The Armenian Kingdom Of Cilicia

In 1095, Pope Urban II called for an army to go to the Holy Land, Jerusalem. This was what was later known as the ‘First Crusade’. A crusade is a religious war or a war mainly motivated by religion. The first crusade consisted of 10’s of thousands of European Christians on a medieval military expedition to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims. This doesn’t mean that the first crusade was just motivated by religion. Throughout this essay, I will be suggesting the main reasons of why people went on crusades and which different people went for specific reasons and why.

The Crusades were a succession of many wars, which “originally” started as a request from Alexius II for aid after a devastating war in the Battle of Mazikert. This war had taken its ravishing toll on the Greeks in the Middle East. The Battle of Mazikert was a result of the expansion and occupancy of two conflicting empires that

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 cause, of the Crusades was the Turkish conquest of the Near East, which apparently was a very real threat to Christendom, that had to be countered by military action. With this in mind, the primary purpose of this essay is to identify the various reasons that contributed to the start of the first crusade, while disproving the fact that the first Crusade was a response to a military threat. In discovering the true cause of the first crusades it is necessary to examine it from all aspects from the start to the finish.

The Crusades, a series of wars, are an extremely important part of history in the 12th century, occurring during the Middle Ages. The Middle East or the Holy Land was always a place that Christians traveled to to make pilgrimages. The Seljuk Turks eventually took control of Jerusalem and all Christians were not allowed in the Holy City. As the Turks power grew, they threatened to take over the Byzantine Empire and Constantinople. The Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I, asked Pope Urban II for help and Pope agreed, hoping to strengthen his own power. He He united the Christians in Europe and In 1095, Pope Urban II waged waged war against muslims in order to “reclaim the holy land.”

The first Crusade, if you could really call it that, was an aid to the Byzantine emperor as he was struggling to hold off the Seljuk Turks. This was all a front of course to mask his own agenda. Once again Urban the second rallied the Christians, ones with military experience of course, and ventured back to the holy land with ambitions to conquer it. The Crusaders

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

Peter the Hermit, a French mock had put together an disorganized army of peasants and soldiers in 1096. His army was known as the Peoples Crusades. While he stayed behind his army crossed over into Anatolia. There almost all of his army was killed by Turkish soldiers.

The Crusades were a sequence of religious and political wars fought for over 200 years for power of the Holy Land. Originally the purpose for the Crusades was to take the Holy Land and Jerusalem away from the Muslims. However, the people who partook in this series of wars were not only driven by their faith, but they were also motivated by their own economical gains. Numerous Crusaders were inspired by the chance to gain wealth, land and power. At the same time the Roman Catholic Church saw the Crusades as an opportunity to gain the Holy Land for Catholics. In all, these examples show that the Crusades were not only driven by religious beliefs but by economic and political gain as well.

Though it was not their key goal, protecting the Christian people, monuments, etc. still was something the Crusaders stuck by. Yet, as the wars continued, faith seemed to be ever more forgotten than it was when they first prioritized material gain. Mesarites, a church official in Constantinople recounts their takeover in the Fourth Crusade. As the proclaimed protectors of Christianity invaded, their actions seemed driven by a brutal desire to simply take; whether that be gold ornaments or lives. The church official describes the Crusaders as "barking like Cerberus and exhaling like Charon" (Document 6). These comparisons to the creatures of Greece's underworld are something you'd expect to hear about the Muslim Turks, their original "enemies". In this holy city, seemingly precious to Christians – Orthodox or not – the Crusaders actions are again something expected of some other warring faith. Whether it was trampling divine buildings and artifacts, killing without care, raping women, or tearing children away from their parents, it was clear that the Crusaders were "maddened by war and murderous in spirit […] fearing neither God's anger or man's vengeance" (Document 6). Even if some had started waging in the holy wars out of pure religious devotion to God, by now the thrill of war had overtaken even the most God-fearing

The First Crusade (1096 - 1099) played a very important part in Medieval Europe .the First Crusade was an attempt to re-capture Jerusalem. After the capture of Jerusalem by the Muslims in 1076, any Christian who wanted to pay a pilgrimage to the city faced a very hard time. When the pope urban 2 made his speech he made lots and lots of people listen and got to war he machined that a lot of people were slaughterer and that this is what god wanted. Muslim soldiers made life very difficult for the Christians and trying to get to Jerusalem was filled with danger for a Christian.

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 Assyrians were very successful as empire-builders. Although the Sea People destroyed their domain a couple of times, the Assyrians still managed to revive creating the “Neo-Assyrian Empire,” in which their realm expanded especially in the Middle East and took control over Egypt. During the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Assyrians were able to master the skill at using chariots and the proficiency of iron smelting. They developed iron weapons and the first true cavalry force that gave them a huge advantage over their neighbors who still used copper and tin weapons. Consequently, the Assyrians became an unrivaled power over the ancient Near East and began exploring artworks and ways they could adorn their cities. The Assyrians were also famous for building great roads that allowed them to move quickly from place to place. Likewise, they built amazing cities with fortified walls, canals,

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.

In the year 1095 to the late 13th century a western European religions group fought multiple wars in an effort to capture what they called “holy land” from the Muslims. This holy war, called the crusades, was to recapture or reclaim holy power. This group of westerners were originally pilgrims who only sought religious freedom but was forced to undertake military type action while protecting their Christian religion. Over the course of 200 years there were a series of Crusades that took place. The first crusade was started by Pope Urban II in 1095 and the last crusade was in Acre which was led by Henry III.

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