The First Crusade Essay

The Crusades of the High Middle Ages (a.d. 1050-1300) was a period of conquest or rather, reconquest, of Christian lands taken from Muslims in the early Middle Ages. It is an era romanticized by fervent Christians as the time when Christianity secured its honorable status as the true religion of the world. The affect of the Crusades is still with us today. It sailed from Spain and Portugal to the Americas in the fifthteenth century aboard sailing ships carrying conquistadors who sought new territory and rich resources. They used the shield and sword of Christianity to justify a swift conquest of mass territory and the subjugation of the indigenous peoples; a mentality learned, indeed,

In 1095, Pope Urban II called for an army to go to the Holy Land, Jerusalem. This was what was later known as the ‘First Crusade’. A crusade is a religious war or a war mainly motivated by religion. The first crusade consisted of 10’s of thousands of European Christians on a medieval military expedition to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims. This doesn’t mean that the first crusade was just motivated by religion. Throughout this essay, I will be suggesting the main reasons of why people went on crusades and which different people went for specific reasons and why.

The Crusades took place in the Middle East between 1095 and 1291. They were used to gain a leg up on trading, have more land to show hegemony, and to please the gods. Based upon the documents, the Crusades between 1095 and 1291 were caused primarily by religious devotion rather than by the desire for economic and political gain.

The crusades were a series of brutal medieval wars that began in 1095 and ended in1496. Fought in the high middle ages between the Christians and the Muslims. There were eight crusades over all, the first crusade being mainly spilt into two parts, the official crusades and the peasant crusade or better known as the people crusade. With only lasting a few years, both the peasants and official crusades were quite similar and different in their own ways.

During this time a monk named Peter the Hermit, carried a huge cross town to town and preaching to the people. This made people want to get out and go reconquest Jerusalem. They were starting to get antsy and eventually a horde of poor men, women and children set out on the trip to Jerusalem known as the “People’s Crusade” or “Peasants Crusade”. The name was given to the crusader because they had started their expedition before the great leaders that lead the main crusade. The People’s Crusade was unorganized and mostly unarmed. Women and children were the majority of the tens of thousands of individuals heading to jerusalem. They traveled down the Danube valley and passed through Constantinople before the main crusade was supposed to meet. They were led by Peter the Hermit and a few other higher ranking knights but later became too much for them to control. Along their journey through germany and hungary their number grew shorter due to battles with the natives of the land. When the “People's Crusade” crossed the Asia minor they were surprised and slaughters by the Turks. A few thousand including Peter the Hermit survived and would eventually continue their march to

The Crusades, a series of wars, are an extremely important part of history in the 12th century, occurring during the Middle Ages. The Middle East or the Holy Land was always a place that Christians traveled to to make pilgrimages. The Seljuk Turks eventually took control of Jerusalem and all Christians were not allowed in the Holy City. As the Turks power grew, they threatened to take over the Byzantine Empire and Constantinople. The Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I, asked Pope Urban II for help and Pope agreed, hoping to strengthen his own power. He He united the Christians in Europe and In 1095, Pope Urban II waged waged war against muslims in order to “reclaim the holy land.”

This, the Speech of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont as recounted by the Fulcher of Chartres, had captured the call for the first crusade. The goal of bringing peace in Christendom is clearly aimed by setting a warpath towards Jerusalem to unite Christians once again to the holy land. The power in reassuring the future crusaders of absolution of all sins and promised entry into heaven is unmatched during the start of the Crusades.

The crusades were wars fought in the name of God or holy wars. The first of the crusades began in 1095 when Pope Urban the second received an appeal for help from Alexius the first, the Byzantine Emperor. Alexius wanted Urbans' help against the Turks, "a race alienated from God".

