Causes Of The Crusades

702 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Causes and consequences of the first crusade

The Crusades attempted to “reclaim” Jerusalem and other holy sites. Seljuk Turks spread throughout Asia Minor taking Jerusalem from the Shi’ite Muslims and cutting off Christian pilgrimages. In 1071 the (Sunni) Muslim Seljuks invaded Byzantium defeating its armies and capturing Emperor Romanus. In 1095 Eastern Byzantine Emperor Alexius I turned to Pope Urban II asking him for mercenaries to remount his defense against the Seljuks. Urban II decided to use the opportunity to take the Holy Land and called for Christians to form a militia to free the Holy Land. The Second Crusade attempted to take Damascus and protect the Crusader States. The Crusades failed to keep lasting control of the Holy Land but the Crusades do represent a shift in political power in Europe. The conflict between Pope Gregory VII and Emperor IV demonstrate the church coming into power of influence but the Crusades demonstrate the Pope’s new political power in calling for war to achieve their own ends.
Urban II had several reasons for calling for the first Crusade. He desired to free captured Christians and secure the Holy Land so pilgrimages could resume. Christians made pilgrimages to the sites where Jesus had lived and been crucified in hopes of miraculous healing or help. Urban II also hoped to use the conflict with the Seljuks to create an army to be used for holy purposes. He the Pope would thus control this army as God’s spokesman. The ability to command such a militia allowed the Pope new international military power.
The Pope’s offer of indulgence for participation in the crusade attracted many different classes of Europeans. The promise of forgiveness allowing direct entry into heaven or reduced time in purgatory attracted rich and poor as well as bo...

... middle of paper ...

...s. Conflict with the Muslims just deepened religious already existing gaps. The Crusades even for their bloodiness did have a few positive effects. The Crusades did increase interest in exploration and increased Europe’s economy through trade. But ultimately the Crusades resulted in new emphasis in the political power of the Pope.

Bibliography
Hunt, Lynn. "The Heirs of Rome: Islam, Byzantium, and Europe." The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures. Fourth ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. N. pag. Print.
Nicholson, Helen. "Saints or sinners? The Knights Templar in Medieval Europe." History Today 44, no. 12 (December 1994): 30. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed April 24, 2014)
"Pope Urban II launches the first crusade." Christian History 9, no. 4 (November 1990): 21. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed April 24, 2014)

Show More
Related

  • Violence in The Crusades

    614 Words  | 2 Pages

    A major part of the fighters in the crusades were untrained and unqualified peasants who went out to get back the holy lands for the church from the ?evil Muslims? (Medieval Europe 164-167). This was called the Peasants Crusade. In order to get these peasants, who knew no better, to go and fight the church told them that if they were to go and fight these ?horrible Muslims? then they would automatically get admission into heaven. Of course this automatically appealed to the peasants being that they were so god-fearing. They thought that if they helped the church then they would go to heaven and so they jumped at such an opportunity to get a get-into-heaven-free card. These people in all their religious glory went in and attacked the city of Nicaea (TWW, 104), and got killed. The city of Nicaea was a well fortified city controlled by Seljuk Turks. The peasants went in and attacked and literally got slaughtered. Only 2000 peasants survived their hasty attack. Unfortunately most of the crusades went this way(TWW)

    Read More

  • The First Crusade Sparknotes

    672 Words  | 2 Pages

    Foss explains, “What Urban needed was an enterprise, clearly virtuous in serving the ends of Christiandome… in these moments of reflection, the popes mind turned towards Jerusalem.” Urban II reflects back on the first taking of the Holy City after the defeat of the Byzantine Empire in 1071, and begins to question what his people know about the Turkish race and really the ideology of Islamic thought. Foss goes on to examine the ignorance of westerners and needed to be “reminded [by the pope] of the infamous heathens, their cruelty and hatred of Christians,” hoping this would justify the first Holy Crusade. However, Foss identifies the creativity of the Pope’s language to persuade the knights and army of the people to embark on the Holy Crusade based on the Muslims cruel actions turned onto their fellow Christians. Claiming the Muslims “Killed captives by torture…poor captives were whipped…and others were bound to the post and used as a target for arrows.” Foss examines the Popes words as an effective effort of persuasion in creating an army of crusaders to help clean “…Holy places, which are now treated with ignominy and polluted with Filthiness” and any sacrifice in Jerusalem is a “promise of a spiritual reward… and death for

