Monotheism And Its Consequences In The Crusades

Monotheism is a doctrine that is straight to the point, rather than complex. It is defined as a belief that there is only one existing god. Although this belief seems simple in comparison to polytheism; the belief in many gods, history has proven that monotheism had its fair share of consequences from its inception in Judea and Egypt all the way through the medieval era. Monotheism first began in Judea, making Judaism the first monotheistic religion. For the Jews, “monotheism had initiated a process of self-discovery and self-realization unmatched by other peoples of the Near East. The great value that Westerners give to the individual and to human dignity derives in part from the ancient Hebrews, who held that human beings were created in

The Crusades can be defined as, “the struggle to regain Holy Land from Islam.” The First Crusade was triggered by the attack of Jerusalem in June of 1099 as well as the massacre of the city’s residents. “Religious fanaticism unleashed by the call for The First Crusade undermined Christian-Jewish relations gravely.” This conflict caused Crusaders to attack and slaughter the Jewish, which left thousands of lives dead. The reason for the many lives that were taken away was because some “refused to convert to Christianity and because of the houses that were looted and burned.” Although civil authorities and bishops attempted to protect the Jews, the attempts turned out to be failures. Things became violent and harsh during the Crusade. Age and gender was not taken into consideration during attack. Women and children were also targets. About 700 people prevented attack. Anti-Semitism became a characteristic in Latin Christendom, after The First

“The Latin Christians looted the city, destroying sacred books, vandalizing churches, and carrying huge amounts of gold, jewels, Christian relics, and works of art back to Western Europe.” Once they set up kingdoms on Byzantine lands, they tried forcing Latin forms of Christianity on the Byzantine Greeks. Although in 1261, “the Westerners were driven from Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire regained its independence,” its power was majorly weakened. The consequences that they experienced were, “crushing taxes, decreasing agricultural production, declining trade, and civil war continued to sap the tottering empire.” The Byzantine empire eventually came to an