Essay on Fourth Crusade

This crusade would grant remission of sin to those who undertook the crusade. Harris again remarks on the similarities, “The reaction in the papal curia when news arrived that Constantinople had fallen was much the same as it had been when Jerusalem had been lost to Saladin in 1187” (pg 195 2nd Edition). Pope Urban IV justifies this new crusade by saying that without Constantinople, the way to Jerusalem was blocked and any efforts to retake the Holy Land would fail. This call to crusade is similar to the one that launches the Third Crusade led by Richard Coeur de Lion to retake Jerusalem. However, here these parallels end. Unlike in the Third Crusade, Pope Urban IV's call for crusade fails and no armies are sent forth. At least none that could constitute a strict crusade due to a lack of promised remission of

The Crusades were the first tactical mission by Western Christianity in order to recapture the Muslim conquered Holy Lands. Several people have been accredited with the launch of the crusades including Peter the Hermit however it is now understood that this responsibility rested primarily with Pope Urban II . The main goal of the Crusades was the results of an appeal from Alexius II, who had pleaded for Western Volunteers help with the prevention of any further invasions. The Pope’s actions are viewed as him answering the pleas of help of another in need, fulfilling his Christian right. However, from reading the documents it is apparent that Pope Urban had ulterior motives for encouraging engagement in the war against the Turks. The

There were both positive and negative effects of The Crusades, although the positives did outweigh the negatives. The two major negative effects were anti-Semitism and the orchestrated attacks by Venice. Many Crusaders in Europe were so religiously fuming, that they turned their anger towards the Jews. They would at times massacre a whole community as a result of their religious rage. During the fourth crusade, crusaders began fighting Christians instead of Muslims. After helping Venetian merchants defeat their Byzantine trade rivals in 1204, the crusaders captured and looted Constantinople. They actually ransacked the capital of the Byzantine Empire, the empire in which they began to fight for, not against. There also were many positive effects of The Crusades, one being the increase of trade. Even before the Crusades, merchants began to enjoy some of the luxury goods that were brought from the Byzantine Empire. The crusaders that

Another aspect that contributes to the statement that the crusades were not motivated by religious factors is that the crusaders wanted more land. Many Crusaders wanted to govern their own piece of land in a new area, so they decided to fight being guaranteed a piece of land; in this era land equaled money, the more land you had, the wealthier you were—religion didn’t get you very far. By having a new plot of land, in a new area the Crusaders would be able to rise above their social status and experience a newfound wealth that would be next to impossible back in their homeland. Through this, we can see the prime motivation of the Western European’s commencement of the crusades was their aspiration for land. Even Pope Urban II, an example and leader for all the people, wanted to fight just to get the Holy Land back. So if the prime example for the people, a leader that everyone looked up to was demonstrating greed and voracity then it would only be natural for his people to follow. Not only did Pope Urban II and officials express tremendous amounts of self-indulgence, but they very well knew what was going on beforehand; the selection mentions that they worked to “prepare” the people for a crusade by changing conditions within their society and economy. The changing of economic aspects portray that the Crusaders were unhappy with their current state of wealth and the easiest way to fix that was to

On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II gave a supposedly important speech at the end of a church meeting in Clermont, France. In it he had called upon the nobleness of the Franks, to go to the East and assist their Christian “brothers”, the Byzantines, against the attacks of the Muslim Turks. He also apparently encouraged them to liberate Jerusalem, the most sacred and holy city in Christendom, for the Muslims had ruled it since taking it from the Christian Byzantines in A.D. 638. The Crusades were a series of wars between Christians and others to take back Jerusalem.

The main objective of the first crusade was overcome by a secondary objective which later became the reason why we call it the First Crusade. The initial objective was to respond to the Byzantine Emperor who requested western volunteers to help fight against invading Turks. In The reconquest of jerusalem and the holy land soon became the main objective of the Crusade. Pope Urban in 1095 called upon his people telling them to go jerusalem and liberate the church of God out of devotion and not for honor and wealth. Calling the crusade increased the popes standings in a papacy which was struggling at the time due to the investiture controversy. During this time, religion was very important and people took it very seriously. Jerusalem was the

L. The main reason the crusades started was to take Jerusalem from the Turks. Before 1087, Christian pilgrims frequently traveled to Jerusalem, “the holy land”. However, according to document 6, “from 1087 onwards, turks stopped christian pilgrims from entering Jerusalem.” Basically, the Turks claimed Jerusalem as their own, and prevented any pilgrimages. Pope Urban II was not happy about this. He called European Christians to war in 1095 to recapture Jerusalem. According to Document 1, he says, “I, or rather, the Lord, beseech you as christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich….to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends.” Basically, Pope Urban II is urging the people to fight the Turks, and win back Jerusalem.

In Pope Urban II’s speech he said “On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile {disgusting} race from the lands of our friends... Moreover, Christ commands it.” By saying this he commanded that all Christians should take part in the battle to regain the holy land. Many of these people listened to Pope Urban II’s command to fight for the Holy Land and were influenced to take part in the Crusade based on religious devotion. However, as the Crusaders began to fight for the Holy Land, they learned that fighting for the regain of the Holy Land also had many benefits. These benefits included “great silver {lamps} weighing forty-four Syri- an pounds, as well as a hundred and fifty smaller silver {candelabras} and more than twenty gold ones, and a great deal more booty.” People not only fought in the Crusades for their religion but to acquire other rewards as well. This illustrates that the Crusades had not only began due to religious devotion but of economic and political gain

Hoping that the Pope would accede to his wishes, Alexius looked to rectify the Turkish invasions. November of 1095 Urban II consented to Alexius' request and called all to aid of their fellow Christians who had been attacked by the Turks. Perhaps having various other reasons for aiding Alexius, the sole reason that seems to stand out is that of healing relations between the Eastern and Western Church which had been severed after the Great Schism. To what extent the Crusades were successful is debatable. Ultimately, however, the Crusades did not manage to heal the split between the Eastern and Western Church, but did manage to strengthen the Roman Catholic Church and simultaneously accelerated trade and gave huge economic gains to Western Europe. In other words, the Crusades were a successful failure.

