Download The Crusades were military campaigns sanctioned by

The Crusades were military campaigns sanctioned by the Roman
Catholic Church during the High and Late Middle Ages.
LEARNING OBJECTIVE [ edit ]
Describe the origins of the Crusades and what their impact
KEY POINTS [ edit ]
The Crusades were a series of military conflicts conducted by Christian knights to defend
Christians and the Christian empire against Muslim forces.
The Holy Land was part of the Roman Empire until the Islamic conquests of the 7th and 8th
centuries. Thereafter Christians were permitted to visit parts of the Holy Land until 1071 when
Christian pilgrimages were stopped by the Seljuk Turks.
The goal of the First Crusade was to restore Christian access to holy places in and near Jerusalem.
The Second Crusade occurred in 1145 when Edessa was retaken by Islamic forces. The Fourth
Crusade was the last crusade sponsored by the papacy.
Jerusalem was held for nearly a century after the Fourth Crusade and other strongholds in the
Near East would remain in Christian possession much longer, but the crusades in the Holy Land
ultimately failed to establish permanent Christian kingdoms.
The Crusaders were Roman Catholic Christians who had pledged allegiance to the Vatican and
came from various feudal kingdoms of Western Europe. The impact of the Crusades was
profound, both in a negative and positive way.
The Crusades resulted in massacres and the murder of thousands of Jews, but are also thought to
have influenced trade and the arts throughout the Mediterranean.
TERMS [ edit ]
Apotheosis
The glorification of a subject to divine level; the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike
stature.
schism
A division or a split, usually between groups belonging to a religious denomination.
Byzantine Empire
The predominantly Greek­speaking continuation of the eastern half of the Roman Empire during
Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Zionism
The national movement of Jews and Jewish culture that supports the creation of a Jewish
homeland in the territory defined as the Land of Israel.
heretical
Heresy is any provocative belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or
customs. A heretic is a proponent of such claims or beliefs.
Teutonic
Germanic or Teutonic peoples were an Indo­European ethno­linguistic group of Northern
European origin.
Give us feedback on this content: FULL TEXT [ edit ]
The Crusades were a series of military conflicts conducted by Christian knights for the
defence of Christians and for the expansion of Christian domains. Generally, the Crusades
refer to the campaigns in the Holy Land sponsored by the papacy against Muslim forces.
There were other crusades against Islamic forces in southern Spain, southern Italy, and
Sicily, as well as the campaigns of Teutonic knights against pagan strongholds in Eastern
Europe . A few crusades such as the Fourth Crusade were waged within Christendom against
groups that were considered heretical and schismatic
Origins of the Crusades
The Holy Land had been part of the Roman Empire, and thusByzantine Empire, until the
Islamic conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries. Thereafter, Christians had generally
been permitted to visit the sacred places in the Holy Land until 1071, when the Seljuk Turks
closed Christian pilgrimages and assailed the Byzantines, defeating them at the Battle of
Manzikert. Emperor Alexius I asked for aid from Pope Urban II (1088–1099) for help
against Islamic aggression. He probably expected money from the pope for the hiring of
mercenaries. Instead, Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom in a speech made at
the Council of Clermont on 27 November 1095, combining the idea of pilgrimage to the Holy
Land with that of waging a holy war against infidels.
The First, Second and Third Crusades
In 1095 Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade with the stated goal of restoring
Christian access to holy places in and near Jerusalem. During the First crusade, Antioch was
captured in 1099 and then Jerusalem.
The Second Crusade occurred in 1145 when Edessa was retaken by Islamic forces. Jerusalem
would be held until 1187 and the Third Crusade, famous for the battles between Richard the
Lionheart and Saladin.
The Fourth Crusade
The Fourth Crusade, begun by Innocent III in 1202, intended to retake the Holy Land but
was soon subverted by Venetians who used the forces to sack the Christian city of Zara.
Innocent excommunicated the Venetians and crusaders.
Eventually the crusaders arrived in Constantinople, but due to strife which arose between
them and the Byzantines, rather than proceed to the Holy Land the crusaders instead sacked
Constantinople and other parts of Asia Minor effectively establishing the Latin Empire of
Constantinople in Greece and Asia Minor.
Attack of the Crusaders on Constantinople.
Representation of Constantinople with the Palaiologan­era flag of the Byzantine Empire.
This was effectively the last crusade sponsored by the papacy; later crusades were sponsored
by individuals. Thus, though Jerusalem was held for nearly a century and other strongholds
in the Near East would remain in Christian possession much longer, the crusades in the Holy
Land ultimately failed to establish permanent Christian kingdoms.
The Crusaders
Several hundred thousand Roman Catholic Christians became Crusaders by taking a public
vow and receiving plenary indulgences from the Vatican. The Crusaders came from various
feudal kingdoms of Western Europe, whose very customs turned every attempt to form a
unified central command to lead the Crusaders into failure.
With hundreds of aristocrats and noblemen among the Crusaders, each vying for personal
fame, wealth, and glory, the very idea of a feudal lord giving up personal command over loyal
man­at­arms to a single commander, a nobleman and competitor for position at court, was
an unthinkable and insulting proposition to even consider. This lack of a central command
resulted in frequent quarrels between feudal noblemen, church leaders, and courtiers,
leading to intra­faith political factions and shifting alliances as hundreds of capricious feudal
lords jostled for political advantage and influence within the Crusade, which at times led to
rather bizarre situations, including an instance when the Crusaders joined forces with the
army of the Islamic Sultanate of Rûm during the Fifth Crusade.
Detail of a miniature of Philip Augustus arriving in Palestine. Created: After 1332, before 1350
Impact of the Crusades
The Crusades reopened the Mediterranean to trade and travel, enabling Genoa and Venice to
flourish. Crusading armies would engage in commerce with the local populations while on
the march, with Orthodox Byzantine emperors often organizing markets for Crusader forces
moving through their territory. The crusading movement consolidated the collective identity
of the Latin Church under the Pope's leadership and was the source of heroism, chivalry, and
medieval piety. This in turn spawned medieval romance, philosophy, and literature.
The crusaders often pillaged the countries through which they travelled in the typical
medieval manner. Nobles often retained much of the territory gained rather than returning it
to the Byzantines as they had sworn to do. Encouraged by the Church, the Peoples' Crusade
prompted Rhineland massacres and the murder of thousands of Jews. In the late 19th
century this episode was used by Jewish historians to supportZionism. The Fourth Crusade
resulted in the sack of Constantinople by the Roman Catholics, effectively ending the chance
of reuniting the Christian church by reconciling the East–West Schism and leading to the
weakening and eventual fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans. Nevertheless, some
crusaders were merely poor people trying to escape the hardships of medieval life in an
armed pilgrimage leading to Apotheosis at Jerusalem.
The Crusades: The Crescent and the Cross1/2 (Ep1)
Here the scars of battle fought between three of the great religions of the world are etched into the earth.
But the deepest wound was made by a war between Christians and Muslims, that began in the 11th century
and fought for 200 years. At stake: A tiny strip of land just a few hundred miles long, but with the greatest
prize, Jerusalem. Now this holy war's past is a legend, but there were those who saw it with their own eyes.
Great chronicles from two different worlds, Christian and Muslim, who wrote of great deeds, great battles,
great warriors and men who would lay down their lives for their god. This was the collision of two great
faiths, the clash between the crescent and the cross.