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The Months That Followed The Council Of Clermont Were Marked

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The months that followed the Council of Clermont were marked by an epidemic of religious excitement in Western Europe. The most popular preachers everywhere took up the cry "God wills it!" and urged the listeners to start for Jerusalem. A monk named Peter the Hermit aroused large parts of France with his passionate eloquence, as he rode from town to town, carrying a huge cross before him and preaching to vast crowds. Without waiting for the main body of nobles, which was to assemble at Constantinople in the summer of 1096, a horde of poor men, women, and children set out, unorganized and almost unarmed, on the road to the Holy Land. This was called the Peoples Crusade, it is also referred to as the Peasants Crusade. Dividing command of …show more content…

Once the First Crusade achieved its goal with capturing of Jerusalem in 1099, the invading Christians set up several Latin Christians states. Even as Muslims in the region vowed to wage holy war (Jihad) to regain control over the region. Deteriorating relations between the Crusaders and their Christian allies in the Byzantine Empire culminated in the sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Third Crusade. Near the end of the 13th century, the rising Mamluk dynasty in Egypt provided the final reckoning for the Crusaders, toppling the coastal stronghold of Acre and driving the Euopean invaders out of Palestine and Syria in 1291. Four armies of Crusaders were formed from troops of different Western European regions, let by Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Godfrey of Bouillon, Hugh of Vermandois and Bohemond of Taranto (with his nephew Tancred); they were set to depart for Byzantiom in August 1096. A less organized band of knights and commoners known as the “People’s Crusade” set off before the others under the command of a popular preacher known as Peter the Hermit. Peter’s army traipsed through the Byzantine Empire, leaving destruction in their wake. Resisting Alexius’ advice to wait for the rest of the Crusaders, they crossed the Bosporus in early August. In the first major clash between the Crusaders and the Muslims, Turkish forces crushed the invading Europians at Cibutus. Another group of Crusaders, let by notoriour Count Emicho, carried out a

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