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The crusades were motivated by economic gain
The first crusade research paper
Economic reasons for the crusades
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The First Crusade was a call initiated by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont for aid requested by the Byzantine Emperor, Alexios Komnenos, to be sent to the Byzantine Empire, which had been under an attack from the Seljuk Turks, an Islamic Asiatic Steppe group. The First Crusade was perceived to be necessary to save Jerusalem, the Holy Land, from the Turkish and Muslim nonbelievers that had been inhabiting the city and slaughtering Christians. While the First Crusade was a mission to save Jerusalem, it held different meanings for each participant who were also driven by different motivations such as religious and monetary, but despite these differences each believed they were doing right by God. A strong motivator to accept the task …show more content…
Peasants from kingdoms across Europe, primarily France and England, took up arms and proceeded on a Crusade of their own that occurred simultaneously with the First Crusade. Along their intended march to Jerusalem to deliver the aid requested by Pope Urban II, many Jewish people scattered throughout cities along the way were slaughtered mercilessly. Those that had formed this informal Crusade band were not part of a formal army nor were they acting upon any official orders but their own. This Crusade was formed and enacted because those within fully believed slaughtering Jewish people was demanded of them by God. A chaplain servicing a crusader count wrote of the slaughter of Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem “was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of the unbelievers, since it had suffered so long from their blasphemies.” A man of religious authority produced rhetoric affirming that the slaughter of Muslims and Jews was just because God deemed it so. The chaplain wholly believed in the Crusade and praised those performing the killings, which enabled those killings to have confidence in their …show more content…
A passage from the Hebrew Chronicle recounted an attack on Jews in Mainz, Germany, where Jewish women would throw coins and silver to buy themselves time to kill their children which prevented forced conversion of their children to Christianity. This recounting was significant in that it showed many on the First Crusade were motivated first by money, because they allowed themselves to be distracted by coins from what should have been the main goal of killing inhabitants not of Christian faith. Money as a motivator was not reserved for commoners and knights on the crusades, but it also applied to religious authority, like Bishop Rothard of Cologne. In the account of Albert of Aachen, Bishop Rothard took a large sum of money from Jewish people in exchange for protection that he never carried through with. This retelling was significant because it showed money was a huge motivator for many people’s actions. To further demonstrate the motivation of money, some in Tancred’s army spared Jewish people who paid enough, and later still killed those people. This mercilessness was still religiously driven but underlying was the desire for money, which crusaders got through bribes and
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.
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 First Crusade was called in 1096 by Pope Urban II. The reasons for the First Crusade was to help obtain Jerusalem known as the holy land. During this time period the Muslims were occupying Jerusalem. First Crusade contained peasants and knights’ whose ethnicities consist of Franks, Latin’s, and Celts which were all from the western part of Europe. To get peasants and knights to join Pope Urban II objectives in return of a spiritual reward called “remission of all their sins” which was to be redeemed of any sins the individual has committed. When sins are redeemed Crusaders believed that they will escape the torment of hell. When lords and knights joined the crusade they were known as military elites. Crusaders were known as soldiers of Christ.
The First Crusade was a widely appealing armed pilgrimage, and mobilized a vast conquering force at a time when the Christian Church was moving towards centralization and greater political influence in Europe. The Church gained a wider audience more accepting of its leadership, benefitted economically, and developed its own militarily force. These outcomes, along with the Church’s documented ambition to expand and its reversal of prior teachings, support the idea that the First Crusade was a deliberate political maneuver, intended to to expand and consolidate the authority of the
On the 18 of May 1906 the army of the crusaders under the rule of the Emicho of Flonheim reached the walls of Mainz and demanded to open the city’s gates. After three days of invasions the archiepiscop of the city opened the gates and the knights entered the city, and started to attack Jewish district. In several days the whole Jewish diaspora of the city Mainz was buried in this bloody slaughter - Mainz had the biggest Jewish district in Europe with the population of more than 1000 people (counting the fact that hardly every other city of Medieval Europe had a population of more than 5000 citizens). All the symbols of the Jewish faith were destroyed, the synagogue in which were held yearly meetings of the heads of the jewish faith was set up in flames. The same fate crushed upon cities like Ruan, Reims, Trier, Prague, Metz and others. Crusades started with military campaigns and massive robberies, which were not the major purpose. Eventually, robberies were daily basis for the knights , and Jews were killed for the ridiculous reason like "Their grandparents crucified Jesus". The Emicho of Flonheim himself before starting his military campaign to Jerusalem roberred several churches. Other leaders of the First Crusade like Godfrey of Bouillon and Duke of Lower Lorraine were regularly devastating monasteries in their own la...
