The Crusaders Use Of Metaphors

The crusades were a series of 4 religious based wars, that took place from 1095-1291, in which Western Christians (most notably from Italy and France) invaded the Mediterranean and Middle East in an attempt to recover the holy city of Jerusalem from the Muslim people, who were seen as the enemy. From the Christian point of view, the crusades were a holy war done to reunite Christian loyalty and faith, and also to recover Jerusalem and to protect the Christian faith and people from the spread of Islam. However, the Christian retelling of this event is the most common, and there is very little showing the Muslim perspective, or for that matter, Middle Eastern perspective, including Jewish and Orthodox Christians, who also suffered greatly at

He followed the crusading armies to Jerusalem and wrote a history of his experiences and observations. Raymond describes ways that the enemies were gruesomely killed during the battle, “Some of our men (and this was more merciful) cut off the heads of their enemies; others shot them with arrows, so that they fell from the towers.” When the Christian Crusaders attacked the Muslims at Jerusalem, “ It was necessary to pick one's way over the bodies of men and horses. However, “in the Temple of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins,” as stated by Raymond d’Aguiliers. In conclusion, Raymond relates the story about how the Pilgrims rejoiced after the battle, “How the pilgrims rejoiced and exulted and sang a new song to the Lord!” (Document A). Ibn al-Athir was an Arab historian who wrote a history of the first three Crusades. Although, he only witnessed the third Crusade. Jerusalem was attacked from the north on July, 15, 1099 by the Franks, who pillaged the area for a week. A group of Muslims barricaded themselves in the Tower of

As the ragtag army set out on their campaign, one of their most important goals was retaking Jerusalem. Also, the Pope claimed that the crusaders would be fighting the “Holy War” to win back Jerusalem, which was closely associated with the Christian idea of heaven and the apocalyptic war. According to the Bible, “The New Jerusalem appeared only after the final cosmic war between good and evil, after the plagues, the persecutions, the death, the destruction” (Document 3). Pope Urban convinced people that the Crusades were the prophesied apocalyptic war, and this news motivated many crusaders to campaign. The crusaders assumed that in order for the “New Jerusalem” to appear, they must attack and reconquer the holy lands, kicking off the apocalyptic holy war by battling the “evil” Muslims.

L. The main reason the crusades started was to take Jerusalem from the Turks. Before 1087, Christian pilgrims frequently traveled to Jerusalem, “the holy land”. However, according to document 6, “from 1087 onwards, turks stopped christian pilgrims from entering Jerusalem.” Basically, the Turks claimed Jerusalem as their own, and prevented any pilgrimages. Pope Urban II was not happy about this. He called European Christians to war in 1095 to recapture Jerusalem. According to Document 1, he says, “I, or rather, the Lord, beseech you as christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich….to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends.” Basically, Pope Urban II is urging the people to fight the Turks, and win back Jerusalem.

The Papacy in Rome sanctioned the First Crusade and Pope Urban II preached for a great Christian expedition to capture Jerusalem, the Holy Lands from the Muslims. During this time religion permeated every aspect of life. The Christian kings and peasants believed that every human being was judged in death and one way to absolve oneself of sin was to die in the name of the Lord, therefore dying in the Crusades would purify the soul allowing them to go straight to heaven. Consequently, “thousands of laymen and clergy took up the cross and younger sons of the upper-class had military advantages to become Crusaders” (Fiero, 2017). At this particular time, the church acknowledged and vindicated fighting and killing in the name of God, resulting in the Crusaders slaughtering all enemies of Christ; hundreds of men, women, and children plus the “entire Jewish populations of Cologne and Mainz became victims” (Fiero, 2017). The First Crusade set a dangerous precedent, the rise of organized anti-Jewish persecution and each subsequent Crusade resulted in renewed attacks on the Jews. The persecution of Jews reached a climax during the Crusades.

These reasons resulted in what became a prosperous first crusade led by the Pope himself. The political reasons ranged from a desire for adventure to the land of Jerusalem, wanting to gain more power, and other economic rationales. By the end of the first crusade, the Crusaders were victorious in stripping “more than forty silver candelabra and more than twenty gold ones” in the Dome of the Rock. The economic reasons included gaining more wealth, land, riches and multiple goods. The Pope claims that the Crusaders must “...rush quickly as [they] can to the defence of the Eastern Church” and that it’s “...a beautiful thing to die for Christ…”. The religious reasons the Crusaders thought to be true was that the crusade was God’s call for the Christian brothers to accomplish their attack on the Muslims. The Muslims were filled with grief as the Arab Historian, Ibn al-Athir, recalls that “...the Franks slaughtered more than 70,000 people…women and children taken prisoner, the homes pillaged…”. Unlike the rejoice in the documents and articles from the Crusaders’ perspectives, the Muslim perspective felt sorrow for those who died innocently. The Crusaders destroyed an extensive portion the Jerusalem land and population, taking away valuable riches and treasures from the Holy Land. While later crusades failed to accomplish that of the crusade led by Pope Urban III, I greatly believe that the first crusade was a great

In a perfect world, everything would go exactly the way you wanted. But that’s the problem. There is no such thing as a perfect world, and the Crusades were the exact opposite. Back in medieval times, Christians felt the need to conquer Jerusalem. At the time, Jerusalem was being protected by Muslims.

