...been questioned; if one is next to an omnipotent being, who would dare question such authority? The first Crusade is an exceptional topic which was implemented by Pope Urban II. The lay Catholic public believed the Holy Crusades were invoked for mainly religious goals, but in actuality these wars were for the personal gain of the papacy and indemnity of Pope Urban II himself. Beatified Pope Urban II, who was the protegé of Pope Gregory VII, was born into the French aristocracy. He was head of state, next to God, and educated. This groomed his major god complex and intolerance of non-believing heathens. He wanted to expand papal ideology, authority, and leadership to southeastern Europe; and he cunningly executed his plan with a little side of “à la hidden agenda”. One might ask what this cached agenda was? It was, simply, one thing, the expansion of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the known world. And the pedantic Emperor Alexios I would unknowingly play a gargantuan role in this dance of lethal, religious bureaucracy. One of the first responsibilities Pope Urban II felt implored to take on was healing the schism between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church of the Byzantine Empire. Alexios I wrote a letter of aid to Pope Urban II asking for help to seize Byzantium back from the Seljuk Turks. The Pope saw this as a reciprocated win: Pope Urban II would be able to send the malicious; murderous; and thieving European knights and peasants to fight...
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...Assess the reasons why there was a crusade in 1095 The first crusade began in 1095 following the Council of Clermont, although the official crusade forces didn’t leave until 1097. It was at the Council of Clermont that Pope Urban II first talked about the idea of a crusade. He explained that the Byzantine emperor, Alexius, had appealed for help as his land was constantly under attack from Muslim forces. Many people answered the appeal and took part in the crusade, however many embarked for different reasons. Some devout Christians, such as Peter the Hermit, will have taken part due to religious zeal and a desire to help the Christians in the East. Others, such as Baldwin of Boulogne or Bohemond of Taranto may have also desired the chance to gain land and material rewards in the East. Whatever their reasons, over 100,000 people took part in the crusade, final taking Jerusalem in 1099. The factor that sparked the whole idea of a crusade was Emperor Alexius’ appeal to Pope Urban II in 1095. Alexius saw an opportunity to take back some land lost to the Seljuk Turks as the Norman leader, Robert Guiscard, had recently died and the Muslim forces were focusing on internal conflicts. Although Emperor Alexius needed military assistance, his appeal to Pope Urban II focussed more on the suffering of the Christians in the East at the hands of the Muslims as opposed to fighting. He put emphasis on the fact that Christians were being slaughtered and that Muslims and Seljuk Turks had...
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...Alexius of Byzantine and Pope Urban II were two crucial characters described in Chapter 8 of our textbook. Before going in to what the motives of Alexius and Pope Urban II were, it is crucial that we explain who they were. In summary, Alexius Comnesus was a Byzantine emperor who ruled from 1081 until 1118, and requested that Pope Urban II would help him raise an army in order to recapture Anatolia from the Seljiq Turks. This general ultimately did more than other rulers in his time: “Alexius managed to shore up the failing economy and to secure his hold over the Balkans” (pg 197). Shortly after aiding the economy, Alexius began to arrange a campaign against the Selijuqs. Because the mercenary force was lacking, Alexius contacted Pope...
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...Causes of the First Crusade The Crusades were a violent military campaign between the Latin Roman Catholic Church and the Islamic empire. According to Don Closson an author with probe ministers, there were 7 crusades in total and they lasted about 200 years. John France the author of The Crusades And The Expansion Of Catholic Christendom states that , “After the First Crusade achieved its goal, the invading Christians set up several Latin Christian states. Because of this Muslims in the region vowed to wage holy war (jihad) to regain control over the region (Crusades). But what caused this dispute, what caused the crusades to even begin? Well before the crusades started the dispute between Christians and Muslims could be seen in many different...
