he subject of the crusades is still a very controversial topic that spans across various time periods and has religious, social, and political implications. The first crusade started off as a widespread pilgrimage that ended as a military expedition resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem in 1099. The crusades initiated from a call from help from Alexius for the protection of Constantinople and the recovery of Anatolia. For centuries textbooks have repeated with routine regularity, that the immediate…

The brief campaign of the thirteen-century Children’s crusade was not technically a crusade in the sense that medieval Europeans understood the term and lasted only a few months during the year 1212. It lacked Papal sanction and its participants marched without the customary indulgences granted to those engaged in warfare to defend the Faith. Uncharacteristic as it was, the Children’s Crusade was a revealing chapter in medieval history, as it exemplified the depths of crusading zeal along with the…

The Thought-experiments in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five or the Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance With Death In 1945 Kurt Vonnegut witnessed a horrific series of bombings that led to the destruction of the German city of Dresden, where he was taken as a prisoner of war. The controversial fire-storm raid, carried out by bombers of the Royal Air Force and US Air Force, took casualties of up to a quarter million people (Klinkowitz x-xi). As a prisoner of war, Vonnegut was forced to participate…

the facts for what they are. After much discussion and exploration, we figure that the third crusade actually did follow the principles of Christianity to some extent. Portions of the third crusade were definitely morally wrong and conflicted against the teachings of Christianity, but not all of it fell out of order in which the foundation upon which Christianity was built. At the beginning, the Third Crusade was called under the belief that by reclaiming the Holy Land of Jerusalem, the Christians…

Literature A 29 January 2016 The First Crusades The First Crusades were military planned missions planned by Christian leaders; the proclaimed purpose was to recover Jerusalem as well as Antioch, which were in an area known as the Holy Land, from the controls of Turks. The reason why they feature so prominently in history is because they were one of the longest battles in history. All three of the Crusades lasted about 200 years. Additionally, the Crusades were a major reason for why Europe came…

First Crusade. The events that occurred set in motion a fundamental change in European society, religion, and politics, and the ramifications have been thoroughly examined. In spite of the significant body of scholarship on this crusade, and the extensive documentation from medieval sources, many elements of the First Crusade still are debated or remain uncertain. One such aspect is the role that religion and sincere piety played in the motivations of the crusaders and in the call for crusade itself…

The Life of Billy Pilgrim in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade Marked by two world wars and the anxiety that accompanies humanity's knowledge of the ability to destroy itself, the Twentieth Century has produced literature that attempts to depict the plight of the modern man living in a modern waste land. If this sounds dismal and bleak, it is. And that is precisely why the dark humor of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. shines through our post-modern age. The devastating…

They were babies for the most part with most coming fresh out of high school while some had not even finished. They were leaving the comforts of home to fight in a war they did not know much about. After Mary’s rant, Vonnegut named his book The Children's Crusade after being called children fighting in war(Kunze 45). The name was also brought up again when referring to Billy and the other American soldiers while at a German detainment camp. After being cleaned and shaven, did the Englishmen finally noticed…

During the early 13th century, while the wars against he Albigensians were occurring, crusade preaching became integral aspect of life in parts of Germany and northern France. On top of the already present religious fervor the most of Europe had, these preachings drove people to act on their devoutness to God. The Children’s Crusade, which was a popular religious movement in Europe during 1212, was a movement in which thousands of youth assembled and took crusading vows, their objective was to recover…

As the historian John Riley Smith points out “The First Crusade was a violent and brutal episode during which the crusaders cut out a swathe of suffering through Europe and Western Asia.” In this description of the First Crusade (1095/6- 1099) Smith makes it difficult for us to see and, or uncover any elements of pilgrimage in the crusaders actions. However, there are many different ways in which the crusades have been described, the historian Christopher Tyerman on the other hand, steers towards…