The Crusades: Life In The Middle Ages

Although a topic of my past history classes has been the Crusades, I only come out of them with a vague understanding of the situation. So, I sought out to gain a greater understanding through the vision of the question, "Was the first crusade a success, and if so, what made it a success?" Using The Crusades: A Reader, specifically the writings and documents from pages 33-79, I will make a decision based on specific occurrences and their ultimate goal (CITE SOURCE WITH FULL CITATION).I plan on picking out important aspects of the first crusade and determine whether or not they contributed to the success or failure of it. Also, I will try to uncover the motivations and the organization that led to the execution of the plan to recapture the Holy Land. In short, the first crusade interests me the most because there were crusades afterward, signifying it must have been found successful in some understanding.

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.

The Crusades were great military missions developed by Christian nations of Europe for the purpose of rescuing the Holy Land of Jerusalem from the hands of the Moslems. Jerusalem was extremely important to the Moslems and Christians at this time. Many religious events happened there, and many landmarks of both religions were located in Jerusalem. There were many Crusades some more significant than others, but in general the Crusades were very important to the spread of Christianity and religious based knowledge. The Crusades are an example of religious rebellion that is timeless and universal throughout the world.

The Crusades was a horrific time. Many people had lost their lives, friends, even family. The Crusades were a battle over the holy land, Jerusalem. The Crusaders, people who had fought in the Crusades, were Christians. They wanted the holy land because they believe that’s where Jesus had died and rose. They had fought against the Muslims who were defending themselves against the Crusaders. The Crusades had its positive outcomes as well as its negative results. Some may wonder, were the results of the Crusades more Positive or Negative? I strongly believe the outcome was mostly negative mainly because the Crusaders didn’t win the holy land, lots of lands were destroyed, and so many people lost their lives in the battle of the Crusades.

The Crusades were one of the most prominent events in Western European history; they were not discrete and unimportant pilgrimages, but a continuous stream of marching Western armies (Crusaders) into the Muslim world, terminating in the creation and eventually the fall of the Islamic Kingdoms. The Crusades were a Holy War of Roman Christianity against Islam, but was it really a “holy war” or was it Western Europe fighting for more land and power? Through Pope Urban II and the Roman Catholic Church’s actions, their proposed motivations seem unclear, and even unchristian. Prior to the Crusades, Urban encouraged that Western Europe fight for their religion but throughout the crusades the real motivations shone though; the Crusaders were power

At first knights and soldiers in the armies were of little social status. “Many knights in fact possessed little more than peasants” (Spielvogel 244). War was looked as kind of a barbaric act in the beginning and many knights could be found fighting each other. While some of this was tolerated, as they were seen as “defenders of society”, the Catholic Church decided that there should be some ground rules. At the start of the eleventh century, the church urged knights to take an oath to protect churches, and to not harm noncombatants. These rules allowed for battles to follow a civil path and to be carried out in a noble way.

Knights of the Crusade were honest men as well as men of many sins. They were bribed by the church in an inconspicuous manner to fight in a war they deemed blessed by God. The priest of the Catholic

The Crusade influenced the Middle ages in many ways, such as: adding to the Church’s control over Europe and their wealth, increased the Pope’s, or papacy’s, power, caused men and supplies to be requested frequently which resulted in many deaths (both muslim and christian), knights and barons sold their manor and lands or died which caused feudalism to become rocky in Europe, brought about the code of chivalry, people developed new ideas and began to grow smarter in what is called the “Age of Learning,” led to the discovery of new countries in the undiscovered areas of Asia, and commerce and trade grew due to the necessities that the Crusaders asked for.

L. In the middle ages, many knights and soldiers went in expeditions called the Crusades. People decided to go on the crusades for many different reasons. People may have gone because they wanted an adventure, or to to prove their bravery. Kings also encouraged violent knights to go on crusades to get rid of them. But the most important reasons to go on the crusades were probably to take jerusalem from the turks, to be forgiven of sins, and for younger sons to get land of their own.

The crusades were a big part of the 11th century, as wars had came and go people were joining for money or religion. For religion people were promised to go to heaven and live a blessed holy life, and god would always protect him or her, but they were just promising things they couldn't help or control. Then when it came to the money factor of the Crusades, they were promising more than they could give, however they did deliver the minimum but after people got the money, furniture, goods and etc. people just wanted more and more, and they didn't have enough give give more and more as the people wanted. So there are many different ways ad things you could argue but I think that it was more an economical gain, because again they got want they wanted and said but they didn't care about God they were greedy and wanted more and more.

This was because of the strict laws the Knights were under. The men from the armies often could be found at pubs, while the Knights would stay up late studying and planning. The Knights aided Christians in the Middle East, and helped with the pilgrimages to Jerusalem. They had great military expertise and experience. The Knights also wanted to fulfill their political ambition.

The knights also had to gain from the Crusades. The knights were children who were not the eldest. The way it worked during that time period was by a system called primogeniture. This means that everything goes to the firstborn son. For example, the first born would recieve the land, the money, and if the father is a ruler they receive the kingship. The other children receive nothing and they are angry about that so they become knights to gain respect and money. These knights cause a lot of conflict within the Christians. The Knights wanted to fight because they thought they would gain wealth and that maybe it would make up for all the bad things and conflicts they caused. These knights had nothing, nowhere to

The actions and behavior of the crusaders were guided more by secular reasons than religious. While the crusades have been remembered as a purely religious struggle between Latin Christendom and the Muslims of the middle east the actions made by the crusaders were only partly caused by religion. In addition although there were many members of the First Crusade who were genuinely motivated by religious devotion there were many who were not. The actions of crusaders like Bohemond of Taranto and Baldwin of Boulogne seem to have been motivated mainly by self interest and a desire to better themselves. Not only do their circumstances before the crusades indicate that their motivations might have been more secular, but the actions they took indicate

Medieval lives were controlled completely by one thing – Christianity. Christianity was part of a person’s live from before they were born until after they died. Christianity rocketed through Europe, serving as a unifying cause for many things – such as the crusades. The crusades were the battle between the Christianity and Islam, over Christendom – the holy land. The crusades lasted for over 200 years but had limited success, ultimately ending in 1291 with the fall of acre. When looking at the relevance and significance of the medieval period, it is good to look at specific medieval topics - like the Crusades. The Crusades were an phenomenon which is obviously interesting in its own right, due to the reasons behind