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
The Crusades were an unpleasant event that happened for many reasons. It was established in 1096 and thankfully ended in 1291. The cause for why the Crusades had a more negative result is because most people died from participating or majorly hurt. This is because Document 6 states “The city was savagely taken with many lives lost” meaning that people had died. So, the continued fighting that took place because of the Crusades had a huge negative impact on the many people that lost their lives. In addition, Document 1 states “In Europe, crusaders sometimes turned their fury against Jews, massacring entire communities.” Which meant that full families including children were slaughtered, killed and destroyed because the crusaders were mad at
Last but not least, the crusades led to the decline of the Byzantine Empire by demolishing their economy. The Annales Herbipolenses demonstrates the Christians were so desperate for help, they took any and every person to fight, they did not require any person to be skilled. The crusades weakened the economy making people want to fight due to how poor they lived their lives especially those who held low social status such as serfs or peasants. The need for monetary support in the West left them vulnerable and ultimately led to the sacking of Constantinople (Doc 3.) This writer is anonymous but by the location of the writer, the writer must have had a Germanic nature, therefore the information must be valid because Germany was a Catholic nation,
The Crusades had some religious hatred behind them. They would sometimes turn their fury against Jews. They had an economy that was built up to be better. Some Crusaders attracted people by the adventures, estates, and commercial opportunities. They had a negative impact on the 4th crusade, because they sacked the city and destroyed it.
The Crusades were an important part of history, and it had a major impact to the people and the Church. There were a total of nine crusades, but only a few were successful. The Church asked helped from people, and succeeded in influencing them to join by telling them how their sins would be removed. Many people believed in the Pope and the Church at first, but after many Crusades it was later questioned. The Crusades started by the Church to capture The Holy Land was caused primarily by religious devotion and not by political and economic gains.
Zeynep Bozyigit Rossignol World History H 15 March 2024 The motive of the Crusades, a series of military expeditions by European Christians in the Middle Ages, has long been subject to debate. A significant population of Europe took on a journey to Jerusalem over the course of 200 years, each driven by a complex intersection of political, economic, and religious motivations. Having touched the lives of millions, the impact of the nine Holy Wars in European history is still evident in the modern world today. While some argue that Catholic religious devotion was the driving force of millions into the Holy Land, a deeper look into medieval Europe reveals that the people were primarily motivated by hopes of political and/or economic profit from
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.
Besides having the Crusades being negative based on dying and losing their main objective, another example as to why the Crusades ended so negatively, is that many lands were demolished and robbed. In addition, in document 4 it indicates “ … the crusaders and the Venetians stormed Constantinople,, sacked the city, destroying its magnificent library, and grabbed thousands of relics that were later sold in Europe. From destruction, the Byzantine Empire as a political unit never recovered.” This is pertinent because it is clearly stated that they had destroyed buildings and when things are destroyed it’s rarely a good thing. Another thing that shows negativity is that after the Byzantine Empire was sacked, it never repaired. When something is damaged, it’s really bad for the people who have a relation to it. So when they had destroyed the Byzantine Empire, it must’ve hurt many people to see their city ruined. Furthermore in document B is states “Jerusalem was taken from the north on the morning of July 15, 1099. The population was put to the sword by the Franks, who pillaged the area for a week.
Hoping that the Pope would accede to his wishes, Alexius looked to rectify the Turkish invasions. November of 1095 Urban II consented to Alexius' request and called all to aid of their fellow Christians who had been attacked by the Turks. Perhaps having various other reasons for aiding Alexius, the sole reason that seems to stand out is that of healing relations between the Eastern and Western Church which had been severed after the Great Schism. To what extent the Crusades were successful is debatable. Ultimately, however, the Crusades did not manage to heal the split between the Eastern and Western Church, but did manage to strengthen the Roman Catholic Church and simultaneously accelerated trade and gave huge economic gains to Western Europe. In other words, the Crusades were a successful failure.
The sixth, seventh, and eight crusade were not at all successful. Although the Byzantines recovered their capital in 1261, the Fourth Crusade did a long-lasting damage to their Empire. By the time it was over, the frictions and misunderstandings between East and West which had begun with the First Crusade had turned into permanent hatred.
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
The first Crusade was the most successful but the land they gained was taken away form then then taken back throughout the other Crusades. At times the Europeans had control of the Holy Lands but it quickly went away because the Muslims started to fight just as hard. The Europeans invade Southwest Asia for really no good reason they just wanted to take control of more land. Because the Europeans were fighting a greedy war none of the advancements they made really stuck. Each Crusade had a leader with different personal goals in mind, yes they all wanted to cleanse the Holy Land, but that was a blanket they used to justify the war and cover up their selfish motives.
The Crusades were a failure in their goal of conquering the Holy Land for Christians. They cost a lot to the European nobility and resulted in thousands of deaths. Nevertheless, these expeditions influenced great transformations in the medieval world. They have weakened feudal aristocracy, strengthened royal power, and made possible the expansion of the market. Eastern civilization contributed much to European cultural enrichment, promoting intellectual development. Never again was Jerusalem dominated by Christians, but the movements on the way to the Holy Land expanded relationships with the known world at the time.
There were both positive and negative effects of The Crusades, although the positives did outweigh the negatives. The two major negative effects were anti-Semitism and the orchestrated attacks by Venice. Many Crusaders in Europe were so religiously fuming, that they turned their anger towards the Jews. They would at times massacre a whole community as a result of their religious rage. During the fourth crusade, crusaders began fighting Christians instead of Muslims. After helping Venetian merchants defeat their Byzantine trade rivals in 1204, the crusaders captured and looted Constantinople. They actually ransacked the capital of the Byzantine Empire, the empire in which they began to fight for, not against. There also were many positive effects of The Crusades, one being the increase of trade. Even before the Crusades, merchants began to enjoy some of the luxury goods that were brought from the Byzantine Empire. The crusaders that
There was one goal for each crusade, if the goal was accomplished then the Crusade was a success. In the 11th century the Crusades began with religious leaders like Pope Urban II, manipulating the population to motivate the movement. He did this in many ways both ostracizing muslims as well as telling the citizens that if they join the war there sins will be forgotten by God. This made the war sound like a very good idea to a lot of people. Though what the crusaders were doing was taking over land most of the crusaders were doing so for a religous reasons.
Many people consider the Crusades as wars of bloodlust, greed, and power. War can be described as an escalated conflict, most commonly over money or other resources. The outcome of war is usually the advancement of one society due to its newly acquired resources or knowledge. If one were to look at the Crusades, and their original purpose, which was to assist Constantinople and free the Holy Land from Muslim control, then one may make the conclusion that the Crusades failed. Although the Christians did not win over the Holy Land, Europe as a whole benefited greatly from the revival of East to West trade, and new inventions and innovations that arose during the time of the Crusades.