The Christian Crusades Essay

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.

The Crusades took place in the Middle East between 1095 and 1291. They were used to gain a leg up on trading, have more land to show hegemony, and to please the gods. Based upon the documents, the Crusades between 1095 and 1291 were caused primarily by religious devotion rather than by the desire for economic and political gain.

The Crusades were a succession of many wars, which “originally” started as a request from Alexius II for aid after a devastating war in the Battle of Mazikert. This war had taken its ravishing toll on the Greeks in the Middle East. The Battle of Mazikert was a result of the expansion and occupancy of two conflicting empires that

In 1095 Pope Urban II delivered a riveting call to arms that led to the formation of a divinely inspired army intent on retaking Jerusalem from Muslim control. He grounds this appeal on a command from God: “I, not I, but God exhorts you as heralds of Christ to repeatedly urge men of all ranks…to hasten to exterminate this vile race from our lands and to aid the Christian inhabitants” (Fulcher 66). Though Urban emphasizes the need to assist the Byzantine Christians, the hordes of common people, clergy, and nobility that answer his call have diverse motives for embarking on the crusade. The rationalization for the first crusade is revealed expressly by participants who authored chronicles. However, some of the most conclusive evidence is

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.

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 First Crusades was a military group that was started by Christians in Europe who wanted to gain back the Holy Land that was being occupied by the Muslims. Pope Urban II preached a sermon at Clermont Ferrand on November 1095. Most histories consider this speech to be the spark the fueled a wave of military campaigns to gain back the Holy Land. This speech was meant to unite the Europeans and to gain back what was taken from them. The holy land was a small area on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The First Crusades was a very successful military expedition that was driven by religious faith to reclaim Jerusalem and other holy places that fell under Muslim control. driven by religious faith. They wanted to gain back the Holy Land that was once theirs. Arabs and the Muslim Turks otherwise known as the Seljuk Turks were the Muslims that invaded and conquered land rightfully occupied by the Christian’s. Many European men, women, and children joined the Crusades and fought in the Middle East. Pope Urban II granted forgiveness of all sins to those who died in battle thus assuring them ascendancy into heaven. Which gave those who volunteered to fight assurance. Nobles and peasants responded in great numbers to the call and marched across Europe to the capital of the Byzantine empire. Having the support of the Byzantine emperor helped make them a stronger army. The Crusaders took over many of the cities on the Mediterranean coast and built a large number of fortified castles across the Holy Land to protect their newly established territories. Soon after seizing power the Seljuks face a very different challenge to Islamic civilization. It came from Christian Crusaders. Knights from western Europe who were determined to capture portions of the Islamic world that made up the holy land of biblical times. Muslim political division and element of surprise made the first of the Crusaders assaults, between 1096 and 1099, by far the most successful. Much of

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 were one of the most prominent events in Western European history; they were not discrete and unimportant pilgrimages, but a continuous stream of marching Western armies (Crusaders) into the Muslim world, terminating in the creation and eventually the fall of the Islamic Kingdoms. The Crusades were a Holy War of Roman Christianity against Islam, but was it really a “holy war” or was it Western Europe fighting for more land and power? Through Pope Urban II and the Roman Catholic Church’s actions, their proposed motivations seem unclear, and even unchristian. Prior to the Crusades, Urban encouraged that Western Europe fight for their religion but throughout the crusades the real motivations shone though; the Crusaders were power

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.

In The middle of the Eleventh Century The tranquillity of the eastern Mediterranean seemed assured for many years to come, but little did the people know what was ahead . This, thus embark us on a journey back into the First Crusade. In this paper I will be discussing the events that lead up to the first in a long line of crusades. I will also be mentioning the lives of some of the crusaders through letters that they wrote. The crusades were a time of confusion for most people, yet today we look back at them as a turning point.

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.

In 1095, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II began a striking expedition to Jerusalem in order to release the city from Muslim control. His moving campaign and the promise of an immense reward was inspirational to the many willing participants. One must essentially understand that the leaders of these crusades connected almost every accomplishment to the works of God, and felt a huge moral obligation to take back what once belonged to Him. The extent of the crusades shows the deep devotion that most of Western Europe had towards Christianity and the desire to rid the world of unnecessary evils.

However as soon as Popes start suggesting armed conflicts against kings and emperors the people would rally together regardless of how wrong it is. The Popes gave promises of spiritual benefits for those who died fighting for the causes, which then extended to anyone who joined the campaigns. During the first crusade in 1095, Pope Urban II called for the great Christian holy war, which would take back the holy city of Jerusalem back from the infidels known as the Muslims. He held on to the belief that the Holy City belonged to the Christian

According to scholars the crusades can simply be described as a series of military-religious campaigns by European Catholics to increase Christian influence in Palestine from the 11th to 14th centuries. Originally, these Roman Catholic crusades including attempts to re-capture the Holy Land from the Muslims were often led by none other then the papacy themselves. These holy leaders between the 11th and 14th century included many important figures including Pope Urban II and Pope Innocent III. These men helped in organizing the first and fourth crusades and their reasons behind doing so included a seek to serve God & Church in a bold, heroic way, to spread Christianity, and Fight Islam which they viewed as evil. All these reason behind crusading are most obvious in the first crusade led and organized by Pope Urban II. According to the crusades 1099 document stated "the Pope (Pope Urban II) exhorted the assembled multitude to wrest the Holy Land from the hands of the Infidel and assured them that God would absolve them from any sin associated with the venture." Once he said this people began to shout, "It is the will of God." Those few words from the pope are what set the stage for not only the first crusades but all the ones to follow. Once the crusade began 100,000 crusader stormed towards the gates of Jerusalem and while doing so killed thousands in their way, including many Jews. Once they finally invaded Jerusalem they obtained an easy victory and in the eyes of many this