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
This was enough to convince about 60,000 Europeans, many of them peasants to start on the First Crusade to the Holy Land ("THE CRUSADES TO THE HOLY LAND”). Many of the soldiers who went on the Crusades also hoped to acquire land and riches and return a war hero. This was the first time the Catholic Church had seen penitential warfare- “warfare in the service and defense of the Church for the ‘remission of your sins’”("THE CRUSADES TO THE HOLY LAND”). The whole mentality of the Crusades was to destroy any other beliefs including paganism and Judaism, which lead to all kinds of violence and persecution, with Jews becoming a common target, even entire Jewish communities were slaughtered ("How Christianity Rose to Dominate Europe."). Even the Christians were not safe, as many were killed in settlements along the way. Pope Urban was the one who brought out this idea that it was okay to kill non-Christians, and, even beyond that, IF you went to the Holy Land on a Crusade, you received a free ticket to heaven even if you died there. Does this sound a little bit familiar? Perhaps a little like those who truly believe that they’re gaining salvation by blowing up a group of innocent people along with themselves? Or flying a plane full of passengers into building full of people? Well, the First Crusaders marched to Jerusalem leaving death and
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 fighter plane circled overhead leaving a steady white stream of fuel behind it in the blue sky. A straight line of bullets cascaded down on the beach in our direction. My father and I desperately searched for cover. Down the beach a flock of seagulls were relaxing in the baking sun. My father grabbed his umbrella and sprinted after them cawing frantically while waving his umbrella about. The birds, obviously frightened, splashed out of the sea-foam that created the salty aroma surrounding us and took to the sky, all in sporadic directions. as the plane circled back again, the pilot was caught by the crossfire of the birds my father had offered up. His plane sputtered and spewed black smoke as it fell like a boulder into the cliff above, fantastically blowing up in a heap of fire and a final billow of smoke. I turned around dumbfounded at this recent series of events and met my father’s gaze. “I suddenly remembered by Charlemagne.” He said “Let my armies be the rocks and the trees and the birds in the sky.”
The First Crusade was established in 1095 in a council of the Church in Clermont. Alexius I Commenus, emperor of Byzantium, wanted to control Asia Minor and Northern Syria after losing to the Turks. He needed more Western troops and looked towards Pope
In order for the crusades to begin, the Christians needed to gather an army to travel and fight the forces of Muslims. With all the power being held by monarchies at this time, the church needed to be cleaver in order to gain troops to put their lives on the line. To gain the support of these warriors and dedication of men, Pope Urban II (1088-1099) challenged those morals of men by telling them to grab their weapons and join the holy war to recover the land of Jerusalem. It was not the challenge that convinced men to take part in this war. The promise of “immediate remission of sins” attracted the men to stand up for their religion and beliefs while at the same time, promising them a trip to heaven when life comes to an end. With this statement, men instantly prepared for battle which in a very short period of time gave the church power which has been held by the monarchies. Men of rich and poor prepared for battle, some wearing ...
Contrary to many commonly held notions about the first crusade, in his book, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading, Jonathan Riley-Smith sets out to explain how the idea of crusading thought evolved in the first crusade. In his book, Riley-Smith sets out five main arguments to show how these ideas of crusading evolved. Firstly, he argues that Pope Urban’s original message was conventional, secondly that a more positive reaction was drawn from the laity (due to the ideas surrounding Jerusalem), thirdly, that the original message of crusading had changed because of the horrible experiences of the first crusaders, fourth, that due to these experiences the crusaders developed their own concept of what a crusade was, and lastly, that these ideas were refined by (religious) writers and turned into an acceptable form of theology. Riley-Smith makes excellent points about the crusade; however, before one can delve directly into his argument, one must first understand the background surrounding the rise of the first crusade.
During The First Crusade peasants and knights alike fought for God and glory travelling east towards Jerusalem. In 1099 Christian forces reached Jerusalem and prepared for recapture. The western crusaders attacked the city and gained control of it. During the capture of Jerusalem, the crusading forces massacred not only Muslims, but Jews and even other Christians. Men women and children alike, no one was safe from these crusaders who did what they wanted. They butchered Jerusalem’s inhabitants in the streets, without care of what God might think (which is ironic considering this w...
The emperor of the Byzantine Emperor was upset with Turks encroaching on his empire. He went to the Pope Urban II and complained. He made up atrocities about the Turks. In 1096, The Pope Urban II promoted the Crusade to reclaim the Holy Land from the barbaric Turks. These crusades lasted till the 13th century. In the process, Jews were persecuted and lots of looting took place. 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.