The Story of the Crusades

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,

The Crusades were a series of religious that were wars fought between Christians and Muslims over control of the Holy Land. The majority of them took place between 1095 and 1291, but that's only because their was big wars and small fight. Some of the big wars were thing that were fought over such as land or anything they could own/rule. The Holy Land was and still is a place that is very important for the two major monotheistic - Judaism and Christianity. Adding on wars are not a good thing, that's why I think the Crusades were negative.

The Crusades were a series of sacred wars pronounced by popes with the guarantee of indulgences for the individuals who battled in them and coordinated against outside and inward foes of Christendom for the recuperation of Christian property or with regards to the Church or Christian individuals. Crusades were described as the taking of promises and the conceding of indulgences to the individuals who partook in it. Similar to going on pilgrimages, which was a favored activity, crusading was a demonstration of Christian love and devotion that made up for and paid the punishments earned by transgression. It denoted a break in prehistoric Christian medieval origination of fighting (warfare) in that crusades were penitential fighting (warfare). Crusades consolidated the thoughts of Holy War and Pilgrimage to deliver the idea of indulgences (exoneration of atonement and sin allowed by papacy for cooperation in sacrosanct action).

For four-hundred and sixty-three years before the first crusade Christians repeatedly suffered bloody attacks from the Muslims. In their search for riches the Muslims destroyed churches, namely the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and shrines along the way and the Islamic belief was spread throughout Europe. The Holy Land had been defiled and desecrated and taken from the Christians. The response, a holy-war. While some see the crusades as an act of religious justification others see a well thought plan by some to gain religious, social, and even political power that resulted in an unjust massacre of innocent people.

The medieval Crusade was a huge holy war which was sanctioned by the pope and conducted against the Muslim group which was the enemies of the Christian religion. The Crusades were multiple wars fought by Christians and Muslims from Europe over who had control over Jerusalem and other holy places. In this paper, I will give a brief history on the first and last Crusades and then elaborate on the root causes of the Crusades.

Back in the middle ages, the average civilian would join the knighthood in order to climb the social chain. As a member of the knighthood, during the Crusades, the knights would be given an occupation, a form of profit, and would be given a education. These skills would give a knight the ability to be work after their employment in the Crusades. The Crusades itself, was caused by different religions, along with an area of land that was important to both sides . While the Christian religion believed in that the Holy Land should belong to them, the land already belonged to a different group of people, who also had their own form of religion. Therefore the Europeans wanted to claim the ancient land, ultimately causing the Crusades, also known as the Holy Wars. The knights themselves all fought under God’s name, making theology a big part of their way of life. This and other parts of the Crusades have made their way into society even leading to present day. Therefore these knights had created a way of surviving through the harsh middle ages and impacted the world in

The crusades first started when the Roman Pope had the state and religious power. He gave the ideas to the romans that Christianity is the most important religion there is, that there should be no one alive who isn’t Christian. The Pope was able to order people to kill all the Muslims in the Holy Land, and this was when the Crusades started occurring. The crusades also started from the large trading route that passed through the Holy Lands. The Pope’s greediness wanted the Holy Land so they could have many goods to trade for money back in Europe. The crusades were a horrible event that caused mass chaos. Although it did cause chaos the crusades made something beautiful happen, know as the Italian Renaissance. The Renaissance actually did come from the crusades because the crusaders would take their goods that they stole from the Muslims, and the Italians were the middle man. This meant that Italians were able to intake the ideas of Muslims, thus producing the

By 1096, thousands of knights traveled to the holy lands to begin what later became known as the first Crusade. Pope Urban II had personal motives to increase his power in Europe, as well as to heal the split between the Roman and Byzantine churches. In 1099, Christian knights took control of Jerusalem, resulting in the massacre of Muslim and Jewish citizens. Throughout the following years, the Muslims repeatedly fought to regain control of the Holy Land, resulting also in the deaths of Christian residents. “The Crusades left a bitter legacy of religious hatred” (Ellis Esler 258). During the years of the Crusades, there was no separation between church and state. The two had influence and power over the people, which allowed the church to be extremely involved in starting the Crusades. Separation Of church and state means that a national religion cannot be established, therefore, the church stays out of the governments business and the government stays out of the churches business. The crusades were blood baths in the name of religion, with the Christians fighting Islamic Muslims and visa-versa. Had there been a separation between church and state, the emperor would not have been able to call upon Pope Urban II to influence so many to engage in the First Crusade, as a holy war. The same as the Muslim’s fighting jihad in the name of their religion. The first crusade was the only

