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The Increasing Influence of Europe: A Walking Tour through AP World History Textbooks
The Crusades and Reconquista
From The World’s History
After Muslim Turkish armies won the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 and opened Anatolia (Turkey) to
conquest, the Byzantine emperor Alexius I called on Pope Urban II to help fight the Muslims and to
recapture Jerusalem and the Holy Land. The pope seized this opportunity to unite Western Europe and its
various rulers under his own banner in the name of religion. For those who would undertake the crusades,
he promised indulgences that would reduce the time that they would serve in purgatory – before entering
heaven – after their death. On a more earthly level, the pope promised that their property and assets
would be protected in their absence. Many pious Christians responded to his call: rich and poor, men and
women, old people and children. Christian rulers, knights, and merchants joined in, driven not only by
religious inspiration but also by their own political and military ambitions, and by the promise of trade
opportunities that would accompany the establishment of a Latin kingdom in the Middle East. In the
course of the first four crusades – the major crusades – more than 100,000 people participated.
At first, the European Christian crusaders were successful – and brutal. In 1099, they captured Jerusalem,
killing its Muslim residents, men, women and children. … The savagery of the crusaders – reported in
both Christian and Muslim sources – ushered in centuries of confrontation far more bitter than ever
before. … (After the Muslim leader Saladin) recaptured Jerusalem in 1187, records show that he treated
the crusaders reasonably and humanely. But more crusades followed. When Richard I of England, called
the Lion-Heart (r. 1189-99), captured Acre on the Mediterranean coast in the Third Crusade (1189-92), he
massacred its men, women, and children. By 1291, however, Muslim forces had reconquered Acre and all
other crusader outposts. Although four minor crusades followed, none succeeded in capturing and
holding any outposts in the Holy Land.
The crusader soldiers themselves were largely mercenaries with worldly motives who attacked many in
their path for their own profit. … Instead of uniting Christianity and defeating the Muslims, the crusaders
had divided Christianity and were defeated by the Muslims.
From Ways of the World
The chief site of Islamic encounter with Catholic Europe occurred in Spain (called al-Andalus by
Muslims), which was conquered by Arab and Berber forces in the early 8th century during the first wave
of Islamic expansion. But there, Islam did not overwhelm Christianity as it did later in Anatolia. In fact,
Muslim Spain in the several centuries that followed conquest has often been portrayed as a vibrant
civilization characterized by harmony and tolerance between its Muslim rulers and its Christian and
Jewish subjects. … (Its) capital of Cordoba was among the largest and most splendid cities in the world.
Muslims, Christians and Jews alike contributed to a brilliant high culture in which astronomy, medicine,
the arts, architecture and literature flourished. It was largely from Spain that the rich heritage of Islamic
learning became available to Christian Europe. …
By the late 10th century the era of toleration began to erode. Warfare with the remaining Christian states
in northern Spain picked up in the 10th and 11th centuries, and more puritanical and rigid forms of Islam
entered Spain from north Africa. In these circumstances, the golden age of religious harmony faded.
Under the rule of Abu Amir al-Mansur (981-1002), an official policy of tolerance turned to one of overt
persecution against Christians, which now included the plundering of churches. Social life also changed.
Devout Muslims avoided contact with Christians; Christian homes had to be built lower than those of
Muslims; priests were forbidden to carry a cross or a Bible, lest they offend Muslim sensibilities; and
Mozarabs (would-be Arabs) were permitted to live only in particular places. …
That intolerance was perpetuated as the Christian reconquest of Spain (the reconquista) gained ground
after 1200. Many Muslims were then forced out of Spain, while those who remained could no longer give
the call to prayer, go on pilgrimage, or publicly practice their faith. When the reconquest was completed in
1492 (by Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain’s king and queen who sponsored Columbus’ voyage across the
Atlantic that same year), all Jews, some 200,000 of them, were likewise expelled from the country. Thus,
as Christianity was displaced by Islam in Anatolia, the opposite process was taking place in Spain, though
with far less tolerance for other religions.
Reflection: What were the most significant long-term consequences of the Crusades,
according to Traditions & Encounters? What do you think resulted from Spain expelling its
large population of Muslims and Jews, many of them well-educated?