Am I to leave my wife
and children, all my goods and inheritance, to go and conquer a foreign
land which will give me nothing in return? I can worship God just as
well in Paris as in Jerusalem.... Those rich lords and prelates
[priests] who have grabbed for themselves all the treasure on earth may
well need to go on Crusade. But I live at peace with my neighbors. I am
not bored with them yet and so I have no desire to go looking for a war
at the other end of the world. If you like heroic deeds, you can go
along and cover yourself with glory: tell the Sultan from me that if he
feels like attacking me I know very well how to defend myself. But so
long as he leaves me alone, I shall not bother my head about him. All
you people, great and small, who go on pilgrimage to the Promised Land,
ought to become very holy there: so how does it happen that the ones who
come back are mostly bandits?
–Rutebeuf, from The Medieval World by Freidrich Heer, translated by Janet Sondheimer
This saying is very true and I this is often how i feel, why go to war and leave everything i hold nearest and dearest to my heart behind. Why leave my family when i could just move somewhere else and worship God just as well as in my previous home town. This is how it all started, one day my father came to me and said the pope has called warriors to go defend the holy lands. since my father is to old to go to it was automatically placed as my responsibility to go to war and defend our holy lands.When I told my wife and 2 children about how I have to go to war, we all started crying, but I promised my family i will do everything i can do to stay alive in this war. Until next time~ Petrus Williams
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