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The crusades and religious devotion
Crusaders economic motives or religious
Crusades religious case
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Were the Crusades Motivated Primarily by Religious Factors? The Crusades were a series of military campaigns and wars between the Christians and the Muslims that lasted almost 200 years. The main motivations of these Crusades was to control the Holy Land in Jerusalem, also by the belief that all of their sins would be forgiven, and others to help the struggling Church in the East. Although there were other driving factors of the Crusades such as political and economic interests, the most important factor was their religious interests and the defense of their Holy Land.
One of the Crusades main purposes was to recapture the city of Jerusalem, their Holy Land. The city of Jerusalem was important to both Christianity and Islam because it was the city that represented the center of their respective religion. Also, during the fourth century the city of Jerusalem was drawn on most maps as the center of the world. “Jews treasured it (Jerusalem) as Zion, God’s own city, and as the place where King Solomon had built his great temple. Muslims associated it with the prophets who had preceded their founder Muhammad and considered it their third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina (“The Divine Campaigns” 57). “It was a meeting place for those who had been scattered, the goal of the great pilgrimage or Crusade, where God resides among his people” (Mayer 136). The Christian attacks against the Muslims in the city of Jerusalem were to no avail as they simply lacked the manpower to capture the city. The Crusades from the Muslim perspective, “ultimately helped the Islamic leaders to impose unity and religious orthodoxy in a divided region” (“The Divine Campaigns” 59). Overall the Christians were unable to complete the main goal of their great pilg...
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... had to cross the very hostile territory of Anatolia. The extra support by the Christian church was not only motivated by the religious factors that went along with controlling Byzantium but it also included the great source of wealth, power, and land that the Byzantine empire controlled. Although helping the Byzantine Empire wasn’t the main focus the people of the Crusades still cared enough to help keep their Christian religion alive all around the world.
Since the latter Crusades began to lose their importance and the religious motivating factor the motivations for the latter Crusades became corrupt, the motivations became the greed for land, power and money. Although last Crusades did not follow the basis for the first and original crusade, there was still always the underlying religious factor that still drove everyone to fight for their personal religion.
The Crusades were an outlet for the intense religious tension between the Muslims and the church which rose up in the late 11th century. This all started because the church and the Catholics wanted the Holy Lands back from the Muslims. Around this time the church was the biggest institute and people were god-fearing. Pope Gregory VII wanted to control more lands and wanted to get back the lands that they had lost to the Muslims (Medieval Europe). So in order to get back these lands he launched The Crusades which he insisted to the peasants was a holy war instead.
The Crusades were a series attacks against the Muslim people in Jerusalem in an effort to take back the Holy Land. The causes of the Crusades are highly debated, but religious devotion is the obvious cause for Pope Urban the Second to call upon the Crusades. The religious reasons that lead to the creation of the Crusades is that the Christians wanted to take back Jerusalem, add another reason. The economical and political reasons that could oppose the religious reasons are that the Crusades were caused because people wanted to gain more riches and possessions and that Pope Urban wanted to protect the Byzantine empire from the Seljuk Turks. Although the economical and political reasons were the causes of the Crusades, the religious reasons
Foss explains, “What Urban needed was an enterprise, clearly virtuous in serving the ends of Christiandome… in these moments of reflection, the popes mind turned towards Jerusalem.” Urban II reflects back on the first taking of the Holy City after the defeat of the Byzantine Empire in 1071, and begins to question what his people know about the Turkish race and really the ideology of Islamic thought. Foss goes on to examine the ignorance of westerners and needed to be “reminded [by the pope] of the infamous heathens, their cruelty and hatred of Christians,” hoping this would justify the first Holy Crusade. However, Foss identifies the creativity of the Pope’s language to persuade the knights and army of the people to embark on the Holy Crusade based on the Muslims cruel actions turned onto their fellow Christians. Claiming the Muslims “Killed captives by torture…poor captives were whipped…and others were bound to the post and used as a target for arrows.” Foss examines the Popes words as an effective effort of persuasion in creating an army of crusaders to help clean “…Holy places, which are now treated with ignominy and polluted with Filthiness” and any sacrifice in Jerusalem is a “promise of a spiritual reward… and death for
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 first crusade was held only in order to fulfill desire of the Christians of the recapturing the center of the Christian faith-Jerusalem, which has been controlled by the Muslim nation for more than 400 years. This military campaign was followed with severe cruelty and harsh actions against Muslims which cannot be justified with anything but religious and material interest.