In his call at Clermont in 1095, Pope Urban II asked all fellow Christians to join in the aid of the Christians in the East that were then prone to Turkish attacks. Requesting that they all leave their lives and run to their aid, Pope Urban II explained how they would be doing all in the name of God. The Pope let all of the people know that they would all be greatly recompensed in following God's will and fighting for God and in doing so he further led the people to understand that any killing they would do would be forgiven since it was all to be in God's will. In addition, he insisted that if any were to die in this aid, they would all be

Patrick Geary’s “Readings in Medieval History” contains four accounts of the invasion of the Middle East by the Europeans in 1095 A.D. These accounts all cite different motives for the first crusade, and all the accounts are from the perspective of different sides of the war. The accounts all serve to widen our perspective, we hear from the Christian and Middle Eastern side of the conflict. Fulcher of Chartres claims, Pope Urban the Second urged all Christians to intervene in the “East” at the council of Claremont, saying it was a sign of “Strength of good will”. (Readings in Medieval History, Geary, page 396).

The Crusades were a series of holy wars that were fought between Muslims and Christians and the main goal of these wars were to recover Jerusalem. The Christians wanted it because it is where they believe that Jesus was born, the Muslims wanted it because it is where they believe prophet Muhammed rose up to heaven. There were three main Crusades (first, second, and third crusade)

The First Crusade attracted no European kings. They came primarily from the lands of French culture and language. These Crusaders faced many obstacles. They had no obvious or widely accepted leader, no relations with the churchmen who went with them, no definition of the pope's role, and no agreement with the Byzantine emperor on whether they were his allies, servants, rivals, or perhaps enemies. These uncertainties divided the Crusaders into factions that did not always get along well with one another. Some leaders who did show up were Robert of Flanders and Bohemond of Taranto of one group of Crusaders, while the other major groups were those of Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond of Toulouse. As the Crusaders marched east, they were joined by thousands of men and even women, ranging from petty knights and their families, to peasants seeking freedom from their ties to the manor. Many people with all sorts of motives and contributions joined the march. They followed local lords or well-known nobles or drifted eastward on their own, walking to a port town and then sailing to Constantinople. Few people knew what to expect but they all had one goal, retake the Holy Land. They knew little about the Byzantine Empire or its religion, Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Few Crusaders even understood or had much sympathy for the Eastern Orthodox religion, which did not recognize the pope, used

Most have heard of the crusades of the middle-ages or at least heard of some famous people such as Pope Urban II, Richard the Lionheart or others. Whether you see the crusades as events that tried to promote Christian values in a pagan territory or of you see the crusades as chivalrous knights fight for a valiant cause one will still need a good understanding why the crusades began and what was the outcome the crusades. There were a number of Christian Crusades during the time period of 1095 A.D. to 1291 A.D. and it is the intentions of this paper to provide the reader with

"While the army of the First Crusade was assembling, there arose a number of popular crusading movements led by a variety of charismatic preachers. Unorganized and often violent, these groups exhibited a fanatical belief in the justness of their cause—a belief that resulted in the slaughter of Jewish communities in Europe and hostile encounters with fellow Christians in both eastern Europe and Byzantium as the "armies" made their way toward Jerusalem during 1096. Most medieval accounts of these popular crusades are critical of their actions and motives, and it is certainly true that politics and personal gain were as much a part of the movement as religious feeling."3 As the editors introduce Albert of Aachen's, a twelfth century historian, perspective on the ordeal, it becomes evident just how misguided and spontaneous the Peasants' Crusade was. First of all, overly passionate and unrealistic preachers without any fighting experience organizing equally unqualified and brainwashed citizens is not an ideal place to start when attempting to carry out a successful overthrow. Next, the plan to win back the Holy Land would have been notably more triumphant if they took the time to consider a reasonable plan as opposed to immediately acting upon emotion. Because their fuel was based on feelings and not practicality, the journey to the desired land became interrupted with unnecessary violence and apparent disarray. Since the Western Christians did not consider their motives and plans beforehand, the Crusades became an emotionally and spiritually-driven slaughtering of all those who got in the

The Crusades: A Short History, written by British Historian Jonathan Riley-Smith, offers a broad overview of this part of the medieval era, but he also explores how historians have attempted to explain these events in modern terms. Riley-Smith also makes sure to note all major contributors to the Crusade movement and their personalities. Numerous scholars have wondered whether this was a political or religious mission. This helps to spark the question of why people would leave their homes and their families to risk their lives invading a land that was thousands of miles away for religious reasons. In his book, Riley-Smith makes this era come alive for the modern reader. He does