The History documents that many centuries ago, Christians, Muslims, and Jews were involved in a terrible war that claimed the lives of many people and destroyed properties worth billions of money. The fight was called the crusade. The concept of the campaign was a Latin word meaning cross. During the war, the Christian was to paint their clothes and marked them with a sign of the cross. The crusade "was a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims started primarily to secure control of holy sites considered sacred by both groups” (Lindkvist, 2017). There were a total of eight crusadesthat occurred between the year 1096 and 1291. “The bloody, violent and often ruthless conflicts propelled the status of European Christians, making them major players in the fight for land in the Middle East” (Lindkvist, 2017). The primary rationale of crusade stemmed from different reasons and sources. The war was perpetuated by the need to reclaim Jerusalem as a holy land. Though Jerusalem was at the center of the first crusade, the subsequent crusades had different reasons some of which were individually based.
According to the Christians, Jerusalem was a holy place where Jesus Christ was crucified, died and arose from the dead after which he descended to Heaven. On the other hand, the Jews fought for Jerusalem as a holy land and claimed that the land was theirs since it was given to Abraham by God. Muslims, on the other hand, fought for this land since they believed that God granted Abraham this land. Other than that, they claim that Jerusalem was a place where their main leader Muhammed Ascended into heaven purposefully to meet Allah.Generally, the crusade remains as the darkest period of the religion in history ( Siberry, 2016). The crusade was also a true reflection of what it looks like when the power is concentrated on a single person. Most of these crusades were organized under the power and directives of Roman Catholics popes. The popes had power and influenced and could mobilize an army of solider to carry out this inhuman act. During the crusade, a number of people lost their lives including the soldiers. It is estimated that nearly 1.7 million people lost their lives. The question is what caused this massacre? What were its consequences and was it religion-oriented or there was personal interest? This is the focus of this discussion.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The Crusades
The crusades were a series of military war that involved different religion. According to history, Christians, Jews, and Muslims were the main antagonizing parties during the Crusades. The main reasons were to reclaim the holy land individually, Jerusalem.In total, there were nine military expeditions which sought to recapture Jerusalem and other places that were deemed sacred to Christianity but were occupied by the Muslims. The initiator of the first crusade was Pope Urban II in the 11 th century. The Pope’s intention was “to help the Byzantine Empire against the Seljuk Turks. Soon, however, the Holy Land became the primary objective of the crusaders, many of which weren't led only by noble motives but economic, political and social as well”( Siberry, 2016). At first, the crusades were meeting objectives, and the Christian captured numerous holy regions that were occupied by the Muslims. During the initial campaigns, different cities including Jerusalem, Antioch, Bethlehem, and Acre were captured by the crusaders. However, the reign of the Muslims came like a wave when they were thirsty for revenge. They organized different crusades which ended in their favor(Peters, 2017).
There are many memorable crusades; the first crusade took place between the years 1096 and 1099. It was launched after Pope Urban was called upon to help the fellow Christians in the Eastern to fight Muslims. During this time, the Popes had power and Influence over the Christian followers. As a result, they could be understood, and this gave them the power to mobilize military groups to fight a Holy war. Before the famous attack on Muslim in Jerusalem, there was an agreement between the Pope and the Byzantine Empire that the captured land was to be returned to the emperor. This was not the case when Jerusalem was captured in the year 1099. The leaders during the first crusade went against this agreement and divided the land among them. "They created the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Principality of Antioch, County of Tripoli and County of Edessa and established themselves as the rulers of the newly formed crusader states in the Holy Land”(Lindkvist, 2017). The second crusade came between the year 1147 and 1149. The second Military expedition of the holy land was an action that was perpetuated by the church intentionally to help in reclaiming the sacred ground of the Edessa that was under the control of the Muslim from the year 1144.
Contrary to what took place during the first holy war where the leader was Pope, this time, the two Kings, Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, were the leaders. The fight that took almost two years could not achieve the first mission. After one year, the German King who was a crucial figure in this war decided to quite the holy land after the army laid a siege to Damascus and failed in capturing the city. After a much struggle, the French partner who was also a leader during this war was also forced to quit the war and left the holy land since the army had not succeeded in capturing Damascus. The failure of the two leaders brought to an end the second holy war. This was one of the religious wars that achieved nothing and was a total failure.
