necessary tool, but due t... ... middle of paper ... ... I mentioned before, Osama bin Laden proclaimed his attack on the World Trade Center a holy war. While the world looked back and could not understand how this could be considered holy, if one were to look back they could see similarities between the Christian Crusades and the terrorist attacks. When I was looking for websites on just war theory of St. Augustine, nearly every single site I found had a discussion on whether the possible action
The Crusades The success and failures of the crusades “was closely related to the fortunes of the high-medieval papal monarchy” (454). The first crusade started when Pope Urban II called a plea of military aide to “free Jerusalem from Islamic control”. The first crusade was a “great early victory for the papal monarchy” (454-455). However, the crusades were not all victories for the papacy, the failures of the crusades ignited the decline of the papacy control. The crusades began when the Pope appealed
to regain their Holy Land, in doing so many knights risked their lives. During the Middle Ages a series of events lead up to the Crusades that were fought between the 11th and 13th century. The Crusades began when the Byzantine emperor, Alexius I Komnenos, asked Pope Urban II for help because the Seljuk Turks were gaining more power and land. As a result, the pope sent Christian knights to help regain the Holy Land. After some time the Christian knights captured Jerusalem from the Muslims, gaining
against the Crusaders in the later crusades. Anna Comnena, the daughter of Byzantine emperor Alexius I, also wrote a comprehensive account of the Crusades, but from the Hellenic point of view of an Eastern Christian. Comnena was a princess as well as a scholar, and she wrote The Alexiad, a retelling of her father’s period of influence, which contains much insight on the First Crusade. Alexius I inherited the Byzantine Empire in shambles, and was faced with continuous conflict throughout his time
How could the Christian church, which bases itself off kindness and peace, allow the Crusades to happen? The religion known to be loving of all was the cause of the most catastrophic occurrence in the late eleventh and late thirteenth centuries because of misconceptions and avarice of the pope. Of all of the religious wars fought, this was the one with the highest level of ridiculousness. Members of the church fought for all of the wrong reasons and the outcome was poor because of it. Even though
Council of Clermont, accompanying his overlord, Stephen of Blois, to southern Italy, Bulgaria, and Constantinople in 1096, following the call to action instigated by Pope Urban II as response to a request for assistance from the Byzantine emperor Alexius I. In June 1097, Fulcher became chaplain to Baldwin of Flanders, with whom he remained, traveling with him to Jerusalem in the winter of 1099. Fulcher, who remained in Jerusalem for the remainder of his life, dying there in approximately 1127, provides
“Start upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre to wrest that land from the wicked race and subject it to yourselves” (“Urban II.”). It is hard to believe that almost 200 years of merciless fighting, mass slaughter, and religious intolerance had a positive outcome on the rest of the world. All of these things and more occurred during The Crusades. Pope Urban II lit a fire under the Christians and started the fighting with the Muslims. Urban’s decision to start an armed pilgrimage was a bold, daring
In March 1095 Alexius II Comnenus, who was at the time emperor of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire in Eastern Europe, sent emissaries to Western Europe requesting military assistance from Pope Urban against the Seljuk Turks in Constantinople. The exact words of the emissaries were not recorded but the message was received by Pope Urban II at the Council of Piacenza, and it was clear that European soldiers were wanted to serve in Alexius’s army. Later that same year, in November, Pope Urban
• The Pope has agreed to help defend the Byzantine Empire! After being appealed to by Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, in 1095, Pope Urban II assembled the Council of Clermont. In order to help the Byzantine Empire and ensure his power over the church he has decided to call for a military expedition to get back the Holy Land. • After hearing about Pope Urban II’s pronouncement, huge amounts of people are now moving across Europe! However, most of these first responders seem to be religious people as opposed
The Crusades are thought to be a major event that affected European history. They had a huge influence on how the world progressed into the present. After Alexius I, the Byzantine Emperor sent a letter to Pope Urban II in 1093 saying that his empire was taken over by Seljuk Turks, who were Muslim, Pope Urban II decided to fight back and take the Holy Land, Jerusalem, back from the Muslims that were living on that land. These Crusades had many positive and negative effects on the world. In
