On 15 July 1099 the crusaders entered the city. Second Crusade 1147–1149 : A mamluk general, Imad-ed-din Zangi, had managed to unite enough Turks and Arabs in his army to attack the Christian kingdoms. Zangi did not take Jerusalem, but he did take the Syrian city of Edessa nearby. In Europe, people were very upset to learn that the Turks had taken Edessa. The Pope ordered Bernard of Clairvaux (in France) to preach a second crusade to take it back and defeat Zangi.
Launched by pope urban, with the primary goal of responding to an appeal from Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Komnenos, the first crusade was a military expedition by western Christianity to regain the holy lands taken in the Muslim conquest of the Levant ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem. Pope urban thought that it would be a good idea to get all men from the Christian world to travel to the east the fight the Turks. This would have helped Alexius, but Pope Urban actually really wanted, was to win back the holy city of Jerusalem from the Muslims. He made an
The Turks attempted to expand their reign and began to invade the Byzantine Empire. The Christian emperor of Byzantium decided to seek help from the Pope, who in turn sent Christian forces from Western Europe to go to war with the Muslim armies and to stop the spread of Islam in the Holy Land. These wars left an everlasting legacy medieval society, Islam, Europe and the Jews. The effects of the Crusades on these aspects can still be seen in the world we live in today. The Crusades aided the movement towards a new way of government.
A primary cause of the Crusades was religious differences between the Muslims and the Christians. Christians made pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and when they saw that their Holy Land was owned by Muslims, they felt that they had a religious obligation to take back this land. Muslims felt that the land belonged to them, and that what the Christians were trying to do was unmerited. This is an example of the external pressures both cultures experienced in relation to the ownership of their Holy Land. Christians were promised that if they joined the war, they would be forgiven of sins and guaranteed a place in heaven, which was irresistible to many people.
Also according to the High Middle Ages Chapter, the fourth crusade also added to the schism that existed between the Eastern and Western Churches. The crusaders sort of sell out to Alexius IV, who arranged to pay for their debts to the Doge in return that they attack Constantinople so that he may gain the throne. Pope Innocent III warned them not to attack Constantinople because they were fellow Christians. The crusaders advance Alexius IV to the throne, but he was later strangled by Alexius Ducas who also wanted the throne. The crusaders with the help of the Venetians rebelled and they sacked Constantinople for three days against the warnings from the pope.
THE FOURTH CRUSADE The Crusades in the middle ages helped define religious and political life during this era. Life in the middle ages revolved around what was happening with the Pope and his anticipations for the next Crusade. The focuses of the crusades were ideally to unite the churches to bring back Christian leadership and control in the Holy Land, that is, Jerusalem. One of the most impacting crusades is known as the fourth Crusade when Innocent III was pope. The fourth crusade became terribly diverted from its original plans and became one of the most tragic and barbaric of all the crusades.
The crusades affected western culture because of their biblical practices that threatened it. By 1905, Urban II’s call for a crusade was only part of a larer shifting in theological interpretations and justification of warfare: the Reconquista in Spain, for instance, had been under way for over two centuries and was rooted in a re-fashioned understanding of just war theory. The explicit pilgrimage and warfare gave the First Crusade a unique potency that triggered widespread enthusiasm across feudal social boudaries. Pilgrimage was a common practice during Middle Ages and, given the perils of travel, pilgrims often armed themselves for defense. The ideology of the crusade, however, was one rooted in the practice redemptive pilgrimage as well as conquest.
The essay topic that I will be writing about will be focusing on two parts that intersect. The essay will focus on Pope Urban’s reasons for the crusade and his aims and ambitions for the church. I will also be discussing the Popes use of exaggerating claims of christians suffering and being murdered and liberating the holy lands to gain support for the Crusade. I have looked at these sources and found some of these more useful than others in writing my paper. Pope Urban II’s call for a crusade:Four Accounts -This piece of work has four different accounts of one of the first sermons that Pope Urban gave about the crusade.
Byzantium was embroiled in the Hesychast controversy, and adherence to the mystical doctrine of Hesychasm was often equated with support for Kantakouzenos. As the chief aide and closest friend of Emperor Andronikos III, Kantakouzenos became regent for the under-age John V upon the Emperor's death in June 1341. While Kantakouzenos was absent from Constantinople in September the same year, a coup d'etat led by Alexios Apokaukos and the Patriarch John XIV secured the support of Empress Anna and established a new regency. In response, Kantakouzenos' army and supporters proclaimed him co-emperor in October, cementing the rift between himself and the new regency. The split immediately escalated into armed conflict.
Occurring predominantly in Europe and the Middle East, the Crusades began in 1095 and officially ended in 1291 (History.com staff, 2010). This being said, the causes can be traced back to 1081 when Alexius Comnenus gained the Byzantine throne, becoming Emperor Alexius I, after years of chaos and invasions by the Seljuk Turks (History.com staff, 2010). In due time Emperor Alexius would begin to set his sights on reclaiming the Holy Land from the Muslims. Seeing that this task would require more than the Byzantine’s men, he reached out to Pope Urban II of the Roman Catholic Church asking him for troops (History.com staff, 2010). The Pope made his decision public at the 1095 Council of Clermont in Southern France where he raised the proposal for all able Western Christians to raise arms to aid the Byzantines.