The third holy war or the crusade took place at the beginning of the year 1189 and ended in the year 1192. At a time, the third crusade is sometimes known as the Kings’ crusade since three different Kings from Europe took part in this war. Immediately after the fall of Jerusalem, the Muslims leaders vowed to seek revenge against those who perpetrated this act of killing innocent citizens and taking away their land. The Muslim leader by the name Saladin was at the forefront of this war in the year 1187. "However, Frederick I (Barbarossa) of Germany died on the way to the Holy Land, while Philip II soon departed for France due to conflicts with Richard I of England. The latter won several notable battles but failed to recapture Jerusalem. Before returning to Europe, however, the English king managed to negotiate free access to Jerusalem for Christian pilgrims”(Siberry, 2016). This was also a war that also showed many reasons why the Crusaders were defeated in a good number of the holy wars. There was internal conflict among the leaders; these exposed their weaknesses to different opponents making them vulnerable to defeat. The fourth crusade took place between the year 1202 and the year 1204. This was one of the most important crusades that were launched due to the urge of revenge against the Muslims from having taken Jerusalem from the crusaders. Pope Innocent III was unable to cop up with loses of Jerusalem (Peters, 2017). Though a number of the army had already learned their lesson in the previous holy wars, the pope had power and influence over the Christian fellows. He started preaching the crusade openly. As a result, he succeeded in coming up with a troop that led the operation. The crusaders assembled by the Pope never made it to the holy land. On their way as they were advancing towards Jerusalem, the troop captured the Adriatic city of Zara for Venice. After the capture, the troop turned their attention from the main mission and got involved in a fight for the Byzantine throne. The fourth crusade did not achieve the mission which was to reclaim Jerusalem. However, " the Fourth Crusade ended with the Sack of Constantinople and formation of the short-lived Latin Empire on the conquered Byzantine territories” (Lindkvist, 2017).
The fifth crusade took place between the year 1217 and 1221. The infamous failure of the fourth crusade to capture and reclaim Jerusalem was not a lesson to the Pope Innocent. Within his capacity, he continued pressuring for the campaign to capture the Holy Land. The cry was taken up by the Pope's successor Honorius III. In his quest to recapture Jerusalem, he managed to convince some mighty kings such as Andrew II of Hungary and Leopold VI, Duke of Austria. He assured this individual to take the cross and continue with the Holy war. This time, the top made a new approach to the war and stated the war from Egypt. They succeeded in capturing the port of Damietta and in return, they were promised distinct Hollands within Egypt. The leaders’ decision to refuse this offer was a costly mistake. Their quest to advance to Cairo could not be successful, and they were defeated. They ended up going back home with nothing to count having failed to capture Egypt and other related holy lands. The sixth crusade which did not involve much of the military action was more successful than other previous military wars. The sixth Holy war began in the year 1228 and ended up in the year 1229. The troop was led by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederic II who led the campaign was at the time under excommunication. His approach of negotiation proved vital than other strategies that were used in the previous fights. “Shortly after arriving at the Holy Land, Frederick II entered into negotiations with the Egyptian sultan who agreed to cease Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem and other holy cities to the Christians” (Lindkvist, 2017).
The seventh Crusade took place between the year 1248 and the year 1254. Though this was a crusade that was less documented, it was also significant in the history of the religion. The Crusade was launched by the French King Louse IX (Peters, 2017). According to his intention, he was to capture Egypt first before going ahead to seize other holy lands. After capturing Damietta like the leaders during the sixth Holy war, he failed to capture Cairo. He was further arrested and detained until a ransom was paid to get the King released. During the campaign for a more reformed Holy war than the first preparation, he received a letter informing him that his mother had died and he had to return to France. This marked the end of this war. The war too was unsuccessful. The eighth Crusade was launched in the year 1270. The King Louse led the crusade. This was the second attempt to capture the Holy land by the same King. He started in Tunis. However, he was unfortunate since the troop was attacked by a disease and the French King who also got ill died before launching an attack on his enemies. His brother Charles came for their rescue a day before the King’s Death and had a negotiation deal with the Caliph of Tunis to allow the troop to departs from Tunis to Home. The last crusade took place between 1271 and 1272. This was the previous military expedition whose primary objective was to capture the Holy Land from the Muslims. The Prince Edward of England launched the expedition. The prince was also an integral part of the unsuccessful eighth crusade. After the death of King who led the eighth expedition, the English prince decided to launch the war (Siberry, 2016). The Christian war in an attempt to claim the Holy Land came to an end in 1271, when the prince landed in Acre and tried to win support for his cause but lack of interest and news from England about his father's illness prompted him to return home.
The Cause of the Holy War
The causes of the crusade were complex, inclined to religion and some based on personal interest and gain. Primarily, those who fought this war had the intention of capturing the holy land. As the war manifest and in many instances where the battle was worn, it also revealed that the soldiers and the leaders had a different intention for fighting this war. The first cause of the Holy war was the capture of Holy land by Seljuk Turks. This prompted different leaders to have the intent of reclaiming this land. The primary target of the crusaders was Jerusalem; land which they claimed was theirs due to the fact that most of the religious events that are associated with Christianity took place in this land. Other than that, there were different motivational factors which also contributed a lot in ensuring that the Holy men and women went to these wars and killed others in the name of reclaiming a holy land.
