Lesson 37:
The Crusades--Cultural Diffusion
From WORLD HISTORY, BOOK 1: Beginning-1200 A.D.
© The Center for Learning.
Objectives
- To understand how the West was influenced by the East as a result of the Crusades
- To apply the concept of cultural diffusion to the Crusades
Prerequisite
Assign the text section on the Crusades before this lesson. This lesson is designed to follow the previous one.
Notes to the Teacher
It is easy for students to dismiss Europeans as the losers of the Crusades for, indeed, they lost the Holy Lands as well as their prestige as soldiers. Yet, although they lost the battles of the Crusades, they won the war by gaining access to cultural influences that began to transform Europe and by redesigning how they viewed and governed themselves. It could be said that the Crusades pointed Medieval Europe in the direction of the Renaissance.
This lesson focuses on the idea of cultural diffusion, i.e., the way in which one culture impacts upon or influences another culture that it encounters. It also conveys the concept that ideas and goods spread, and that they are incorporated and shared in new ways that usually lead to the advancement of one culture as a result of its contact with another culture. An example of this would be the introduction of horses to Native Americans which in turn created the Plains tribal culture.
Further, this lesson engages students in an exercise in brainstorming, which involves providing students with the stimulation for a free association of ideas. In a brainstorming exercise, there is no right or wrong answer; focus is instead on the number of generated ideas and the creativity, serious or humorous, of this mental exercise.
Procedure
1. Begin by asking students to react to the statement, "You can lose the battle yet still win the war." Students may give answers like, a football team loses one game, yet still has a winning season. Another example is of a team that wins dignity and self-respect by not sinking to the depths of poor sportsmanship and lack of fairness that gave their opponent a victory. Emphasize the idea that people are often initially unaware of how much they have gained from what appears, in the short run, to be a defeat.
2. Draw students' attention to the Crusades. Because the Crusaders failed to recapture the Holy Lands and had acted at times in a barbaric manner, the Crusades are often considered to be a failure. And in the short run, they were. Yet, in the long run, Europe benefited from the Crusades, and did in a sense win. At this point define cultural diffusion (see Notes to the Teacher), emphasizing that this explains how people in Europe received the culture of the East and grew and developed as a result.
3. Distribute Handout 71. Allow students adequate time to read the list of effects and to answer the questions. Have students volunteer to share their answers.
Suggested Responses:
5. Answers should include the idea that the East was more culturally sophisticated than the West during the time of the Crusades, perhaps more diversified.
6. Answers will vary, yet should convey the idea that most of these effects are still a part of our society and culture today. Cultures grew from contributions made by other societies.
4. Direct students' attention to the brainstorming portion of the handout, having them follow the directions stated there. To emphasize the quantity of the diffusion of these effects, ask the students to
a. count how many they had, i.e., how many had ten? twenty? thirty?
b. determine which effects produced the most or least number of applications. Try to determine why. (Least might be concentric castles which are no longer used while the most might be math or medicine.)
c. compile a total by counting the generated totals of nonrepeated choices, i.e., fifteen different topics could lead to several hundred.
d. consider how the diffusion of ideas from the East to the West has continued in our society today.
Enrichment/Extensions
- Write an essay that takes a stand and defends it on the question--Compared to the people of Medieval Europe, were the Muslims barbarians?
- Conduct a panel discussion on the question--Were the Crusades a logical extension of the ideas of the Medieval period?
- Research how the East benefited from the contact with the West. Write a three to five minute commentary on the topic and deliver it in class.
- Write an essay in which the cultural diffusion of the East that reached Europe as a result of the Crusades helped give rise to one of the following: cities, nations, or the middle class.
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