crusades

The modern perception of the Crusades, or how we learn about them from our textbooks, is that all they brought was blood and death. Each seems as if it was only bloodier and intensely more gruesome than the one before. The worlds of Islam and Christianity were shook to a level of disbelief, where devastation was all that prevailed and happiness seemed like a galaxy away. But this is only what was taught to us from textbooks. Since everything happens for a reason, the knowledge available was endless.

This series of wars, or Crusades, were fought in what would be known today as the Middle East, and began when Pope Urban II, in a speech in France, urged followers to assist their “brothers” against the attacks of the Muslim Turks. At that time, which can also be relevant today, supporters followed religious leaders to the moon and back if asked. Presenting the Crusades as a holy war, people from all over answered to the Pope’s call for Christians to assist the Byzantines in their quest to thwart the Muslims. This event was what began the first Crusade, then the domino effect began the sequence of Crusades that followed, since the first one had brought so much success.

Although the Crusades implied war, and war is never a good thing, they also brought many high points. As T.S. Eliot said, “Among them were a few good men, Many who were evil, and most who were neither, Like all men in all places.”

This series of events introduced the crusaders to food products such as: rice, coffee, sherbert, dates, apricots, lemon, sugar, and spices such as ginger, and melons. These advancements were essential. Not knowing anything about such products before, they were able to learn from them and use them in many different and innovating ways. “Me...

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... In a time when not much was known about things farther than your eyes can see, people explored new territories, expanding their enlightenment more than ever before. So much can be said about their negative effects, but I believe the

Crusades were much more than a series of wars, they were a series of maybe somewhat brutal life seminars for future generations to feed off of, and not only “... a burst of short-lived, failed efforts by indoctrinated and misguided Europeans that brought nothing but death, devastation, and mistrust to the worlds of Islam. These occurrences forever altered the socio-economic and cultural development of Western Civilization”. Not only serving as a stepping stone in human history as mentioned before, but a journey of knowledge which brought back tools for unlimited advancement and knowledge of things which are still relevant until today.