Among some of the largest conflicts in the world stand the Crusades; a brutal conflict that lasted over 200 years and was debatably one of the largest armed religious conflicts in the history of humankind. Since this is so clearly an event of importance, historians have searched vigorously for the true answer as to why the crusades began. Ultimately, because of accusatory views on both the sides of the Christians and of the Muslims, the two groups grew in such hatred of each other that they began to act in deep discrimination of each other. Moreover, Christian motives seemed to be driven mostly by the capture of Jerusalem, the dark ages of Europe and the common-folks desperation for land, wealth, and a spot in heaven. What seems to be continually
The Crusades were the first tactical mission by Western Christianity in order to recapture the Muslim conquered Holy Lands. Several people have been accredited with the launch of the crusades including Peter the Hermit however it is now understood that this responsibility rested primarily with Pope Urban II . The main goal of the Crusades was the results of an appeal from Alexius II, who had pleaded for Western Volunteers help with the prevention of any further invasions. The Pope’s actions are viewed as him answering the pleas of help of another in need, fulfilling his Christian right. However, from reading the documents it is apparent that Pope Urban had ulterior motives for encouraging engagement in the war against the Turks. The documents and supporting arguments now highlight that the Pope not only sought to recruit soldiers to help but also to challenge those who had harmed the Christians community and annihilate the Muslims. He put forth the idea that failure to recapture this lands would anger God and that by participating, God would redeem them of their previous sins.in a time of deep devoutness, it is clear this would have been a huge enticement for men to engage in the battle. Whether his motives were clear or not to his people, Pope Urban’s speeches claiming that “Deus vult!” (God wills it) encouraged many Christians to participate and take the cross.
There is no question that the crusades have been motivated by religious factors. History tells us that the Christians wanted to send pilgrims and take back the Holy Land from the Moslems (p. 102). The papacy told everyone in Europe that if they fought and reclaimed the Holy Land they would receive an indulgence, which would wash away some of or all of a sin (p. 104). In this way the papacy would lure people to join the quest to retake the Holy Land. By taking on this quest one would receive an indulgence and he may also kill the heathens desecrating the Holy Land (p.108).
Throughout the duration of the crusades real motivations shone though on behalf of the Crusaders. Not only did they lack a religious purpose for fighting, but they made the Muslim’s lives complicated and valueless. They were power hungry, land coveting people who fought with non Christian ideals and Morales. It should be clear to anyone and everyone that the prime motivation behind the Crusader’s fighting was power and land which would eventually lead to wealth.
In 1095, Pope Urban II called the first crusade. Happening between 1096 and 1099, the first crusade was both a military expedition and a mass movement of people with the simple goal of reclaiming the Holy Lands taken by the Muslims in their conquests of the Levant. The crusade ended with the capture of Jerusalem in July 1099. However, there has been much debate about whether the First Crusade can be considered an ‘armed pilgrimage’ or whether it has to be considered as a holy war. This view is complicated due to the ways in which the Crusade was presented and how the penitential nature of it changed throughout the course of the Crusade.
A main cause of the Crusades was the treatment of Christian pilgrims. They were robbed, beaten, and then sold. The main group of Turks, the Seljuk Turks, were threatening and growing in power. The Byzantine Emperor, Alexus I, began to become worried and sent out an urgent plea to Pope Urban II, in Rome. He requested for Christian knights to help him fight the Turks. Pope Urban II did agree to his appeal although Byzantine Emperors and Roman Popes were longtime rivals. He also did agree with Alexus I, in fearing that the Turks were expanding. Pope Urban encouraged French and German Bishops and Nobles to also take part in this. “ An accused race has violently invaded the lands of those Christians and had depopulated them by pillage and fire.” This is when Pope Urban II called for a crusade to free the Holy Land. Urban did agree to this having some of his own motives in mind. He was hoping his power would grow in ...
The constant fighting between the Christian crusaders and the Muslim people transformed religion into a license to kill, which justified the slaughter of men, women and children. Although the crusades were seen as failures during their time, the crusades had a huge impact on the world. This impact can be seen through the many social, political, economic, and religious changes that developed during the crusades. Some of these changes still remain to this day.
Many countries took interest in the Crusades because they were ready for travel and adventure. They wanted to expand trade with the Middle and Far East and so the Crusades gave them a chance to open up trade routes with those countries. They used Christianity to justify the Crusades. In reality, they wanted to expand trade and gain more territorial land. Chinese History Often countries or leaders try to put too many restrictions on their subjects or territories and then the people rebel.
How did the Crusades affect the Christians, Muslims, and Jews? The crusades impacted them all greatly for they were all a key part of the Crusades. Occasionally A religion may get a positive consequence but most of the time it was a negative one. Why did they all want Jerusalem? They all wanted it because it had a religious value to them. For the Jews, it was their spiritual city where the great temple once stood. For the Christians, it was where Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead. Last but not least for the Muslims it was where Muhammad rose to heaven during the night journey.
Religious feelings were the principal cause of the Crusades. Up until 1065 the Moslems had control o...