatimids, okay, which is an Islamic caliphate. And thi... A church's authority comes from enforcing right thinking. If increasing numbers of people disagree, authority decreases. Around the year 1000, Jiang says the church faces legitimacy pressure from Muslim control of Jerusalem, Muslim Spain's wealth and tolerance, the Great Schism, corruption, and the human hunger for intimacy and truth that the church itself blocks.

The three-pronged strategy is simple enough to remember because it is ugly enough to recur: scapegoating, persecuting, and crusading. Source trail 19:3320:47 Humans want to be with God. They want to serve God. But the Catholic Church says, no, we are the middleman. You have to go through us in order to celebrate God. Okay? So there's a lot of discontent at this point in Chri...And the answer is, well, a lot of them are working for the nobility. Okay? The nobility inherit their wealth. But they don't want to do any work. They don't want to manage their land. They don't want to run their busine... Scapegoating begins with Jews in medieval Europe. The nobility needs middlemen for taxes, trade, land, and banking. Jews become dependent on noble protection, and peasants meet exploitation through Jewish intermediaries instead of directly through nobles.

That arrangement makes resentment transferable. Source trail 21:5623:14 This is bad for them because the peasants don't like being exploited by the nobility. Remember, this is a feudal system where peasants are too poor and too indebted to the nobility. But in their day -to -day interaction...So in 1492, Spain expelled the Jews. But before that, the Germans expelled the Jews in 1100, France in 1306. But before then, you have these massacres going on around Europe. I'm not sure if you can see the black skull,... Peasants are angry at feudal exploitation, but the target standing in front of them is Jewish. Jiang's claim is not that hatred appears from nowhere. It is produced by a structure, then repeated through massacres and expulsions until it becomes a long European pattern.

Crusading comes from the same legitimacy problem. Source trail 23:1424:2825:38 So in 1492, Spain expelled the Jews. But before that, the Germans expelled the Jews in 1100, France in 1306. But before then, you have these massacres going on around Europe. I'm not sure if you can see the black skull,...And for most of this history, it's fine. There are no issues. But what will happen is as the Byzantine Empire becomes weaker and the Abbasid Caliphate becomes weaker, there's now chaos. And as such, bandits roam the lan... Jerusalem had been Muslim-controlled since 638, and Jiang emphasizes that it had been open to Christians, Jews, and Muslims. The crisis arrives when weakened empires, Seljuk pressure, pilgrim danger, and Byzantine fear give Pope Urban II a chance to unite Christendom under Rome.

Urban's rhetoric is the bargain. Source trail 26:4729:0630:1731:1532:13 this speech, and it's important we do because this rhetoric, this philosophy, will underpin the relationship between Christians, Muslims, and Jews for most of European history, okay? So let's see how the pope thinks. Al...Should conquer a people which has the faith of Omnipotent God and is made glorious with the name of Christ. It is embarrassing for us as Christians that the Muslims control Jerusalem. We must fix this, okay? All right,... Die against the pagans and receive remission of sins. Robbers become knights. Criminals receive clerical immunity. Younger sons can win land. The apocalyptic imagination turns Jerusalem into the battlefield of the Second Coming. Jiang calls this a Christian jihad because it makes holy war a path to heaven.

The lecture keeps widening the frame. Source trail 32:1333:14 Elite overproduction. So as we discussed, when a society becomes much more wealthy, you have a problem of elite overproduction. Basically, younger sons who cannot inherit any land. And so they must go on a crusade to wi...People actually believe this. Adventurism, Romanism, okay? Chivalry. Chivalry means, chivalry, okay, we didn't discuss this, but it's important that you know. Chivalry. Chivalry is a code of honor among knights. The chi... These motives do not stay in Jerusalem. Penance, immunity, vengeance, land hunger, piety, fanaticism, adventure, chivalry, and glory also drive Europeans into the New World. Crusade logic becomes conquest logic.

The capture of Jerusalem shows what crusading permission does. Source trail 35:3436:49 But because of their religious fanaticism, they will maintain these Crusader States for the next 20 years, okay? So the yellow are Crusader States. And as you can see, the white is all Muslim territory. All right. In 10...This contrasts with the year 1187 when the Muslim leader named Saladin, okay? Saladin is considered one of the greatest warriors in human history. He's celebrated both by Christians and Muslims. He takes Jerusalem witho... In 1099, the crusaders kill Muslims and Jews and celebrate the massacre as righteous killing for God. Jiang contrasts that with Saladin in 1187, who takes Jerusalem without killing Jews, Christians, or Muslims. The point is not a clean moral binary for the present; it is a historical contrast about crusading violence.

Contact also makes new Europeans. Source trail 37:5239:0240:11 want you guys to remember the Teutonic Knights because they will form the basis of Prussian society, which will then unite Germany, into modern -day Germany. They come from different places in Europe and that's why ther...The Catholic Church is an imperial bureaucracy. It only cares about maintaining orthodoxy over Europe. But the Knights Templars, they are bankers, they're traders. Also, once they take over Jerusalem and now they have t... The Knights Templar begin as pilgrim protectors but become a multinational banking and trading organization. In Jerusalem they have to work with Jews and Muslims, learn their practices, and manage religious diversity with reason and logic. That makes them more cosmopolitan than the church bureaucracy and therefore suspect.

