The Pros And Cons Of The Crusades

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The crusades for the most part, are largely misunderstood. The Crusaders were not gullible, or stupid to travel so far, but rather, patriots for Christ. Although Europe was left in poor hands, they were still cheered on. The crusades were, in fact, triggered by Muslim aggression.
The first of three points is this: the crusaders fought primarily for the cause of Christ. Unlike Islam, the Christians had no well-defined concept of holy war in the middle ages. Christ had no need for an army. The word ‘crusade’ actually comes from the Latin ‘cruce signati’ which translates those signed by the cross‘’. The knights and nobles of the crusades went, not because the Pope commanded them, but out of a true necessity to liberate the lands of their savior. The thought that God would bless them with victory as He had done long ago for His people, where they not His people as well? Would God, not dispel the infidel Turks as He had scattered the Philistines long ago? Yes, these were some of the most faithful Christians you could meet. They were going to die for what they thought was God’s will. That is simply dumbfounding (Madden 2). …show more content…

At first, this doesn’t sound like much of a problem, after all, weren’t the crusaders mostly nobles and knights? Actually the antithesis is true; the majority of the crusaders were relatively poor. But because of this they were able to simply get up and go whereas the nobility had to wait and prepare for the journey. Though they thought that they were to be protected by God the crusades, more often than not, were a one way trip. This simple fact had a tendency to split families with grief (Nicholson 143). The crusades didn’t only go on in the east, there were also crusades against pagans, heretics, and enemies of the

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