SC - Holy Feast and Holy Fast

[ana l. valdes]

I made a fascinating discovery after the reading of Amid Mahloufs book
"The Crusades Through Arab Eyes", a book I really recommend to everyone
interested in that period of history. Mahlouf uses Arabic crhronicles
and descriptions of the same facts we know by the European chronists,
Veillehardin, Bouillon, etc. The siege and fall of Jerusalem, the sack
of Constantinopple, and the making of the european kingdoms in Orient.
He writes on his book how difficult it was for the big european army to
gather food and provisions from the peasants, all hostile to them. Their
only solution was to go in the villages and slaughtered the small
children and used their bodies as dried meat. I judged the writing
preposterous, a kind of "urban tale". But I was curious and check the
sources, the European chronists too. Nobody wrote that, but I happen to
have at home an edition from the 19-century. And in this edition the
French chronists says "we were obliged to eat childrens meat, since we
had not any other resource availalble and the people was hostile. They
were heathens and our priests didnt think we made a sin eating the meat
of these unbaptized children".
In the editions of our time all same passages are expurged from the
sources. Our sensibility to the subject is higher today, thats becouse
todays editors cut away the pieces.
Ana, asking of forgiveness for my silence om the list, but I was abroad
working in France for several months
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