Jesse Brassell. Mr Parrish. English Iii H. 3 March 2017.

The Crusades were a religious war that was fought over the Christian control of Holy Lands. Pope Urban II initiated the war in the 11th century to try and take back control over the Holy Lands from the Muslims. There are eight official crusades that did not achieve their goal of gaining control. The Crusades lasted for nearly two centuries, and the effects can still be seen to this day. The Crusade began after Pope Urban II gave a speech to the community asking them to help. When Pope Urban II gave his speech he wanted to aid the Byzantines with recapturing the Holy Lands, reduce warfare in Europe, and strengthen the church; however, the situation transformed into the robbing and killing of the innocent, the pillaging of the Byzantine

The Pope had all of the power and that led to mass amounts of people going to war for the Pope. In document 4 by the Islamic leader, Saladin, he states that his people should try to retake Jerusalem to get back their holy land and to please God. The people are trying to please their gods and to give their homage to their god. That would show a religious view for the Crusades and their brethren. Document 5 by the Jewish chronicler, Solomon bar Samson, shows that there was a religious aspect to the Crusades, mind it be extremism. The crusaders would see a pack of Jews on the way to the Holy Land and they would give the Jews two choices: 1. they could kill them to avenge the death of Jesus Christ or 2. They could incorporate them into their faith and acknowledge the offspring of promiscuity. Document 7, an excerpt from “In Praise of the New Knighthood” by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, tells of the two-fold war that was being fought by the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitallers. It was a normal killing people war, and it was a spiritual war. You are protected by the armor of faith and an armor of steel. Next, I would have liked a document from Pope Nicholas IV about how the Crusades had to stop. That would have filled in the ending to the story of the Crusades.

The First Crusades was a military group that was started by Christians in Europe who wanted to gain back the Holy Land that was being occupied by the Muslims. Pope Urban II preached a sermon at Clermont Ferrand on November 1095. Most histories consider this speech to be the spark the fueled a wave of military campaigns to gain back the Holy Land. This speech was meant to unite the Europeans and to gain back what was taken from them. The holy land was a small area on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The First Crusades was a very successful military expedition that was driven by religious faith to reclaim Jerusalem and other holy places that fell under Muslim control. driven by religious faith. They wanted to gain back the Holy Land that was once theirs. Arabs and the Muslim Turks otherwise known as the Seljuk Turks were the Muslims that invaded and conquered land rightfully occupied by the Christian’s. Many European men, women, and children joined the Crusades and fought in the Middle East. Pope Urban II granted forgiveness of all sins to those who died in battle thus assuring them ascendancy into heaven. Which gave those who volunteered to fight assurance. Nobles and peasants responded in great numbers to the call and marched across Europe to the capital of the Byzantine empire. Having the support of the Byzantine emperor helped make them a stronger army. The Crusaders took over many of the cities on the Mediterranean coast and built a large number of fortified castles across the Holy Land to protect their newly established territories. Soon after seizing power the Seljuks face a very different challenge to Islamic civilization. It came from Christian Crusaders. Knights from western Europe who were determined to capture portions of the Islamic world that made up the holy land of biblical times. Muslim political division and element of surprise made the first of the Crusaders assaults, between 1096 and 1099, by far the most successful. Much of

In his call at Clermont in 1095, Pope Urban II asked all fellow Christians to join in the aid of the Christians in the East that were then prone to Turkish attacks. Requesting that they all leave their lives and run to their aid, Pope Urban II explained how they would be doing all in the name of God. The Pope let all of the people know that they would all be greatly recompensed in following God's will and fighting for God and in doing so he further led the people to understand that any killing they would do would be forgiven since it was all to be in God's will. In addition, he insisted that if any were to die in this aid, they would all be

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).

Pope Urban ll started the Crusades so that he could rise to power politically and convince people to convert to the Roman Catholic church. In contrast, the lower class people of Europe believed the Crusades would improve their lives religiously, financially, and physically. The Crusades were holy wars fought between Europe and Muslims in the Middle East between 1095 and 1291. Religion drove the Crusaders to join the Crusades. But in comparison, the Pope introduced the Crusades to gain political power.