Patrick Geary’s “Readings in Medieval History” contains four accounts of the invasion of the Middle East by the Europeans in 1095 A.D. These accounts all cite different motives for the first crusade, and all the accounts are from the perspective of different sides of the war. The accounts all serve to widen our perspective, we hear from the Christian and Middle Eastern side of the conflict. Fulcher of Chartres claims, Pope Urban the Second urged all Christians to intervene in the “East” at the council of Claremont, saying it was a sign of “Strength of good will”. (Readings in Medieval History, Geary, page 396).

The age leading up to the first crusade is detailed by many current historians, as well as Pope Urban II, as a time period where inhabitants "rage[d] against [their own] brothers and cut each other [to] pieces" (Peters, Baldric of Dol, 31) for economic and social advancement. In spite of these references, many people today believe that the Pope instigated the crusades for the sole reason of reclaiming Jerusalem. However, other motivations such as supplementary religious factors and the chance for economic, social, and political gain also played major roles. These motivations were not experienced supremely by the Pope; in fact he needed to instill these inspirations in all Christians to evoke their will to fight. The holy land had long

Late in the year of 1095 Pope Urban announced on Tuesday, November 27 that he would hold a public session to make a great announcement. This was the beginning of what was to be the First Crusade . After having painted a real grim or somber picture the Pope made his appeal. He thought that western Christendom should march to the rescue of the East. Rich and poor alike should go and they should leave off slaying each other and instead fight a great war. Supposedly they thought it was God will and that God would lead them and Take care of them. During his speech Cries of "Dues le wolt! -- "God wills it!" - Interrupted his speech. Just after the Pope ended his speech the bishop of Le Puy fell to his knees and asked permission to join the "Holy Expedition." Hundreds crowded up to later follow his example.

By this time most of the crusaders had left to go home, and those who remained ad built four settlements. The purpose of these four settlements were to guard and govern conquered territory. These Crusader states were Jerusalem, Edessa, Antioch and Tripoli. However, the Muslim forces began gaining ground around 1130, and in 1144 Zangi who was the Seljuk general captured Edessa (northern Crusader states. By this time Pope Eugene III called for a second crusade, his call was answered by King Louis VIII and his wife Eleanor. Louis was a very religious man and he wanted to honor the first crusaders and his goal was to take the cross and expand the Crusader kingdoms. Unfortunately, Louis had very little military experience, but he still set out with more than 30,000 crusaders to recapture the holy land. This journey took five months because they traveled through France to Asia Minor. This wasn’t a good strategy because by doing this they would pass through Turkish lands and therefore put themselves in danger. The Turks took advantage of this situation by attacking Louis’s group (there were two groups traveling). Louis and his wife were able to survive but there were thousands of crusaders that were killed. Louis decided that best approach would be to abandon his army to look for a new route. His original route was Edessa but he took the way of Damascus (Palestine) because it was closer to Jerusalem. Nur Al-Din who was the son of Zangi (Turkish General), went to unite all of the Muslims in preparation for the war. Even though Nur Al-Din was determined to take back Jerusalem it was Louis who made the first move in 1148. Nur Al-Din had a choice to take Damascus and if he did so he would have more power, (Aleppo and Damascus were the eastern part of the Crusader states. The results of the battle was that there were thousands of Muslims that were dead, the Damascus ruler begged Nur Al-Din to send his army. Louis had to make a

Dean James McGregor gave a lecture on the crusades. He started his talk by stating that the crusading activities took place mainly in the Levant, Turkey and Greece, Germany and France. Alexius the first Comnenus wrote a letter to Pope Urban II. He was asking Pope Urban to send him soldiers to capture his lost lands. The reason why he wrote to Pope Urban is that he only recognized his authority and not recognizing the king of France’s authority not the king of Germany and the other kings. Urban takes the call very seriously which led him to call the Council of Clermont in 1095. It is important to mention that Urban has a strong connection to warriors, he knew how to talk to them.

The First Crusade attracted no European kings. They came primarily from the lands of French culture and language. These Crusaders faced many obstacles. They had no obvious or widely accepted leader, no relations with the churchmen who went with them, no definition of the pope's role, and no agreement with the Byzantine emperor on whether they were his allies, servants, rivals, or perhaps enemies. These uncertainties divided the Crusaders into factions that did not always get along well with one another. Some leaders who did show up were Robert of Flanders and Bohemond of Taranto of one group of Crusaders, while the other major groups were those of Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond of Toulouse. As the Crusaders marched east, they were joined by thousands of men and even women, ranging from petty knights and their families, to peasants seeking freedom from their ties to the manor. Many people with all sorts of motives and contributions joined the march. They followed local lords or well-known nobles or drifted eastward on their own, walking to a port town and then sailing to Constantinople. Few people knew what to expect but they all had one goal, retake the Holy Land. They knew little about the Byzantine Empire or its religion, Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Few Crusaders even understood or had much sympathy for the Eastern Orthodox religion, which did not recognize the pope, used