The Crusades Nice.
What were the Crusades? • The Crusades were a Medieval military expedition lead by the European church to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims in the 11th,12th, and 13th centuries. • Crusaders had little knowledge of their Muslim enemies, but fought with high ideals and suffered in the name of Christ to set free the road to the Holy Sepulchre.
Why? • The Muslims had captured Jerusalem-the most holy of places for the Christians. •
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Jesus was born nearby in Bethlehem, spent most of his life in Jerusalem, and was crucified on Calvary Hill, also in Jerusalem. Christians called Jerusalem the “city of God”
• Jerusalem was of high importance to the Muslims • •
Muhammad lived there Dome of the Rock built there
Why? • During the 4th century, Jerusalem and the Roman Empire were primarily Christian. • During the 7th century, Islam arose and brought dedicated followers. • Both groups were intolerant of other religions, and forced as many as they could to convert to their own.
Church of Islam • Muslims fought for land so that their religion could reign. They wanted political control in the Islamic faith. • All of its followers were willing and ready to fight. • Islam burst out of Arabia, and quickly took over the Middle East. The Christian Byzantine Empire was defeated in 636, and eventually Jerusalem was captured in 638.
Tensions • Western European population rose during 11th century. This produced an increased population whose aristocracy had every incentive to seek new, external outlets for martial ardor and its desire for land. • Rise of knights in social status. • Knights were willing to fight and die in order to defend their land.
Knighthood • The rise of the knights brought changes in military technique. • Castles were built for defense • fighting on horseback became a new style of warfare.
• Knighthood became a vocation, and warfare was securing a new sanction and a new prestige. It was slowly becoming the Holy War.
The Clergy • The Church became concerned with the uprising of knights and how they (the church in society) raise their social, ethical, and religious outlook on the objectives and limits of their warfare. • Peace was the ultimate goal of Christian society, yet fighting was the knights’ way of life, and the church was blessing their weapons. • In order to secure domestic peace, the Church encouraged knights to take part in the Reconquista in Spain by holy wars against the Muslim there.
‌Continued • At the time of the First Crusade, the Church was teaching of how killing or wounding in warfare, however legitimate the cause, was gravely sinful and merited severe penance. This showed the ambiguity of the Western Christians and how contradicted they were.
Epic fail • The Christians never won back the Holy Land • Greek and Roman churches were uncooperative and unsupportive of one another. • Armies had to make long treks to battle, so they were never fit to fight. • Crusaders were never numerous enough to outnumber the Muslims
The end…? • Altogether there were 9 Crusades, which were spread out over 200 years. • The Crusades finally ended because men lost faith in the movement. • Enthusiasm had died out, and the ideal of the Crusade as the “way of God” was no longer appealing • Christians began to be more concerned about the world around them and thought less of travelling to distant shrines to honor God • They came to believe that Jerusalem could be won back the way the apostles did it, through love and prayer.