Crusades Dbq

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There were a number of Crusades fought during the 11th and 12th centuries, but this paper will only discuss the First Crusade. The First Crusade was fought from 1095 to 1099, and its initial beginning officially started with a speech that Pope Urban II gave, which inspired Europe to muster her forces for the Crusade. When most people think of the Crusades, they conjure up images of evil, bloodthirsty crusaders massacring groups of innocent Muslims who were defending themselves. Contrary to popular belief, the Crusades were a justified series of military campaigns from Catholic Europe intended to rescue and preserve the Christian holy places in the middle-east from Muslim aggression, beginning with a plea for aid from the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople. …show more content…

Because of the Islamic threat, the Byzantine emperor “Alexius I…wanted to employ western knights, the Franks, to assist him in regaining Christian lands and cities in the east.” Pope Urban II knew this, and delivered a speech at Clermont, France, calling for a Crusade. He says that the Muslims in the Holy Land had depopulated the Christians “by sword, pillage, and fire,” and that they “were enslaving and torturing Christians and raping Christian women” , much like they are doing still today. Pope Urban II’s appeal was a religious one, which is why Emperor Alexius I received “western warriors with a religious mission,” intent on restoring Christian lands from the pagan Muslim conquerors. One final proof that the Crusaders had mostly come for religious reasons, was of how so few remained after Jerusalem had been taken, and of how the majority of them visited the holy sites and returned to their native lands in Europe; they had come to glorify God, not to kill and steal from innocent

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