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...The Crusades HUM/100 November 27th, 1095 was a fervor from Pope Urban II preaching of the crusade. It was the most iconic and influential speech of the Middle Ages. This gave more fuel to the major uprising enthusiasm of the Crusades to Christians in Europe to go to war against Muslims to claim the Holy Land. They cried “Deus vult!” meaning “God wills it!” (1095 Pope Urban II orders first Crusade, n.d.) Urban set the stage for the crusades by inspiring the preaching of Peter the Hermit, who led as many as 20, 000 people. Peter was considered the most important preacher of the First Crusade (The Editors of Encylopedia Britannica, n.d.) Another theory was that the crusade was a cover for a war of personal gain by the nobles of Western Europe. The main armies of the First Crusade were Italy and France who joined forces for the very first time. They divided their forces, and all traveled to Constantinople. They had a high level of difficulty making it to the Middle East. They were unable to utilize the Mediterranean Sea because they did not have any control over the ports near the coast (The First Crusade , n.d.). They ended up crossing land through France and Italy. Venice was one of the largest and richest cities in the West (Knox, n.d.). Venice became much larger acquiring several areas by the Atlantic and along the route to Constantinople, as well as the Holy Land and Crete. The benefit of this crusade was the opening between the two...
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...Crusaders Casey Roden THEO 350-B13 The crusades are something that I love to read about. Not only are they filled with action, but also mystery. As a kid I remember watching things like Indiana Jones or even Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and wanting to know more about the time period. I would love to travel to the areas that the Crusades went through. The crusades were a series of holy wars called by popes with the promise of indulgences for those who fought in them and directed against external and internal enemies of Christendom for the recovery of Christian property or in defense of the Church or Christian people. Crusaders would take a vow and granted indulgences. The Crusades are often related to pilgrimages, spreading Christian love and piety that paid for penalties earned by sin. Crusades were a combination of Holy war and pilgrimage to produce the concept of indulgence, “remission of penance and/or sin granted by papacy for participation in sacred activity”. This paper will be looking to answer the question, “Although there were clearly political, intellectual, and technological benefits to Europe as a result of the Crusades, can it be said that the Crusades advanced the cause of Christ?” Scholars argue what is covered as a Crusade and what is not. There are traditionalists that limit the true crusades to expeditions aimed at recovering or protecting Jerusalem. Pluralists, regard any expedition preached as a crusade in which the participants took crusading vows...
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...The Crusades: Salvation or Exploitation? Student’s Name University Affiliation The Crusades: Salvation or Exploitation? The crusades trace their origin to the eleventh century. Europe’s many states were at constant loggerheads over boundaries and territories (Bréhier, 1908). The head of Christendom, on the other hand, embroiled himself in arguments over investitures. At the time, the Pope had managed to keep the Church united. Faced with the threat of the Mohammedan tribes and the Byzantine Empire, the Church came under pressure to suppress the Muslim persecution of Christians in the East. According to Bréhier (1908), the Pope was the only figure who could institute such a conquest. However, his eminent authority was not enough to persuade the Western nations to take up arms to conquer the Holy Land and to regain the Holy Sepulcher (“The Crusades,” 2013). Nevertheless, the sour relations between Syria and the Western Nations favored the Pope’s intentions. According to “The Crusades (1095-1291)” (2013), most historians attribute the beginning of the Crusades to a sermon preached by Pope Urban II in November 1095. The Christian faithful considered these waves of military campaigns as divinely sanctioned and thus Christians executed them with the utmost vehemence. Ten centuries later, the question that lingers in our minds is,” Were the Crusades a quest for Salvation or was there an intention of exploiting the peasants in Europe...
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...The First Crusade A mass of men, numbering roughly 100,000, marched out of Europe and toward Jerusalem and were victorious against masses of Islamic armies. In July of 1099AD, Jerusalem would fall out of the hands of the Turks for the first time in centuries, and the First Crusade would also serve to frame the make-up of nobility across Europe and help shape the middle ages altogether. The view of the Crusades, like many major events of history, are often known without being truly understood. In the modern era, the Crusades are seen almost as an afterthought, and used as a tool to rationalize and justify relativism in general. In fact, Islam had spread deep to the west, swallowing Spain and expanding into southern France. Much of Europe was in a state of subtle chaos. The Normans held the British Isles, and what we know as Germany today was in a constant state of resistance against any crown that managed power. Spain was pushing against its Muslim occupiers bit by bit, but its struggles would span centuries before and after all of the major crusades would be undertaken. Each of these, along with other events of the era, put considerable pressure on the ability of the Byzantine Empire to govern its own borders, a task made all the more difficult when compounded by pressures from the Seljuk Turks to east. It could be said then, that the call made by Alexius I Comnenus (or Alexios I Komnenos), the eastern emperor, for help from the Church, was all the more timely...
