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The Crusades Persuasive Essay

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The Crusades: Disastrous from the Beginning During the time of the High Middle Ages, Medieval Europe was characterized by holy wars known as the Crusades. Endorsed by several popes over the course of two centuries for the purpose of recapturing the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, this series of eight wars resulted in considerable ambiguity as to whether they truly succeeded. The Crusades had been called under the false premise of guaranteed success. Additionally, they had drastic consequences for the Muslims, Byzantines, and western Europe. After constant attempts to recapture Jerusalem, the Christian armies were ultimately unable to maintain stable control over it, surrendering the last crusader state in 1291. Despite their minor …show more content…

In consequence to this, the religious enthusiasm that had previously inspired the crusaders reached a decline. This loss of religious sentiment severely damaged the involvement of faith in the lives of the western European people, discrediting both the papacy and the prior prominence of Christianity. In addition to the false premise of certain success, the Crusades caused massive losses for all involved in the fighting. Resulting from the deaths of a large number of lords from Europe, they caused a significant decline in the population of nobility, causing instability of leadership and the disappearance of the vassalage system of feudalism. For the Muslim-controlled regions of the Middle East, many people in different areas perished. Perhaps suffering even more were the Byzantines, who, after the interference of the Venetians in the Fourth Crusade who aimed to sabotage their main trading rivals, were never able to reach a level of prosperity remotely near what they had previously. Together, these individual damages culminated into a major loss of prosperity in Christian Europe and the Muslim Middle-East. Instead of accomplishing the goals that they had planned to, the Christians caused a mutual state of suffering for all participants in the

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