Suppression does not simply erase them. Source trail 40:1141:1742:15 So what the Knights Templars are doing is they're absorbing all this diverse religious belief. And as such, they become essentially free thinkers, okay? They become... A lot of the religion now is based on reason and lo...We'll discuss this later when we get to the American Revolution. The reason for Jack de Molay being burned is the Catholic Church accuses them of being Satan worshipers. All right? There's no evidence that they were Sat... Jiang says disbanding the Templars drives the organization underground, where its beliefs spread and incubate later transformations. The same pattern appears in Spain and in internal dissent: the Crusades move outward toward Jerusalem, westward against Al-Andalus, and inward against Christians who embarrass the church.

The most dangerous dissenters often look most Christian. Source trail 43:2544:2045:2646:3847:5548:59 So let's go over some of the major groups. There are, guys, there are hundreds of different groups. I'm only going to go through some of them, okay? The first group I want to talk about are the Beguins and the Beggars,...Their problem is, first of all, they defy the authority of the church, okay? So they feel informed. They live in their own communities. The second problem is, if these guys are living simple lives, there's contrast with... Beguines, Beghards, Waldensians, and Cathars restore poverty, charity, simplicity, and spiritual seriousness. Their lives make rich clerics look fat, wealthy, and corrupt. Catharism is even harder to crush because it turns the body into a prison and martyrdom into release. If you happily go to the stake, the sword cannot defeat you.

So the church adapts. Franciscans imitate poverty inside obedience. Source trail 48:5950:0751:141:00:091:01:161:02:191:03:19 They go happily. And this stuns their neighbors, the community, but it also frightens the Catholic Church, okay? Because they know you can't beat people like this. And if you keep on persecuting them, their religion wil...the Dominican Order was created, just like the Jesuits, in order to deal with the Cathar heresy. These are extremely well -educated people who will now use the power of the pen rather than the power of the sword to try... Dominicans use education and writing. The Inquisition is not presented here mainly as random bloodlust. Its terrifying power is administrative: interview, record, compare testimony, isolate one and three from two, four, five, and six. The pen is more effective than the sword because it makes resistance feel futile.

What brings the Crusades to an end is not a sudden discovery of tolerance. Source trail 52:1753:1454:13 All right, so what brings the Crusades to an end? Why did the Catholic Church start to lose power? Okay, so a lot of their power derives from the belief that they represent God, the legitimacy, right? Well, starting in...This leads to something called the Great Famine of 1315 to 1317, all right? And then this will lead to something called the Hundred Years' War, between France and England, okay? So all of Europe right now, they're eithe... It is crisis. The Little Ice Age, the Great Famine, the Hundred Years' War, mercenary violence, and the Black Death break the claim that the church represents a stable God-backed order. If half the population dies, people ask what sin brought this on.

Then the church splits into two popes in 1378. Source trail 54:1355:2856:3157:28 because Europe at this time, it's poor, people are at war, people are starving, the plague decimates the population. Because people's immune systems are very weak, right? At least half of the people die, all right? And...So you have something called the Docinians. And what they argue for, this is basically a revolutionary party. They argue for the fall of the church, the fall of feudalism. And they want to create an egalitarian society,... Rebellion becomes thinkable. Dolcinians want the fall of church and feudalism. Wycliffe returns God to ordinary people by translating the Bible into English. Hus follows, is burned, and gives way to the Hussite Wars. Luther waits in the course sequence as the next consequence.

The formal answer is clean: the Crusades are religious war; they happen because the Catholic Church has a legitimacy problem; they stop because Europe collapses into internal turmoil. Source trail 57:2858:34 and this will end the authority of the Catholic Church in Northern Europe and begin a new age for Europe, all right? So we'll discuss Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation next week. Okay, so let us conclude by a...So the Church was trying to unite Christianity in order to channel the religious energy and fanaticism in order to consolidate its power and authority over Europe, okay? And why did they stop? Well, they stopped mainly... But Jiang immediately dirties the endpoint. Technically they end in 1290, yet they manifest in exploration, the conquest of the New World, and, in his provocative present-tense claim, the wars in the Middle East as crusading mentality.

The final return to scapegoating makes the lecture cruelly practical. In feudal society, nobles can let peasants kill Jews now and then as a ritual sacrifice that cleanses anger Lens point taboo-control-surface Scapegoating moves guilt when a community routes accumulated violence, resentment, sin, or political contradiction into a marked body whose punishment lets the larger order feel cleansed or unified. Source trail 1:05:55 Okay? First of all, there were a lot of peasants, so the nobility might get killed. Another problem is, this is your economy, right? This is your property. You don't want to burn on your own property. is this. You have... . The peasants discharge rage and go back to work. Jiang pauses over the disgust because that is the point: it is hard and wrong, but politically powerful.

The last definition widens the whole episode. Source trail 1:07:051:08:48 So, now that once the peasants have satisfied their anger on the Jews, they go back to work. Does that make sense, guys? All right. So, Echo, is that clear? Okay, great. Great question. Okay, any more questions? Okay, n...So, in China, people believe that if I get good grades in school, I'll go to good university and then I'll have a really good life. Right? That's a religion. That's a belief system. It's not necessarily true. But, that'... Religion is not only doctrine. Religion is culture, worldview, belief system, the thing that tells people what matters and drives their actions. Medieval Christians organize life around afterlife and church favor. Modern students can organize life around grades, university, and a good future. The form changes. The mechanism remains belief.