The First Crusades Essay

This crusade would grant remission of sin to those who undertook the crusade. Harris again remarks on the similarities, “The reaction in the papal curia when news arrived that Constantinople had fallen was much the same as it had been when Jerusalem had been lost to Saladin in 1187” (pg 195 2nd Edition). Pope Urban IV justifies this new crusade by saying that without Constantinople, the way to Jerusalem was blocked and any efforts to retake the Holy Land would fail. This call to crusade is similar to the one that launches the Third Crusade led by Richard Coeur de Lion to retake Jerusalem. However, here these parallels end. Unlike in the Third Crusade, Pope Urban IV's call for crusade fails and no armies are sent forth. At least none that could constitute a strict crusade due to a lack of promised remission of

Post 1 Pope Urban II has called the council of Clermont together to give a speech on the problem of the Muslims attaching the catholic pilgrimages. Part of his speech is as follows; On this account I, or rather the Lord, beseech you as Christ's heralds to publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends. I say this to those who are present, it is meant also for those who are absent. Moreover, Christ commands it. (from the lesson)

The Crusades were the first tactical mission by Western Christianity in order to recapture the Muslim conquered Holy Lands. Several people have been accredited with the launch of the crusades including Peter the Hermit however it is now understood that this responsibility rested primarily with Pope Urban II . The main goal of the Crusades was the results of an appeal from Alexius II, who had pleaded for Western Volunteers help with the prevention of any further invasions. The Pope’s actions are viewed as him answering the pleas of help of another in need, fulfilling his Christian right. However, from reading the documents it is apparent that Pope Urban had ulterior motives for encouraging engagement in the war against the Turks. The

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.

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.

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

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.

According to Baldric's version of Pope Urban II's speech calling for holy war, the Pope's chief motive was to rescue or liberate Jerusalem from Muslim control, for the purpose of spreading Christianity (namely, Roman Catholicism.) Baldric wrote about the speech favorably, from a post-crusade perspective, biased by his support of the crusades and his knowledge of the victories achieved.

In his call at Clermont in 1095, Pope Urban II asked all fellow Christians to join in the aid of the Christians in the East that were then prone to Turkish attacks. Requesting that they all leave their lives and run to their aid, Pope Urban II explained how they would be doing all in the name of God. The Pope let all of the people know that they would all be greatly recompensed in following God's will and fighting for God and in doing so he further led the people to understand that any killing they would do would be forgiven since it was all to be in God's will. In addition, he insisted that if any were to die in this aid, they would all be

In addition to the horrors carried out by the Seljuk horde on Christians and their shrines, the Byzantines were also begging the pope to protect their empire from other Turkish tribes. Urban II's main incentive for answering this plea for help was not entirely contingent on the letter he received from the Holy Roman Emperor, but more so from the notion that the Eastern and Western sects of the church could be unified. Moreover, they might be fused under the Pope, granting him sovereignty over the entire Christian church. This Papal hope has been revealed to historians through, among other sources, the different accounts of his speech at Clermont. For example, Guibert of Nogent recalls the pope declaring: "And you ought, furthermore, to consider with the utmost deliberation, ..., that the Mother of churches should flourish anew to the worship of Christianity, whether perchance, [God] may not wish other regions of the East to be restored to the faith against the approaching time of the Antichrist" (Peters, Guibert of Nogent, 35). Unfortunately, the Holy Roman Emperor feared his throne was in jeopardy due to the large number of crusaders that arrived to drive out the Turks. He demanded that they press on towards the Holy Land, and for reasons that need not be discussed, strong ties with the Papacy were severed soon

The Crusades hold a place in the canon of Western history as valiant wars against the infidel in the East, motivated by an unparalleled pious zeal. Whilst revisions to this history have considered more mundane and ordinary motives, such as a want for land or an attempt to reinforce the Peace of God movement, there is something to be said of the religious motivations of the crusaders. The words ‘conquest’ and ‘conversion’ seem ideologically charged – with conquest being what is done by temporal rulers to physical land and people, and conversion being what is done to the spiritual self, by someone who does not have anything material to gain from the action. However, it can be argued that these lines can be blurred; I wish to present the case of conquest being religiously charged, and the idea that any subsequent conversion is of little importance. By examining the geographical targets of various crusaders, I will conclude that they were more interested in conquest than conversion: but this was not necessarily for earthly reasons alone.

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.

Religion was one of the main reasons for the start of the First Crusade. Islam was growing and by the time of the late 11th century Islam occupied the areas of the Holy Land which were the foundations of Christian belief. Pope Urban 2nd made his speech November 1095 urging a military expedition to aid the Christians in the east. The Pope hoped that it would unify quarrelling in Europe and unite Europe through Christianity. The response that the Pope received was enormous. In the opinion of Jean Richard, who states that it was ‘problematic’ as it ‘set off shock waves that put

In 1094 or 1096, Alexios I Komnenos, The Byzantine emperor, formally asked Pope Urban II to address a large crowd at the council of Clermont to persuade them to assist the Greeks in the recovery of Palestine from the Muslims. Although the act that occurred at Clermont was not recorded, five men who heard and was present at Clermont recorded their versions of the speech. With these five versions of this speech being the only link in history to Pope Urban II’s speech, each version showing a sense of diversity and the only history known about the crusades. The five versions of Pope Urban II’s speech differentiated each other one way or another.