Download East Meets West The Crusades

East Meets West
The Crusades
The Crusades Are: a long series of wars between Christians and Muslims
They Fought Over: control of Jerusalem, which was called the Holy Land
Holy Land: it was the region where Jesus had lived, preached and died
Causes:
1: Adventure:
 There was an entire class of warriors who now had very little to do and
were bored.
 A plea for help from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I in opposing Muslim
attacks thus appealed to their sense of adventure
2. Papal Politics:
 There was a division of the Christian Church into Eastern Orthodox and
Roman Catholic. The primary cause for this division or split was a dispute
over papal authority
3. European Expansionism:
 The Europeans or Christians were expanding or moving into and taking
Muslim territory
4. Muslim Advances:
 The Turks (or Muslims as either term can be used) as many of the Turks
were Muslim
 The Turks disrupted pilgrim traffic
 The Turks stopped the Christians who were making religious journeys or
pilgrimages and those Christians were called pilgrims
 The Christians took land and the Muslims stopped the pilgrimages and
trade
Who Called For the Crusades?
 Pope Urban II called for the defeat of the Turks and the returning of the
Holy Land to the Christians
Who Fought for the “Cause”?
 The Crusades were fought by everyone – feudal lords, knights, and
peasants since it was a religious war and not one based on a class
The First Crusade
(1096-1099)
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This was fought by a
peasant army
They were untrained and
lacked military
equipment
Many of them were
killed by the Muslim
Turks
The Knights succeeded in
capturing Jerusalem
Second Crusade
(1147-1149)
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After the victory, many
of the Christians went
back home
The Turks eventually
took back much of the
territory that the
Christians had won in
the First Crusade
Saladin, the Muslim
military leader leads the
Turks to victory
defeating the Christians
Third Crusade
(1189-1192)

King Richard convinces
the Turks to allow
Christians to visit the
Holy Land as a way to
share the land
Children’s Crusade:
 There were 30,000 soldiers under the age of 12. They took a pilgrimage to
ask the Pope if they could fight in the Crusades. Many of the children never
made it to the Holy Land as they died during the journey. The Pope said no
to their request.
The Crusades Died Out:
 The Crusades die out mainly
1.) due to a lack of interest as they weren’t going very well,
2.) rising European prosperity - the people were becoming wealthy
3.) repeated military defeats as the Christians kept losing
Effects of Crusades:
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weakening of the Byzantine Empire
increase in cultural horizons or the blending or uniting of cultures
stimulated Mediterranean trade
the development of banking techniques – there was the need to carry lots
of money due to the increase in trade
romantic and imaginative literature
new types of knowledge introduced
introduced – construction
weakening of nobility with the rise of the merchant class or the middle class
that begins to rise up and gain power