Dating back to the 11th century, The Crusades can arguably be seen as one of the most pivotal events in religious history. What lead to the development of the crusades though? Several acts of influence and persuasion helped create a large following of support to partake in these controversial events. With the main source of influence sprouting directly from the popes and those of the church affiliated directly under the pope during this time period, they were able to gain a large amount of support from the people of their religion by promising forgiveness of sins as this would be seen as a command from christ. Along with these promises for the remission of sins, Pope Urban II goes on to portray the other religions as gruesome races who have

The crusades were a series of 4 religious based wars, that took place from 1095-1291, in which Western Christians (most notably from Italy and France) invaded the Mediterranean and Middle East in an attempt to recover the holy city of Jerusalem from the Muslim people, who were seen as the enemy. From the Christian point of view, the crusades were a holy war done to reunite Christian loyalty and faith, and also to recover Jerusalem and to protect the Christian faith and people from the spread of Islam. However, the Christian retelling of this event is the most common, and there is very little showing the Muslim perspective, or for that matter, Middle Eastern perspective, including Jewish and Orthodox Christians, who also suffered greatly at

These are just some reasons, although there were many other reasons for the Church and people to cause the Crusades to happen (such as the Investiture Controversy). With all the possible benefits of driving away the Turks from the Holy Lands, Pope Urban couldn 't resist building up an army to do so. When he called up people to join in 1095, he offered crusaders forgiveness of their sins. Many knights and people of all classes answered his call to battle and would have to face a long journey to carry out the purpose of the call.

While the crusades were indeed filled with brutality that makes the modern reader cringe at the very idea of them. The crusades very much did serve multiple purposes in Mediaeval Europe. One of these main ones most definitely bring uniting the fragmented countries against one common enemy. In this case, the issue of the holy land being under Islamic control. (Tyerman, Introduction. Page 1)

The crusades was a very good thing for the Catholic Church best the had contributed lots of money to the churches and monasteries but in the end the beautiful churches and monasteries went for a fraction of what they where really worth which is sad for all the time put in to them after the wars thousands of crusaders returned with bad health and broken spirits sought asylum to cloistral retreats where they where healed the church was also showed with gifts from the crusades and the church was massively push of religion from the crusaders that went from a very small gathering of some people in each region to a very big thing and churches where over crowed with

The Crusades were military expeditions by the Christian kings and knights to rescue the Holy Land from the Muslim Turks (Medieval Life and Times, 2014). Almost all of the Crusades, except the First Crusade failed; The 2nd Crusade marked the fall of Edessa, the 3rd Crusade allowed Christians to enter the Holy Land, but they were still subject to Koranic Law, the 4th Crusade was known as the bloodiest Crusade as the Frenchmen and the Venetians rerouted to Constantinople, the Children’s Crusade left many dead or sold to slavery and the 5th to the 9th Crusade weren’t of great effect to the Holy Land (The Crusades and Medieval Christianity, 2015). What sets apart the First Crusade is that Pope Urban II and his colleagues had successfully captured

The Crusades were military expeditions by the Christian Kings and knights to rescue the Holy Land from the Muslim Turks (Damen, 2013). Almost all of the Crusades, except the First Crusade failed; The 2nd Crusade marked the fall of Edessa, the 3rd Crusade allowed Christians to enter the Holy Land, but they were still subject to Koranic Law, the 4th Crusade was known as the bloodiest Crusade as the Frenchmen and the Venetians rerouted to Constantinople, the Children’s Crusade left many children dead or sold to slavery, and lastly the minor crusades(5th until the 9th Crusade) were not of help to the Holy Land (The Crusades and Medieval Christianity, 2015). What sets apart the First Crusade was that Pope Urban II had successfully captured the Holy