Western Offensive in the Mediterranean: The Crusades

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Recommended: The influences of the papacy during the medieval world

Western Offensive in the Mediterranean: The Crusades

The crusades imply the military and religious confrontation between

the Latin, Christian West and the Muslim world. This clash clearly

separated the two but also brought them into greater contact with one

another.

1. The Crusades: A Holy War in the East.

On the 27th of November in 1095 at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban

II called for a Crusade to free the holy sites of Jerusalem from

muslim domination (they had been under muslim control for 4

centuries). The pope tried to capitalise on a rising, religious

awakening and seize the reins of christianity from the rising power of

sovereigns.

Jerusalem is the objective of the crusades. To capture Jerusalem and

its holy saints, namely the Holy Sepulchre, Christ's tomb.

From 1096 to 1291 thousands of christians from the latin west headed

to Palestine convinced that their salvation would come in liberating

Christ's place of rest. The first crusade in 1096 came in two waves,

the first made up of common people, the peasantry, which was wiped out

by tthe Turks; and, the second, made up of lords. They managed to take

Jerusalem on the 15th of July 1099 by inflicting a tremendous massacre

upon the muslim population.

2. The Latin East: occupation and colonisation

Once in Syria and Palestine, the leaders of the Crusades impose the

western feudal order in the 4 principalities of Jerusalem, Antioch,

Tripoli and Edesse. In order to secure the area they build enormous

fortresses and mobilise monk-soldiers from different military orders

that guard the access to the holy sites for pilgrimmages.

Between 1120 and 1187 a peace of sorts was reached. This permitted the

collection of taxes from the local muslim population and to bring in

merchants, particular Italians who set up shop at the ports along the

coast.

Nevertheless, contact between the different civilisations remained

circumscribed. The Poulains, however, ate an eastern diet, dressed in

local attire, and the Italians brought back from the east silk, glass,

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