First, the Pope hoped that the crusade was a significant way of giving the Catholic power over the Church of Byzantine. Notably, the growth of Islamic religion and other religion such as the Jews were becoming a threat to the Roman Catholic. Most people were migrating and changing their religion (Peters, 2017). Other than that, there were Muslim teachings that were conflicting with the Christian teaching, and this was not appealing to the Roman Catholics. As a result, the Crusade provided them with an opportunity to derail the growing Muslim community in the Kingdom. Other than that, the pope hoped that by launching a war against the Muslims who were outside the boundary of their emperor was the best way to reduce the civil war among the Catholic members. Before the commencement of the Crusades of the 11 th and part of the 12 th century, there were a lot of internal disagreements among the Catholics. There were a lot of conflicts based on power division and leadership. Such differences were associated with civil wars between the churches. The call for Crusades was, therefore, a vital distractor (Siberry, 2016). Most of the leaders who were fighting among themselves had to unite and share a vision to try and win the crusade wars. Other than that, the leaders had to shift their attention from the internal conflict to major conflict which could grant them lucrative opportunities to rule the newly captured lands.
Also, the religious individuals were convinced that this was their war. To them, nobody was expected to fight this war other than the Christian since it was a holy war. As a result, they took it as their duty and obligation to ensure that they fought and won these wars. Besides the religious conviction, the Popes also perpetrated this war due to their power and influence among the Christian community during this time. As a result, the Pope convinced the Christian community that by participating in this war, they would have their sins forgiven. This was a substantial motivating factor because every person is assumed to have sinned before this war. It attracted many people who hoped that by fighting a Holy war, they were doing what was right before their God (Peters, 2017). Other than that, other promises also acted as cartelists to this war. First, the serfs were freed from their roles in the feudal system. Other than that, those who participated in the Holy were to be paid by the church and the debt they owed the church, or the government is canceled. Further, the Pope also mentioned that those who took part in this war were to gain wealth especially after capturing the land. This was a promised that only a few of the leaders were made to achieved (Siberry, 2016). For instance, during the capture of the Jerusalem, the deal that was signed by the Byzantine and the Pope was never met since the leaders made decisions against it. Instead of returning the captured land, they divided it among them.
The Impact of the Crusade
There were different effects, both positive and negative of the crusade. The first positive impact is that it was the basis of the emergence of varying trade between different countries. There wasan emergence of different products which were shared from one state to another. Further, trade ideas also spread across different countries as people were interacting with each other. Further, many cities were less critical before the crusade. However, the emergence of the campaign made an impact, and these cities became military centers, trade centers, and business centers. This led to their development. Also, there were other ports which became important due to many trade activities that were taking place in such ports. An example of such a port was Port Venice in Italy. Other than trade, there were other impacts such as the spread of ideas and culture among the Christian and muslins across the world. There were different advancements which were also part of the revolution that was taking place during the era of the crusades (Lindkvist, 2017). Also, there were other factors such as increasing use of money as a medium of exchange. Other than the grueling positive contribution of the Holy war, there are different negative impact that came with this war. The first was death and property destructions. Many people lost their lives and properties in during this war. The soldiers, the leader, and Kings lost their lives as a result of their urge to capture the Holy Land. Other than that, many properties were lost. Secondly, the war weakened the feudalism. During the war, most of the Knights and Nobles left or sold their fiefs to fight in the war (Peters, 2017). Further, a good number of the serfs were given back their freedom. The result was a decrease in power of the feudalism. The last is that many Kings gained power and some did not put the energy into a proper use leading to dictatorship.
In summary, the crusade era was the darkest days in Christian history. The crusades were military wars that were perpetrated by the idea of capturing the Holy land that was initially occupied by the Muslims. Due to the power and influence, many leaders including Popes were at the center of inciting these fights. Though it was a holy war, the result showed that there was a personal interest in gaining power and influence over other religious beliefs. Though it was a hard time for both the soldiers and civil society, it had the significant impact some of which were negative and majority positive.
References
Lindkvist, T. (2017). Crusades and crusading ideology in the political history of Sweden, 1140–1500. In Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier 1150–1500 (pp. 119-130). Routledge.
Peters, D. (2017). The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading . Macat Library.
Siberry, E. (2016). The new Crusaders: Images of the Crusades in the 19th and early 20th centuries . Routledge.
