Crusades
In the Middle Ages, Christians considered
Palestine the Holy Land because it was
where Jesus had lived and taught. The
Arabs had conquered Palestine in the 600s.
Most Arabs were Muslims, but
they usually tolerated other religions. Jews and
Christians who paid
their taxes and observed other regulations were free to live
in Palestine and
practice their own religion. The Arab rulers didn’t usually
interfere with
Christian pilgrims visiting Palestine, and European traders could
generally
do business there. During the 1000s the Seljuk Turks, people from
central
Asia who had adopted the Muslim faith, conquered Palestine and
attacked
Asia Minor, which was part of the Byzantine Empire. When the
Turks threatened
the capital city of Constantinople, the Byzantine emperor
appealed to the pope
in Rome. Because Christian pilgrims going to Palestine
came home with reports of
persecution from the Turks, the Byzantine emperor’s
appeal for help found a
reception in Europe. Pope Urban I wanted to regain
the Holy Land from the
Muslims. He called a great meeting of church
leaders and French nobles at
Clermont France in 1095. At the meeting he
encouraged the powerful feudal nobles
to stop fighting with each other, and
to join in one big war against the"unbelievers." Urban’s request made his
listeners very enthusiastic and
they joined in one big cry, "God wills it!"
From Clermont people traveled
through France preaching the cause. The people
who joined the expeditions sewed
a cloth cross on their clothes. They were
called crusaders, from the Latin word
cruciata, which means, "marked with a
cross." People joined the Crusades,
the expeditions to regain the Holy Land,
for many different reasons. Most
knights joined the crusades for the land and
plunder in the rich Middle East.
Merchants saw a chance to make money.
The pope promised both heavenly and
earthly rewards. Those who died on a
Crusade were said to go strait to heaven.
The pope also guaranteed church
protection of the crusader’s property and
family during his absence. Debtors
who joined a Crusade had their debts
canceled. Criminals were relieved of
punishment. The Crusades appealed to both a
love of adventure and the promise
of reward- the desire to escape debts or
punishment. French and Norman nobles
led the First Crusade that lasted from 1096
to 1099. In three organized
armies, they marched across Europe to
Constantinople. The crusaders
received a hostile reception in Constantinople.
The Byzantine emperor had
asked for some assistance, but now, seeing three
armies approaching the city,
he feared they might capture and plunder the
capitol. After much discussion
the Byzantines allowed the crusaders to pass
through Constantinople to begin
their long, hot march across Asia Minor toward
Palestine. In their wool
and leather garments and their heavy armor, the
crusaders suffered severely
from the heat. Because they had few pack animals, a
shortage of food and
water plagued them. Additional problems erupted when the
leaders quarreled
over fiefs in the lands they captured. Despite these
difficulties, however,
the crusaders forged on to capture the city of Antioch.
Then they marched
toward Jerusalem. If the Turks had not also been quarreling
and disunited,
the expedition would have failed. Conditions improved as the
crusaders
marched down the seacoast toward Palestine. Fleets of ships from
the
Italian cities of Genoa and Pisa brought reinforcements and supplies.
The
crusaders captured Jerusalem after a short battle and slaughtered the
Muslim
inhabitants. One leader wrote to the pope that his horse’s legs had
been
bloodstained to the knees from riding among the bodies of the dead
Muslims. In
the Middle East the crusaders set up four small states: the
County of Edessa,
the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripole, and the
Kingdom of
Jerusalem. They introduced European feudalism and subdivided
the land into fiefs
controlled by vassals and lords. For almost a century,
the Europeans occupied
these lands. Brisk European trade, with goods carried
mostly in Italian ships,
sprang up. Christians and Muslims lived in close
proximity and grew to respect
each other. Many Christians adopted Eastern
customs and came to prefer Eastern
food and clothing. The Second Crusade
began in 1147, after the Turks had
recaptured the important city of Edessa
and threatened the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
In this Crusade, King Luis VII
of France and the Holy Roman Emperor, Conrad III
led their armies across
Europe to the Holy Land. They were fighting separately,
and didn’t join
forces until they got to Damascus, which was held by the
Turks. Luis and
Conrad couldn’t capture the city and returned to Europe
disgracefully in two
years. In 1187 the Muslim leader Saladin recaptured
Jerusalem. Two years
later the Third Crusade, the "Crusade of the Three
Kings," began and
lasted until 1192. King Richard of England, King Philip
Augustus of
France, and Emperor Frederick Barboarossa of the Holy Roman Empire
each
started out at the head of a great army to regain the Holy Land.
The
Europeans failed once again, and an estimated 300,000 Christians and
Muslims
died. There were many more Crusades until 1291, when the Muslims
captured the
last Christian stronghold, in Acre. Fore 200 years a constant
flow of Europeans
streamed into the Holy Land. Over that period, however, the
religious zeal of
the crusaders had steadily dwindled. From a military
standpoint, all the
Crusades except the first failed. The Muslims
eventually recaptured Jerusalem
and the rest of Palestine. However, Europeans
learned many things of military
importance, such as the crossbow, carrier
pigeons and messengers, new siege
tactics, and gunpowder. In Europe the
Crusades increased the power of kings and
decreased the power of feudal
lords. Kings imposed new taxes and led armies
drawn from their entire
countries. The church also got more political power
because of its leadership
role in initiating the crusades. After the Crusades
the status of women
changed. When their husbands were gone they managed feudal
estates. Europeans
were influenced by the ideas exchanged among the crusaders
form different
countries and between the crusaders and the other people they
met. Commercial
changes also occurred. Italian cities benefited from their role
in
transporting crusading armies. Europeans discovered products from the
middle
East- rice, sugar, lemons, apricots, and melons, among other
things—which
stimulated trade in such goods. Cotton cloth was also introduced
into Europe in
the form of muslin and damask.