The First Crusade

There were eight significant Crusades, which were sparked for many different reasons by many different people that left a lasting effect to the world. These years of bloodshed were led by men of power in order to gain control over Jerusalem at the expenses of others. Throughout the 11th to 13th century, nine significant crusades occurred. There were many other small crusades throughout this period, which continued into the 16th century, until the Renaissance and Reformation when political and religious climate of Europe was drastically different than that of the middle ages (CBN). The most successful of the rebellion was that of the First Crusade. After taking Nicea, the Anatolian capital of the Seljuks, the Crusaders captured Antoich in Syria and Jerusalem in 1099 (history bits). The success of these missions allowed Crusaders to establish permanent settlements

A major turning point in Medieval history were the Crusades. The Crusades were a series of wars fought between the Christian Europeans and the Muslim Turks, which occurred between the years of 1096 to 1272. In this Holy War the Christians goal was to obtain the Holy Land from the Turks, in which they did not succeed. Although the Christians did not meet their goal, many positives did come out of their attempt. Due to the reason that they did not meet their goal, yet numerous positives came out of their effort, many refer to this as a successful failure.

During this time a monk named Peter the Hermit, carried a huge cross town to town and preaching to the people. This made people want to get out and go reconquest Jerusalem. They were starting to get antsy and eventually a horde of poor men, women and children set out on the trip to Jerusalem known as the “People’s Crusade” or “Peasants Crusade”. The name was given to the crusader because they had started their expedition before the great leaders that lead the main crusade. The People’s Crusade was unorganized and mostly unarmed. Women and children were the majority of the tens of thousands of individuals heading to jerusalem. They traveled down the Danube valley and passed through Constantinople before the main crusade was supposed to meet. They were led by Peter the Hermit and a few other higher ranking knights but later became too much for them to control. Along their journey through germany and hungary their number grew shorter due to battles with the natives of the land. When the “People's Crusade” crossed the Asia minor they were surprised and slaughters by the Turks. A few thousand including Peter the Hermit survived and would eventually continue their march to

he subject of the crusades is still a very controversial topic that spans across various time periods and has religious, social, and political implications. The first crusade started off as a widespread pilgrimage that ended as a military expedition resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem in 1099. The crusades initiated from a call from help from Alexius for the protection of Constantinople and the recovery of Anatolia. For centuries textbooks have repeated with routine regularity, that the immediate cause, of the Crusades was the Turkish conquest of the Near East, which apparently was a very real threat to Christendom, that had to be countered by military action. With this in mind, the primary purpose of this essay is to identify the various reasons that contributed to the start of the first crusade, while disproving the fact that the first Crusade was a response to a military threat. In discovering the true cause of the first crusades it is necessary to examine it from all aspects from the start to the finish.

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.

The First Crusade was called in 1095 by Pope Urban II in November. It was here that the Pope made a proposal: “Whoever for devotion alone, but not to gain honour or money, goes to Jerusalem to liberate the Church of God can substitute this journey for all penane” (Phillips, 21). Pope Urban II saw the first crusade as a chance for knights to direct their energy towards a spiritually rewarding experience, namely the recovery of the Holy City of Jerusalem from Islam. Knights were told that in return for their efforts their sins

The origin of the Crusades is rooted in political upheaval. The mid seventh century to the mid tenth century CE saw a gradual expansion of Islam (Riley-Smith 1). Half of the Christian world was conquered by Arab armies. This included countries in which Christianity had been established for centuries, such as Egypt, southern France, southern Italy, Sicily, Spain, Syria, and Turkey (Riley-Smith 2). By the late tenth century, Europe and the Middle East were divided into Christian and Muslim hemispheres of influence. Christian pilgrims from Europe regularly visited the Muslim-controlled Jerusalem. These pilgrimages were very popular.

Before the first Crusade, Western Europe had become a place with not much progress, confined from other civilizations and hidden in the Dark Ages that had gone down on Western Christendom after the collapse of the Roman Empire. At the time of the first Crusade, the Middle East and Western Europe were greatly divided. The Crusades contributed to the end of Western Europe’s global isolation by introducing an era in which Western Europe came into direct contact with the large trade routes that united their civilization with Asia.

The First Crusade (1096 - 1099) played a very important part in Medieval Europe .the First Crusade was an attempt to re-capture Jerusalem. After the capture of Jerusalem by the Muslims in 1076, any Christian who wanted to pay a pilgrimage to the city faced a very hard time. When the pope urban 2 made his speech he made lots and lots of people listen and got to war he machined that a lot of people were slaughterer and that this is what god wanted. Muslim soldiers made life very difficult for the Christians and trying to get to Jerusalem was filled with danger for a Christian.

After the Pope called the Christians to battle, the First Crusade started in the spring of 1096 in Northwestern Europe. The first attack was not against the Muslims, but against the Jews. Anti-Semitism had existed in Europe already, but the First Crusade was considered the first mass violence against the Jews. The Crusaders were convinced that the Jews were partaking in the murdering of Jesus in Jerusalem.

Late in the year of 1095 Pope Urban announced on Tuesday, November 27 that he would hold a public session to make a great announcement. This was the beginning of what was to be the First Crusade . After having painted a real grim or somber picture the Pope made his appeal. He thought that western Christendom should march to the rescue of the East. Rich and poor alike should go and they should leave off slaying each other and instead fight a great war. Supposedly they thought it was God will and that God would lead them and Take care of them. During his speech Cries of "Dues le wolt! -- "God wills it!" - Interrupted his speech. Just after the Pope ended his speech the bishop of Le Puy fell to his knees and asked permission to join the "Holy Expedition." Hundreds crowded up to later follow his example.

The first crusade lasted from 1096 to 1099. In 1095, the Pope declared war against the Muslims. Then in 1096 troops from France, Germany and Italy fought. The reason for this was to take back the holy land of Jerusalem. The person who was responsible of leading this journey was Duke Godfrey. Duke Godfrey was a very religious man, an example of his religiousness was

The Crusades occurred because Europe had a growing capacity for conquest. There was also so many landowners that each one only had some land and not enough for all to share, so they needed more land for farming and agricultural purposes many nobles often supported the Crusades for this reason. More and more land was being taken away from them as they encountered many attacks from outside forces.The Crusades began in 1095, when armies from Western Europe decided to go with Pope Urban ii’s decision to go to war against Muslim forces in the Holy Land. The first Crusade accomplished their goal to capture Jerusalem in 1099, the Christians set up Latin Christians States, even when Muslims vowed to have war to regain control over their tooken land.

The crusades were undertaken during the latter part of the Middle Ages and are referred to as “The Holy Wars” because of their religious roots. The first crusade was announced by Pope Urban II in 1095 and was aimed at taking back Jerusalem, the holy land of Christians from the Muslims who would not allow Christians access to the holy sites there (Castleden 132). The pope persuaded people to join the crusade promising that their sins would be forgiven if they did (Crusades). In August of 1095 all the people who had joined the crusade gathered and departed for Constantinople where they would meet up with the Byzantine Army and together reclaim Jerusalem. After the crusaders had reached Constantinople they began a push towards Jerusalem and getting most of the other sites to surrender to them due to their huge numbers (Castleden 133).