Indulgence And The Crusades

The Crusades were an unpleasant event that happened for many reasons. It was established in 1096 and thankfully ended in 1291. The cause for why the Crusades had a more negative result is because most people died from participating or majorly hurt. This is because Document 6 states “The city was savagely taken with many lives lost” meaning that people had died. So, the continued fighting that took place because of the Crusades had a huge negative impact on the many people that lost their lives. In addition, Document 1 states “In Europe, crusaders sometimes turned their fury against Jews, massacring entire communities.” Which meant that full families including children were slaughtered, killed and destroyed because the crusaders were mad at

The Crusades of the High Middle Ages (a.d. 1050-1300) was a period of conquest or rather, reconquest, of Christian lands taken from Muslims in the early Middle Ages. It is an era romanticized by fervent Christians as the time when Christianity secured its honorable status as the true religion of the world. The affect of the Crusades is still with us today. It sailed from Spain and Portugal to the Americas in the fifthteenth century aboard sailing ships carrying conquistadors who sought new territory and rich resources. They used the shield and sword of Christianity to justify a swift conquest of mass territory and the subjugation of the indigenous peoples; a mentality learned, indeed,

The Catholic Church during the early 16th Century was rooted throughout Europe. The Church influenced every country and its respective monarchs through the Church’s wealth and power. The Catholic Church placed a tight hold on the general populace with individuals who went against the Church being branded as heretics and excommunicated. The wealth and power of the Church eventually caused the quality of the clergy to deteriorate. Priests became corrupt and subjected to their physical desires. They frequented taverns, gambled and kept mistresses. The reputation of the clergy were horrid as the general populace was relieved that “their priest [kept] a mistress” because it “[secured] their wives from seduction” The knowledge of the clergy degenerated as well as they were no longer required to learn and teach the Holy Scriptures because the Church dictated their actions. The pinnacle of the Church’s corruption was the sale of indulgences. An indulgence was the “extra-sacramental remission of the temporal punishment” sold by priests as a temporary relief from sins. The indulgences were then sold to the general populace for money as the monetization of a priest’s services. Johannes Tetzel was a prominent preacher of indulgences who relied on the money from the sales to subsidize the rebuilding of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. The corrupt sales did not go unnoticed as Martin Luther, in an effort to stop the corruption of the Church, posted the 95 Theses on the door of a Castle

The Crusades were great military missions developed by Christian nations of Europe for the purpose of rescuing the Holy Land of Jerusalem from the hands of the Moslems. Jerusalem was extremely important to the Moslems and Christians at this time. Many religious events happened there, and many landmarks of both religions were located in Jerusalem. There were many Crusades some more significant than others, but in general the Crusades were very important to the spread of Christianity and religious based knowledge. The Crusades are an example of religious rebellion that is timeless and universal throughout the world.

The Crusades was a horrific time. Many people had lost their lives, friends, even family. The Crusades were a battle over the holy land, Jerusalem. The Crusaders, people who had fought in the Crusades, were Christians. They wanted the holy land because they believe that’s where Jesus had died and rose. They had fought against the Muslims who were defending themselves against the Crusaders. The Crusades had its positive outcomes as well as its negative results. Some may wonder, were the results of the Crusades more Positive or Negative? I strongly believe the outcome was mostly negative mainly because the Crusaders didn’t win the holy land, lots of lands were destroyed, and so many people lost their lives in the battle of the Crusades.

A major turning point in Medieval history were the Crusades. The Crusades were a series of wars fought between the Christian Europeans and the Muslim Turks, which occurred between the years of 1096 to 1272. In this Holy War the Christians goal was to obtain the Holy Land from the Turks, in which they did not succeed. Although the Christians did not meet their goal, many positives did come out of their attempt. Due to the reason that they did not meet their goal, yet numerous positives came out of their effort, many refer to this as a successful failure.

The Crusades took place in the Middle East between 1095 and 1291. They were used to gain a leg up on trading, have more land to show hegemony, and to please the gods. Based upon the documents, the Crusades between 1095 and 1291 were caused primarily by religious devotion rather than by the desire for economic and political gain.