A big reason that crusaders were fighting was because the land was sacred and they were trying to get it back from nonbelievers of their religion. The Pope was telling everyone about the holiness of the city when he said: ”This royal city, therefore, situated at the centre of the world, is now held captive by His enemies, and is in subjection to those who do not know God, to the worship of the heathens.”(Document 1). The land was holy to the Christians and it was overtaken by the Persians so the Pope was relying everyone together to go and take back their holy land. The middle east is more fruitful than Europe and it talks about the wonderful fruitfulness in the middle east in the bible when it says “That land which as the Scripture says "floweth with milk and honey," was given by God into the possession of the children of Israel Jerusalem is the navel of the world; the land is fruitful above others, like another paradise of delights.”(Document 1). In the Bible, it stated that the Middle East is fruitful and that its fruitfulness is like a paradise of delights. In conclusion, the land that the crusaders were fighting for was holy and fruitful.

The age leading up to the first crusade is detailed by many current historians, as well as Pope Urban II, as a time period where inhabitants "rage[d] against [their own] brothers and cut each other [to] pieces" (Peters, Baldric of Dol, 31) for economic and social advancement. In spite of these references, many people today believe that the Pope instigated the crusades for the sole reason of reclaiming Jerusalem. However, other motivations such as supplementary religious factors and the chance for economic, social, and political gain also played major roles. These motivations were not experienced supremely by the Pope; in fact he needed to instill these inspirations in all Christians to evoke their will to fight. The holy land had long

The Pope addressed the crowd by saying, “...accursed race, a race utterly alienated for God, a generation forsooth which has not entrusted its spirit to Go, has invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire.” The Pope’s purpose was to enrage the crowd and turn them against the Muslims. He used their hate to encourage greed and vengeance. The religious leaders, “...constrained all sorts of men, by vain preaching, to set out against the Saracens in order to liberate Jerusalem.” When the First Crusade began, the Christians followed the propaganda and believed that their actions would secure them a spot in heaven.

Raymond d’Aguiliers gives credit for all of the Christian’s success in battle to the miracles and visions that God provides for his chosen people. His narrative provides insight of life throughout the pilgrimage and allows the readers see the immense faith that d’Aguiliers and many of his fellow Crusaders have for God. These two sources provide memories and experiences that not only allow the First Crusade to be recorded in history but also to be

Another aspect that contributes to the statement that the crusades were not motivated by religious factors is that the crusaders wanted more land. Many Crusaders wanted to govern their own piece of land in a new area, so they decided to fight being guaranteed a piece of land; in this era land equaled money, the more land you had, the wealthier you were—religion didn’t get you very far. By having a new plot of land, in a new area the Crusaders would be able to rise above their social status and experience a newfound wealth that would be next to impossible back in their homeland. Through this, we can see the prime motivation of the Western European’s commencement of the crusades was their aspiration for land. Even Pope Urban II, an example and leader for all the people, wanted to fight just to get the Holy Land back. So if the prime example for the people, a leader that everyone looked up to was demonstrating greed and voracity then it would only be natural for his people to follow. Not only did Pope Urban II and officials express tremendous amounts of self-indulgence, but they very well knew what was going on beforehand; the selection mentions that they worked to “prepare” the people for a crusade by changing conditions within their society and economy. The changing of economic aspects portray that the Crusaders were unhappy with their current state of wealth and the easiest way to fix that was to

There are many reasons why each account differs. One of them would be that the authors’ religions are different, Fulk of Charters being a Christian, whereas Ibn al-Qalanisi was a Muslim. Another reason is that the Christian author was on the winning side, while the Muslim author was on the other side. In my opinion, the winning side has more motives to convince the reader that the crusaders were doing the will of God by killing everyone, bravely fighting against the pagan soldiers, as the Charters’ book relates, “a great fight took place in the court and porch of the temples, where they were unable to escape from our gladiators” (A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem). However, the Arab chronicle says that all they were doing was to “slaughter

The Crusades: A Short History, written by British Historian Jonathan Riley-Smith, offers a broad overview of this part of the medieval era, but he also explores how historians have attempted to explain these events in modern terms. Riley-Smith also makes sure to note all major contributors to the Crusade movement and their personalities. Numerous scholars have wondered whether this was a political or religious mission. This helps to spark the question of why people would leave their homes and their families to risk their lives invading a land that was thousands of miles away for religious reasons. In his book, Riley-Smith makes this era come alive for the modern reader. He does

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.