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...The Crusades were a series of wars taking place in Asia Minor and the Levant between 1095 and 1291, in which Western European nations engaged using the propaganda of religious expeditionary wars. The first crusade was called by Pope Urban II of the Roman Catholic Church, with the stated goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem. The background to the Crusades was the centuries of Arab–Byzantine Wars and the Seljuq-Byzantine Wars and the recent decisive defeat of the Byzantine army by Seljuk Turks at Manzikert in 1071. The Norman conqueror Robert Guiscard's conquest of Byzantine territories added to the problems of the Byzantine Empire. In an attempt to curtail both dangers, its Emperor Alexios I sought to align Christian nations against a common enemy, requested western aid, and Pope Urban II in turn enlisted western leaders in the cause of taking back the Holy Land.[1] The crusaders comprised military units of Roman Catholics from all over western Europe, and were not under unified command. The main series of Crusades, primarily against Muslims in the Levant, occurred between 1095 and 1291. Historians have given many of the earlier crusades numbers. After some early successes, the later crusades failed and the crusaders were defeated and forced to return home. Several hundred thousand soldiers became Crusaders by taking vows;[2] the Pope granted them plenary indulgence. Their emblem was the cross — the term "crusade" is derived from the French...
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...Crusades Introduction: The 11th Century saw the largest Military operation to date with the calling of the crusades and around 600,000 crusaders were involved in all the crusades. The Crusades were an example of the power the Roman Catholic Church had at the time. The Church made every idea, wish, or even occasion, appear to be Gods will. The church had great power and wealth at the time and that made the Pope the most powerful person in the west. The First Crusade. When the 11th century came to a close; the western part of Europe had become a power of its own but still was way behind the Mediterranean civilizations. These civilizations were the former eastern half of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic empire. The Seljuk Turks were at war with the Byzantine Empire and at the battle of Manzikirt defeated the Byzantine Empire in 1071. Alexius Comnenus finally regained the Byzantine power of the throne and over the remaining empires in 1081 after years of civil war and unrest. The Turkish again began to become unstable; prompting Alexius to ask Pope Urban II for help in the form of mercenary soldiers in 1095. The relationship of the Christians between the east and west were never great; but at the time of the request they had been improving, so the request was granted. The Pope at the time, Urban II at the council of Clermont called for all the Christians in the west to go help the eastern empire defeat the Muslims, recapture the holy land, and Aid the...
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...1 Part 1 of of a monumental documentary on the crusades produced by the History Channel entitled "Crusades: crescent and the cross". This is part one of two. A must watch, and an excellent production! - Hosted by Nahda Media - 2 Not Synced for thousand of years the holy land of the middle east was run with blood. here the scars of battle was between the three of the great religion of the world. but the deepest would was made by the war between christians and muslims began at the close of the 11 century. fought for 200 years for a state a tiny strip of land which was a few hundred miles long. But with the greatest prize Jerusalem. now this holy war is passed as legd. there were those who saw it by their own eyes. great chronicles from two different worlds Christian and Muslim wrote of great deeds, great battles and great warriors. about men who laid down their lives. ¶ 3 Not Synced this was the collision of two great faiths, the clash between the crescent and the cross. 4 Not Synced this was the crusades. 5 Not Synced Of all the cities in the world, Jerusalem has the most troubled past and the most troubling future. 6 Not Synced For the Jews, it is the site of the great temple of Hewet and Solemn. For Muslims, the place where Mohammed ascended to heaven. For Christians,a place where their messiah was crucified. 7 Not Synced After his death, the world of Jesus Christ took root and Jerusalem slowly shed almost 4 centuries of Roman...