    Read More

  • The First Crusades Analysis

    1928 Words  | 4 Pages

    The First Crusade was a widely appealing armed pilgrimage, and mobilized a vast conquering force at a time when the Christian Church was moving towards centralization and greater political influence in Europe. The Church gained a wider audience more accepting of its leadership, benefitted economically, and developed its own militarily force. These outcomes, along with the Church’s documented ambition to expand and its reversal of prior teachings, support the idea that the First Crusade was a deliberate political maneuver, intended to to expand and consolidate the authority of the

    Read More

  • The Influence of Pope Urban II

    1114 Words  | 3 Pages

    It is amazing how much political and military supremacy the papacy position gained when the Crusades began. The First Crusade (1096-1099) was a military expedition initiated by Pope Urban the II to regain the Holy Lands in Jerusalem from the Muslim conquest. The Pope gave a speech requesting military action against Muslim takeover to the French people of Clermont. The speech eventually propagated to other nations for further recruitment. Urban’s political and military involvement helped regain the Holy Lands and save the Christian Crusaders souls. His famous speech changed the course of history in part because its dissemination was overly successful, and assembled over 40,000 Crusaders to do the will of God. Why was Pope Urban II so victorious in recruiting people for the First Crusade, and why was his influence so important?

    Read More

  • Postclassical Era in Western Europe

    683 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kings often struggled with the Church over power and land, both trying desperately to obtain them, both committing atrocities to hold onto them. Time and time again, the Popes of the postclassical period went to great extremes to secure the Church’s position in the world. Both the Crusades and the Inquisition are examples of this. D...

    Read More

  • The Crusades: Really a Holy War?

    909 Words  | 2 Pages

    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 hungry, land coveting people who fought with non Christian ideals and Morales.

    Read More

  • First Crusade: The First Crusade

    1510 Words  | 4 Pages

    In 1095, Pope Urban II called the first crusade. Happening between 1096 and 1099, the first crusade was both a military expedition and a mass movement of people with the simple goal of reclaiming the Holy Lands taken by the Muslims in their conquests of the Levant. The crusade ended with the capture of Jerusalem in July 1099. However, there has been much debate about whether the First Crusade can be considered an ‘armed pilgrimage’ or whether it has to be considered as a holy war. This view is complicated due to the ways in which the Crusade was presented and how the penitential nature of it changed throughout the course of the Crusade.

    Read More

  • The Crusades

    904 Words  | 2 Pages

    A main cause of the Crusades was the treatment of Christian pilgrims. They were robbed, beaten, and then sold. The main group of Turks, the Seljuk Turks, were threatening and growing in power. The Byzantine Emperor, Alexus I, began to become worried and sent out an urgent plea to Pope Urban II, in Rome. He requested for Christian knights to help him fight the Turks. Pope Urban II did agree to his appeal although Byzantine Emperors and Roman Popes were longtime rivals. He also did agree with Alexus I, in fearing that the Turks were expanding. Pope Urban encouraged French and German Bishops and Nobles to also take part in this. “ An accused race has violently invaded the lands of those Christians and had depopulated them by pillage and fire.” This is when Pope Urban II called for a crusade to free the Holy Land. Urban did agree to this having some of his own motives in mind. He was hoping his power would grow in ...

    Read More

  • The Crusades and the Israeli Palestine Conflict

    786 Words  | 2 Pages

    "The Crusades (Overview)." World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras. ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 12 Oct. 2011.

    Read More

  • The Crusades: Short Term and Long Term Effects

    1023 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1095, the conflict between the Christians and the Muslims started a crusade (a military campaign in defense of Christianity) for the battle of Jerusalem. This crusade involved people of other religions besides Christianity such as the Jews but they did not play a major role during this time. The Crusades lasted almost two decades and consisted of eight different crusades. With all of the events and actions that took during the Crusades, it led too many effects throughout years. There were short term effects and long term effects from the crusades that effected people of all different cultures. Two places which have had many effects from the Crusades are Europe and Islam. The Crusades has had short term and long term effects on power, economic and classical knowledge throughout Europe and Islam.

