kill the Christians !

 

More than a decade ago, I wrote about the Crusades, which turned out to be 9 military assaults on the most advanced people in the world at that time (the Muslims). In all, the Crusades lasted nearly 200 years, and finally came to a conclusion in the year 1272.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2009/06/book-of-signs.html

Christian persecutions of “the other” did not end with the Crusades, since the Spanish Inquisition lasted longer than the Crusades, from 1478 to 1834. The primary target for the Inquisition was the Jewish population of Spain, but also included the Muslims as well. In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree, which gave Jews the choice of either conversion or exile. As a result, more than 160,000 Jews were expelled from Spain. (In 1924, the regime of Primo de Rivera granted Spanish citizenship to the entire Sephardic Jewish diaspora. In 2014, the government of Spain passed a law allowing dual citizenship to Jewish descendants who apply, to "compensate for shameful events in the country's past." Thus, Sephardi Jews who can prove they are the descendants of those Jews expelled from Spain because of the Alhambra Decree can "become Spaniards without leaving home or giving up their present nationality).

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Spanish-Inquisition

 If you read enough fiction, you’ll discover that you can learn a lot of FACTS by reading a good fiction novel. Many of my favorite authors (John Grisham, Clive Cussler, James Patterson, and Steve Berry) are all masters at wrapping intriguing story lines around historical facts – and Steve Berry is the best of the bunch.

I just finished reading “The Lake of Learning”, which focused on the only Crusade (the Albigensian Crusade) where the Christians were killing Christians. The target in this Crusade were the Christians who practiced a variation of Christianity called the religion of the Cathars, and it took the lives of nearly 1,000,000 people. The “last stand” for the Cathars was a place in southern France named Montesgur (pictured below)

 

History lies at the heart of every Steve Berry novel. It’s his passion, one he shares with his wife, Elizabeth, which led them to create History Matters, a foundation dedicated to historic preservation. Since 2009 Steve and Elizabeth have crossed the country to save endangered historic treasures, raising money via lectures, receptions, galas, luncheons, dinners and their popular writers’ workshops. To date, 3,500 students have attended those workshops with over $1.5 million dollars raised.

Berry was a trial lawyer for 30 years and held elective office for 14 of those years. He is a founding member of International Thriller Writers—a group of more than 4,200 thriller writers from around the world—and served three years as its co-president. Berry first appeared in print with his historical thrillers The Amber Room and The Romanov Prophecy in 2003 and 2004. A practicing attorney at the time, Berry had been writing fiction since 1990, and it took him 12 years and 85 rejections before selling a manuscript to Ballantine Books. Berry credits the nuns who taught him in Catholic school with instilling the discipline needed both to craft a novel and to find a publisher.

 

The website for History Matters (see below) includes a list of the past events for the organization. One of the events was at the Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina, which I have actually been to.

 

https://history-matters.org/

 

Steve Berry has written more than 20 novels – and I have read nearly all of them. If you’re looking for a good read, grab one of his books.