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...The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a number of crusades that attempted to recapture the Holy Lands, called by Pope Urban II in 1095. It started as a widespread pilgrimage in western Christendom and ended as a military expedition by Roman Catholic Europe to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquests of the Levant (632–661), ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem in 1099. It was launched on 27 November 1095 by Pope Urban II with the primary goal of responding to an appeal from Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who requested that western volunteers come to his aid and help to repel the invading Seljuk Turks from Anatolia. An additional goal soon became the principal objective—the Christian reconquest of the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land and the freeing of the Eastern Christians from Muslim rule....
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...Crusades Abstract Crusades are recalled as a major incident in the history. This series of the holy war started in 1095 and continued till 1272. In general, reasons and motivational factors behind crusades are classified as subjective in nature. The goal of the Christian in this war was to liberate Jerusalem from Muslim possession and retook the control of the holy land. While, Muslims at the beginning of this war were on defensive side and failed to sustain their kingdom. However, after the third crusade, Saladin recaptured Jerusalem and included this state in his Kingdom of Egypt. This paper briefly describes the reasons and impacts of crusades which affected Europe in terms of politics, economy and social system and benefits. Table of Contents John Q. Student Professor Doe English 344 8 May 2000 Crusades Introduction The human history has seen numerous wars which have been fought to achieve the strategic goals of the states. Most of the wars reflect the intention of territorial expansion, acquiring additional resources of occupied land, settling down the political instability and to create balance or dominancy in terms of power in the region. However, history also witnesses to the fact that there are many wars that were fought on the name of religion. Crusades, among them, are generally referred as holy war or series of religious military actions to conquer the...
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...The Crusades In 1095 an assembly of churchmen called by Pope Urban II met at Clermont, France. Messengers from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus had urged the pope to send help against the armies of Muslim Turks. On November 27 the pope addressed the assembly and asked the warriors of Europe to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims. The response of the assembly was overwhelmingly favorable. Thus was launched the first and most successful of at least eight crusades against the Muslim caliphates of the Near East. "God wills it!" That was the battle cry of the thousands of Christians who joined crusades to free the Holy Land from the Muslims. From 1096 to 1270 there were eight major crusades and two children's crusades, both in the year 1212. Only the First and Third Crusades were successful. In the long history of the Crusades, thousands of knights, soldiers, merchants, and peasants lost their lives on the march or in battle. 1095: Beginning of the Crusades In 1095 an assembly of churchmen called by Pope Urban II met at Clermont, France. Messengers from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus had urged the pope to send help against the armies of Muslim Turks. On November 27 the pope addressed the assembly and asked the warriors of Europe to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims. The response of the assembly was overwhelmingly favorable. Thus was launched the first and most successful of at least eight crusades against the Muslim caliphates of the Near East. The...
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...The Crusades The Crusades was a war against the Moslems(Muslims) fought by the Christians. It started in November 1095 when the Byzantine Emperor, Alexius Commenus had sent a desperate appeal to defend Christianity against the Moslem enemy because the SeIjuk Turks, the dominant Moslem power, had conquered the Holy Land from the Christians and closed of the places made sacred by the life of Christ. Pope Blessed Urban II concluded a speech with words, “Men of God, men chosen and blessed among all, combine your forces! Take the road to the Holy Sepulcher assured of the imperishable glory that awaits you in God's kingdom. Let each one deny himself and take the Cross!” The assembly then rose with him and thus became the Crusaders. They adopted a red cross as there emblem and within ours no more red material remained in town because the knights had used it all to make the crosses that would be sewn onto their sleeves. The name Crusaders was given to them because of their emblem(crux the Latin word for cross). The Crusades were a just war which has been a controversial debate over time, but to prove it, in history the Christian nations in Europe were definitely not the aggressors. The Moslems had been the aggressors against the Christians since the seventh century. Their attacks on the Christians were still going on in the eleventh century. In 1071 the Turks had attacked and virtually annihilated the Byzantine army at Manzikert. It was this defeat that led the Byzantine Emperor...
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