Going against modern day religious beliefs, in 1095AD the Christians went to war to claim the holy city of Jerusalem, massacring the Muslims in a bloody attempt to worship their God. Pope Urban II’s speech at Clermont inspired by claims made by the Byzantium Emperor encouraged the Christians to partake in the First Crusade in an attempt to liberate Jerusalem. The religious and economic factors were the most relevant to cause this crusade, with some influence from desired political gain and little from social factors unrelated to religion. The immediate consequences were positive for the Christians and negative for the Muslims, but the First Crusade launched an ongoing conflict between the Christians and Muslims which had positive and negative consequences for both sides. There are a number of relevant modern sources which examine the causes and consequences of the First Crusade, but, while there are many medieval sources, they do not explicitly discuss the causes and consequences of the war. In order to fully comprehend the First Crusade, it is necessary to analyse the religious, economic, and political factors, as well as the short-term, long-term, and modern consequences.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe entered a period of chaos and disarray known as the Dark Ages. For the duration of the Dark Ages, peasants were desperate for protection while rich landowners were desperate for workers. Thus, a system known as feudalism, in which lords protected peasants in exchange for labor, developed. Under the feudal lifestyle, trade slowed to almost a complete stop due to self sufficiency on manors. Education and almost all greco-roman culture disappeared. When Pope Urban II was urgently called to help the Byzantine Emperor, he stepped up in order to conquer the Holy Land of Jerusalem from Muslims. However, while the crusades ultimately failed and lead to religious intolerance, they ended the Dark Ages

The Crusades were Military campaigns that fought and destroyed many towns and innocent people. For no reason, the Crusades killed, abused and even destroyed people's land for no good reason. The Crusades fought between the Christians and Muslims. The effects of the Crusades were more negative than positive in my opinion. . The crusades left a “bitter legacy” and they also had a bad influence on the Christian community.

On honor, the words and thoughts of this paper are my own. I have received no unauthorized help in writing this paper: Sean McFadden

The Crusades were the epic battles for the holy city of Jerusalem, first controlled by Constantinople. In the beginning, everything was at peace with the holy land, when a group of people entered and took over Jerusalem. Soon, in 1095, Pope Urban II called on all the Christians in the land to fight for the city, so that they could take it back. He said that to anyone who fought or were killed in battle, their sins would be pardoned. Therefore, there were many Christians who took themselves and their families to fight for Jerusalem. The first battle must have been very bloody. A man named Raymond d’Aguiliers had accounts of the crusades, having followed the Crusaders and recorded everything he saw. He says it was an extraordinary sight, stating

In The middle of the Eleventh Century The tranquillity of the eastern Mediterranean seemed assured for many years to come, but little did the people know what was ahead . This, thus embark us on a journey back into the First Crusade. In this paper I will be discussing the events that lead up to the first in a long line of crusades. I will also be mentioning the lives of some of the crusaders through letters that they wrote. The crusades were a time of confusion for most people, yet today we look back at them as a turning point.

At the time Luther wrote the “95 Theses on the Power of Indulgences” he presumed that reforms could still be made by the Pope and the church's hierarchy; however, after Luther received the papal bull excommunicating him, Luther’s ideology became diametrically opposed to the pope and the whole Roman Catholic structure (shilling 142). This break was a defining time

A long history of corruption caused people to view the Catholic Church as a for-profit organization rather than God’s voice on Earth. By the Renaissance, the Catholic Church had already lost much of its power over secular rulers but still held leverage over the masses. This authority naturally paved the way for corruption. The most outrageous form of corruption practiced by the Church was the sale of indulgences. An indulgence is the remission of temporal punishment still due for a sin that has been sacramentally absolved. One of the ways the Church would generate income was by selling them. The notion started off innocently enough; it stemmed from the idea that punishment for crimes could be converted to payments of money, in essence, a fine (Simon 35). However, it soon spiraled out of control as the Church used indulgences simply to gain money, as when Pope Leo X needed money for the construction of St. Peter’s basilica (Duiker and Spielvogel 429). People began to view salvation as something that could be bought; they could go out and sin on Saturday night, then simply pay for it monetarily Sunday morning. To encourage people to buy more indulgences, the Church even claimed that indulgences could be bought on behalf of those already dead and in purgatory (Sporre 378). This blatant victimization was what spurred Martin Luther to write his Ninety-Five Theses,