The Battle Of The Crusades In 'The Song Of Roland'

Many have priorly stated that history repeats itself time and time again. This can be seen throughout history but, especially so during the Crusades. This paper will discuss the parallels between the First and Fourth Crusade. We will also take a brief look at the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade and how it compares to the aftermath of the Second Crusade.

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,

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.

If there is one thing the Song of Roland is, it is a product of its times. It was written around the time of the first Crusade, when the Christian people of Europe were eager to go out and reclaim the lands where Jesus had lived and secure them for Christianity. The Middle East, where Jesus had lived, was ruled by Muslims at this time, and that was just not acceptable to European Christians. Armed warfare was

Robert the Monk’s history of the First Crusade, Historia Iherosolimitana (HI), was composed several years after the events it records. There is also no evidence making him an eyewitness for the anything he transcribes except for the Council of Clermont. Robert is generally accepted as a valuable source for the First Crusade as his story is based on the Gesta Francorum and he was commissioned by his abbot to offer a new more exciting account of the crusades.1 Robert’s account includes a number of themes as he describes different people the Crusaders encounter. In the history of the First Crusade, Robert the Monk uses his description of the Muslims

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 unrestrained behavior of which enthusiasm and faith are capable. The children’s crusade was nothing less than a destructive movement that preyed on those in its paths, much like the earlier crusades had done. It was during the late august of 1212, that rows of zealous children and the priest guiding them had stood on the dockside of Marseilles awaiting for a parting of the Mediterranean to permit passage to the holy land. The children marched unarmed, in some notion of converting the Muslims seems to have taken place of the usual crusaders zeal for battle.

The Crusades were a bloody war that the church deemed holy and necessary for salvation of the knights soul. The Crusades are a highly controversial and very dark stain on the Catholic church and Hierarchies past. The war was brought to the church from there Roman allies who they had tense dealings with. The where seeking aid in the fight against the muslim turks. The church decreed there act holy and justified. The people who were under the churches thumb had no objections to the slaughter that their beloved God had suposably justified.

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.

Every society in every age long for order, beauty, and truth. The crusades were a series of several military campaigns, usually sanctioned by the Papacy. The Crusades were an age that longed truth. They were originally, the Roman Catholic endeavors to re-capture the Holy Land from the Muslims. The violent and often ruthless conflicts propelled the status of European Christians, making them major players in the fight for land in the Middle East. The movement is best remembered for the causes that the participants and routes of major crusades, last the effects of the crusades and the highlights of the major of the crusades.

The Song of Roland, an epic poem which tells of Charlemagne's excursions into Spain where he was fighting the Saracens or Muslims, is a good example of militant Christianity. Charlemagne, King of the Franks, is a militant committed militant Christian, and it is necessary to understand this to make sense of his fighting the Saracens. As a militant Christian, one of his main goals was to convert others to Christianity. This opportunity presented itself when Marsilla, leader of the Muslims, offered to convert to Christianity if Charlemagne stopped attacking his men. The messenger sent to inform Marsilla actually revengefully betrayed Charlemagne, and thus brought about the defeat and death of the men making up the rear guard of Charlemagne's army. Roland, the leader of the rear guard died a martyr and was taken directly to heaven by angels. In the story, the Christians are seen as good, and the Saracens or Muslims are considered evil. The Christians, whose belief is that good will always triumph over evil in the end,

Fame and glory have been the most admirable characteristics in the middle Ages and even before Christ in the ancient civilizations. The epics of Gilgamesh and Beowulf are stories of heroism and immortality gained through fame. The aim of the main characters, Beowulf and Gilgamesh, is to be a good warrior by being courageous, respectful and prudent, a protector and servant to their king (only in the beginning of Beowulf, as he later becomes king and Gilgamesh already is) and their country. In both poems the fights of the main

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.

Accordingly, Memoirs of the Fourth Crusade has been reviewed vigorously over the past century and central among these reviews is a genuine acceptance of Villehardouin s authenticity and accountability with respect to his

When comparing the epic poem of The Song of Roland to the romantic literature of Ywain, the differences between the early medieval period and the high medieval period become evident. Both The Song of Roland and Ywain depicts the societies from which each story derives its fundamental characteristics. Through close observation, one is able to see the shifts in customs and mentality that make the move from the epic to the romance possible. In his chapter 'From Epic to Romance', R.W. Southern shows how this transformation manifests itself through changing ecclesiastical and secular thoughts and feelings.

Roland is not depicted as a hero in every way. In what particular way does his heroism cause him to fail himself and others, and what does that tell us about the culture out of which the poem emerges?