The Crusades began in 1095, when Christian armies from Western Europe reacted to Pope Urban II’s wish to go to war against the Muslim armies. The Christian army wore the cross made with red blood cloth to symbolize their religion. The Crusades took place between 1095 and 1291 and the goal was to stop the spread of Islam, to control of the Holy Land, to conquer pagan places, and to recapture Christian territories. Two-thirds of the ancient Christian world had been conquered by Muslims by the end of the 11th century but the Crusades, attempting to check this advance, initially enjoyed success, founding a Christian state in Palestine and Syria, but the continued growth of Islamic states denied those gains. There were a total of 11 official crusades in all. Only the First and Third Crusades were successful in achieving their main goal. In the long history of the Crusades, thousands of knights, soldiers, merchants, and peasants lost their lives on the march or in battle. But even though only the First and Third Crusades were successful in reclaiming parts of the Holy Land, the Crusades played an important role in the expansion of Europe.

Looking from an impartial, unbiased perspective, both fronts committed war on each other and lost many men. Muslims had led a flourishing empire that encompassed all three Abrahamic faiths and many others outside the prized area of the Levant. On the other hand, Christians did not facilitate such a welcoming environment for Muslims and Jews in their territories. Dictatorial powers arose within Christian leaders called for an outright slaughtering of the heretics. Ultimately, the crusades were a failure and did not achieve the main goal of securing the Holy land for the

alters," (Munro 5-8). The Seljuk Turks invaded the lands of the christians, torturing and killing the Christians in ways that were despicable. For example, they would cut the abdomen and tie the entrails to a stake, then make them walk until all organs were out of the body (Munro 5-8). These Muslims took a tract of land from the Greek Empire that would have taken two months to walk across (Munro 5-8). Pope Urban II questioned everyone, asking "Whose duty is to avenge this and recover that land, if not yours?" in his speech at Clermont, declaring a jihad, or holy war against the Muslim Turks (Munro 5-8). As Urban finished his speech to the Council at Clermont, all who were in

In the year of 1095, Pope Urban ii called a meeting in the city of Clermont. His discussion creating a deadly manor of war called the “Crusades” to take back the “Holy Land” for the greedy Christians, “deus vult!” or “God wills it!” which was said by Pope Urban ii. Crusaders were more bloody and wicked than you’d think they were after you read this report. They’ve caused such horror to the Muslims and Jews that you’d cringe until you’d forget about the whole thing. This is why I will be creating an argument about this report.

It was the Europeans who backstabbed those who they vowed to defend, there is vastly more evidence of the Europeans doing horrible things, and it would not be fair to blame the Muslims for self-defense. One of the especially barbaric deeds of the Europeans is that they attacked the same people who they swore to protect. It all started with the conflict just before Pope Urban II sparked the Crusades with a passionate sermon: the Battle of Manzikert, in 1071. This battle was fought between the Seljuk Turks and the Byzantines, and the Byzantines lost decisively. The Byzantine emperor at the time was, understandably, upset, and begged Pope Urban II for help.

If you permit them to continue thus for awhile with impurity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them.” Urban II urged all in attendance to heed his call to aid their fellow Christians in regaining control of Palestine, which was at that time ruled by Muslims and thus many bands of European Christians set off towards the Holy Land.

In 1095 Pope Urban II delivered a riveting call to arms that led to the formation of a divinely inspired army intent on retaking Jerusalem from Muslim control. He grounds this appeal on a command from God: “I, not I, but God exhorts you as heralds of Christ to repeatedly urge men of all ranks…to hasten to exterminate this vile race from our lands and to aid the Christian inhabitants” (Fulcher 66). Though Urban emphasizes the need to assist the Byzantine Christians, the hordes of common people, clergy, and nobility that answer his call have diverse motives for embarking on the crusade. The rationalization for the first crusade is revealed expressly by participants who authored chronicles. However, some of the most conclusive evidence is

While it may be that the First Crusade was more of a political war than a spiritual one, one can’t deny the religious aspect of the Crusades. Most of the men who fought in the Crusades at bare minimum claimed to do so because God had commanded them to. Pope Urban II emphasized this in his speech, saying, “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 race from the lands of our friends.” The important thing to note here is that Pope Urban II doesn’t just urge them to fight on behalf of himself or the church, but he tells the fighters that the Lord wants them to do this. This is a classic application of the above verse from Daniel, where Pope Urban II is using his power as pope to claim that he understands God’s divine will for His people on Earth.

Causes of the Crusades revolved around Palestine, the Holy Land. The Holy Land “was the region where Jesus had lived, preached, and died.” The Muslims and Christians had fought over Palestine. Turkish Muslims had taken Jerusalem, Israel’s capital. They also raided the Byzantine Empire.