would be completely Christian. Urban wished to expand the Church’s sphere of influence to those previously Christian parts of Europe and Northern Africa which had been overrun by the Islamic world.. In March of 1095, the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus appealed to the papacy for military aid to help against increasingly hostile neighbours. In 1095 the Seljuk Turks had come within one hundred miles of Byzantium or Constantinople, and they were thought to be threatening Eastern Christians. It
The Alexiad, written by Anna Comena is a vivid description of her father Emperor Alexis Comenna I and his rule and events associated with him from 1081–1118. The book is a chronicle as it a historical account of her father and his rule, however it is incredibly bias but can be used by historians to understand the Byzantine perspective on many events during Alexis’s rule. In the book Anna outlines her father’s life before he is emperor in book one, which talks about his early years as a solider in
and ill-prepared participants. On their way to the Holy Land, they attacked Jewish quarters in French and German cities then moved on to Constantinople. After their arrival in Constantinople, they were captured and moved by the Byzantine emperor Alexios I to Anatolia, to only be massacred by the Seljuks at Nicaea. One of the first cities taken by Christians was Nicaea otherwise known as Iznik, Turkey in 1097. Then soon after Antioch, now Hatay Province, Turkey in 1098. The Crusaders reached and captured
In the 11th century, Christianity underwent many changes. The church split in 1054, after many years of lack of communication between the east and west. The church also had many problems on its own, where power-hungry, greedy popes and bishops ruled the church. This continued in 1095, when Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade to aid emperor Alexius and the Byzantines against the Turks. This was a call from God to aid the Christian Byzantines against the “enemies of Christ”--those who were not
The Crusades were a series attacks against the Muslim people in Jerusalem in an effort to take back the Holy Land. The causes of the Crusades are highly debated, but religious devotion is the obvious cause for Pope Urban the Second to call upon the Crusades. The religious reasons that lead to the creation of the Crusades is that the Christians wanted to take back Jerusalem, add another reason. The economical and political reasons that could oppose the religious reasons are that the Crusades were
From the fifth to the fifth teen century, Western Europe went through a period called the Age of Faith, also known as the “dark ages”. The church wanted more power and authority, and that implicated a few changes. Not only did the internal structure of the church change, but so did the external. Thus the Age of Faith was simulated, and encouraged battles and adventures. This age was influenced by many factors, such as the reforming of the church, rebuilding of the church, and the crusades. Basic
The First Crusade As the year 1000A.D. was approaching the strength of Christianity in Western Europe was growing along with its population. The newly reformed and organized Church began to gain great power. A new Europe was being born with the Catholic Church as a force in every area of life. In Christian beliefs, the savior, Jesus Christ was to return to earth and bring judgment on its people. Many clergy members along with lay people believed this would take place in the year 1000A.D. . Knowing
The First Crusade was called in 1096 by Pope Urban II. The reasons for the First Crusade was to help obtain Jerusalem known as the holy land. During this time period the Muslims were occupying Jerusalem. First Crusade contained peasants and knights’ whose ethnicities consist of Franks, Latin’s, and Celts which were all from the western part of Europe. To get peasants and knights to join Pope Urban II objectives in return of a spiritual reward called “remission of all their sins” which was to be redeemed
lands captured by Saladin in an effort to preserve Christian rule in the region. In this essay I will argue that the Crusades were a complex series of campaigns which cannot be arbitrarily defined as solely defensive or expansionist exercises. Rather, their interpretation should be more nuanced; with each Crusade intended for both the expansion and defence of Christian territories to varying degrees. I shall be primarily investigating the expansion or defence of the boundaries of Christendom from
power of God. The Crusades were a series of campaigns in which Europeans tried to take the Holy Land from the Muslims. Pope Urban II headed the First Crusade, which lasted from 1096 to 1099, after he received a request for military aid from Alexios I. Alexios I was the Byzantine ruler, and his empire was facing attacks from the Seljuk Turks. The Crusades soon overtook all aspects of European society, as the promise of salvation and wealth was too great to pass up. 31 years later,