    Read More

  • The First Crusade and the Ideas of Crusading

    2006 Words  | 5 Pages

    Throughout the ten-century, particularly in France, the world had become an extremely violent place. Feudal Knights were often quarreling over land possession, looting, and looking to lay people to provide them with sustenance . Likewise, the power of these knights and the extent of violence flourished due to the increasingly lacking power and authority of the kings . The Church, in an attempt to halt the violence and anarchy attempted to take control and issued such concepts as “the Peace of God” . Similarly, at this time other movements for peace by the Church were underway, and one of the commonly held ideas was the need to transform the world to more “monkish ideals”. From these ideals also sprouted the concept of the laity having “God-given functions to perform, functions that could include fighting to protect the Church”. Pope Leo IX (1049-1054) is an example of this idea; he often used militia to fight against his opponents. In the early eleventh century, there came a pivotal figure in the ideas of Church sanctioned war, Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085). Pope Gregory was involved in the Investiture Contest, and soon turned to scholars to seek out “justification for his conviction that violence could be used in defense of the Church and could be authorized by it”. The movements generated by Pope Gregory, as well as the results of the Inve...

    Read More

  • How the Crusades Changed Society

    1085 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1095 Pope Urban II called all Christians to take part in what would become the world’s greatest Holy War in all of history. Urban’s called on Christians to take up arms and help fight to take the Holy Land of Jerusalem back from the accursed Muslims. During this time of war, the whole world changed. Land boundaries shifted, men gained and lost and gained power again, and bonds were forged and broken. The Crusades had a great impact on the world that will last forever.

    Read More

  • Timeline of Wars and Reasons for Wars

    2075 Words  | 5 Pages

    The emperor of the Byzantine Emperor was upset with Turks encroaching on his empire. He went to the Pope Urban II and complained. He made up atrocities about the Turks. In 1096, The Pope Urban II promoted the Crusade to reclaim the Holy Land from the barbaric Turks. These crusades lasted till the 13th century. In the process, Jews were persecuted and lots of looting took place. Many countries took interest in the Crusades because they were ready for travel and adventure. They wanted to expand trade with the Middle and Far East and so the Crusades gave them a chance to open up trade routes with those countries. They used Christianity to justify the Crusades. In reality, they wanted to expand trade and gain more territorial land.

    Read More

  • Why Did Pope Urban II Encourage The Crusades

    1246 Words  | 3 Pages

    Pope Urban II, just like many popes before him, was a part of the Investiture Controversy, which stemmed from a dispute between King Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. For the duration of the 11th and 12th centuries, religious leaders like Urban faced conflict with the ruling class of Europe, and this sense of contention impacted and fueled many of Urban’s decisions, including the choice he made to so strongly encourage the Crusades. Due to the fact that there were “political forces at work… since the Crusades were also tied to the Investiture Controversy” and because Urban attempted to and succeeded at “usurp[ing] the prerogative most secular rulers had claimed traditionally to declare an enemy and muster troops for battle,” it is undeniable that he was caught up in – and winning – a political battle, which means that he must have been acting with politics in the forefront of his mind (Crawford). Furthermore, Pope Urban II used the crusades as a way of undermining the king's authority while simultaneously increasing his own – now he was the one who was calling the shots and sending the European people off to war, when usually, that job belonged to the king. Although this may seem insignificant, the pope knew that if the king could not even control his own people, he would have no power left. The pope's decision to rally the people up for a crusade was a meticulously calculated one that effectively and purposefully resulted in him becoming the most politically powerful person in Europe, when previously almost all of his power stemmed from

    Read More

  • THE RISE OF THE PAPACY

    1635 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ullmann, Walter. A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages. 2nd ed. New York City, NY: Routledge, 2003.

    Read More

More about Causes Of The Crusades

Open Document