The Crusades And The Fight For The Holy Land

On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II gave a supposedly important speech at the end of a church meeting in Clermont, France. In it he had called upon the nobleness of the Franks, to go to the East and assist their Christian “brothers”, the Byzantines, against the attacks of the Muslim Turks. He also apparently encouraged them to liberate Jerusalem, the most sacred and holy city in Christendom, for the Muslims had ruled it since taking it from the Christian Byzantines in A.D. 638. The Crusades were a series of wars between Christians and others to take back Jerusalem.

The Crusades were a series of wars over the holy lands such as Jerusalem between European Christians and the Ottoman Empire between the 11th and 15th centuries. They fought for many reasons such as control over religious sights, access to trade and protection of fellow christians.

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.

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 Crusades were a series of holy wars that began in 1095 CE. These wars were fought between Christians and Muslims to gain control over the sacred land. The Turks moved into the middle east during the early part of the 11th century CE. Most of the Turks served the Islamic armies and would invade land rapidly using combat forces. This alarmed the Greek emperor and caused him to seek out Pope Urban II and ask for mercenary troops to confront the Turks. The Pope called a council and had 300 attendees to show up. During this council, the Pope made a plea to free the Holy Land, which received an enthusiastic response. After this, Pope Urban II promptly waged war against the Muslims and took armies of Christians to Jerusalem to try and

Going against modern day religious beliefs, in 1095AD the Christians went to war to claim the holy city of Jerusalem, massacring the Muslims in a bloody attempt to worship their God. Pope Urban II’s speech at Clermont inspired by claims made by the Byzantium Emperor encouraged the Christians to partake in the First Crusade in an attempt to liberate Jerusalem. The religious and economic factors were the most relevant to cause this crusade, with some influence from desired political gain and little from social factors unrelated to religion. The immediate consequences were positive for the Christians and negative for the Muslims, but the First Crusade launched an ongoing conflict between the Christians and Muslims which had positive and negative consequences for both sides. There are a number of relevant modern sources which examine the causes and consequences of the First Crusade, but, while there are many medieval sources, they do not explicitly discuss the causes and consequences of the war. In order to fully comprehend the First Crusade, it is necessary to analyse the religious, economic, and political factors, as well as the short-term, long-term, and modern consequences.

Imagine you were a Muslim (Eastern world) living in Jerusalem, and suddenly was ambushed by the Christian Crusaders (Western world), massacring all the Muslims and Jews. Before the crusades, the Christians lived with the Muslims and Jews peacefully. Then, Pope Urban II told the Christians that if they fought to take back Jerusalem, they would automatically be allowed into heaven. The Crusades have left a bad relationship between the Muslims and Christians, and also left disbenefits for them. Muslims and Christians have hated each other for many years because of the Crusades. Although there was many years of worthless fighting, the Christians and Muslims have also benefited from the Crusades.

Turkish slaughter of 3000 Christians in the Holy City was the beginning of the long, awful number of brutal events in the Crusades. After the Emperor of The Byzantine, was menaced by the Seljuk Turks, he was forced to request aid from the west, and the Western European’s reply was instantaneous, “On November 1095, Pope Urban II calls for a Ccrusade in a famous speech at the Council Of Clermont” (Cline). The appeal by Pope Urban II was the thing that lit up the beginning of the First Crusade, putting a will to fight in the heart of the Christians, to recover the Holy Lands. Although there were nine crusades in total. People are likely to consider the first crusade to be the most important, because it was the beginning of the Crusades.

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.

In Document 1 the pope wrote, “ On whom therefore is the labor of avenging these wrongs and of recovering this territory incumbent, if not upon you?” This shows how the pope made the task to fight to win back the holy land up to all the christians. The pope used a certain zealousness to make the Christians excited about fighting in the Crusades. The Pope also went on to say “Accordingly undertake this journey for the remission of your sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the kingdom of heaven.” The Pope told the christians that all their sins would be forgiven and they would go to heaven if they fought against the muslims to take back the holy land. This persuaded the christians to fight because they thought it was what god wanted them to do . The pope knew that by telling people this he would encourage them although some might’ve believed that it was what god really wanted them to do enough do that they would put their own life at risk to follow what god or the pope thought was

At the beginning of the second crusade the Christians and the Muslims lived side by side, but then the Muslims got greedy and said that they needed more power and land. The Muslims took over jerusalem many times, and annoyed people. Many times, such as in the 1st crusade, the Muslims captures the holy land because they got greedy and wanted more land. They took over the holy land many times and they lost it many times because they had to fight. They got greedy so they fought many battles and won so they were undefeatable.

Why did people fight over somthing as silly as land you might ask? Well it wasn't just land it was the holy land. A place Jesus was said to be.

In the first crusade the byzantine emperor was afraid of the Turks, Alexius I asked the roman church for help. he thought that eastern and western Christians should join forces and make the Turks moves from Anatolia and Palestine. This movement would be called a holy war or crusade. The pope whose name was Urban II, agreed to this plan for two reasons, the first reason was because he thought that combining the east and the west war against the Turks would reunite the eastern and western churches. The second reason was because he wanted to free Palestine and Jerusalem from Muslim rule

As the depiction of certain historical facts serves the sole purpose of justifying the importance of the historical context to the conflict, and not the merit of the events themselves, the following are only a few, yet highly applicable ones to the matter discussed. Briefly going back to ancient history, the region known today as Palestine was first known as Canaan, which derived its name from a people who inhabited it between 3000 - 1500 B.C. They were conquered by a greek people known as Philistines and also Jews, one of the semitic peoples, in the years 1200-1100 B.C. A hundred years later Jews defeated both Philistines and Canaanites, establishing Kingdom of Israel (Smith). This is important, because the first temple in Jerusalem was

The Middle East is said to the home of some of the holiest sites for people of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths. The conflict between Israel and Palestine is not one to take lightly.