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How Did The Catholic Church Affected By The Crusades?

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The Crusades occurred in the Holy Land during the 11th and 13th century and was sanctioned by Pope Urban ll to free the Holy Land in Jerusalem. It significantly brought tremendous change to the Church's wealth and influence, the Church's practices and teachings and Catholic's daily lives. The Crusades largely involved men and some women from every country in Europe and brought both negative and some positive results to Europe.

The Crusades were a series of holy wars in Jerusalem between the Muslims and Christians from 1095 to 1291. The first Crusade was sanctioned by Pope Urban ll with an influential speech calling upon people to fight and recover the Holy Land at the Council of Clermont in France. The Roman Catholic Church sent over 37 000 men to fight at the first Crusades however most of these men died and never returned to Europe. Crusaders were greatly influenced by the Catholic Church as they fought for the benefit of being forgiven of their sins and free of debt and taxes. …show more content…

Additionally, Pope Urban ll wanted to strengthen and increase the Catholic Church’s influence over people and also harness the violent energy of the Christian knights into one cause of "penitential warfare". Christians were praised by the Catholic Church for fighting and killing thousands of Muslims. The Catholic Church provided crusaders both spiritual and earthly rewards. The spiritual reward included the indulgence or forgiveness of sins. Moreover, the earthly rewards involved plunder from conquest, forgiveness of debts, taxes along with political power and fame. This caused thousands of Christians to immorally go against Jesus' virtuous practices and teachings and instead practice unrighteous

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