Positive And Negative Effects Of The Crusades

“Start upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre to wrest that land from the wicked race and subject it to yourselves” (“Urban II.”). It is hard to believe that almost 200 years of merciless fighting, mass slaughter, and religious intolerance had a positive outcome on the rest of the world. All of these things and more occurred during The Crusades. Pope Urban II lit a fire under the Christians and started the fighting with the Muslims. Urban’s decision to start an armed pilgrimage was a bold, daring move to make. Although there were some negative impacts of The Crusade including massacres, heavy taxes, and religious hatred, the long term positive effects such as increased trade, cultural diffusion, and religious unification immensely outweigh

The Crusades helped to bring Europe out of the atrocious Dark Ages. When large armies of Crusaders traveled to the Middle East, they began to use the old Roman road systems (“Pope Urban”). Trade between Europe and The Middle East was quickly reestablished. With the increase in trade, cultural diffusion between Europe and the Middle East also enhanced. Europeans, especially the Italians living along ports, enjoyed nearly four centuries of trade with the Muslims following the series of the Holy Wars (“Pope Urban”). Europe started getting heavily influenced by Greek and Arabic culture. The new cultures led to the beginning of the Age of Chivalry, knights protected the poor, while people wrote poems, and played chess. The advances in mathematics, medicine, and science that were made in Greece and Arabia quickly came to Europe. Textbooks in European universities included the new information from Greece and Arabia, paving the path for The Renaissance (“Pope Urban”). The papacy created new methods of taxation to help pay for The Crusades (Froehlich). The “pilgrim traffic”, all the crusaders going back and forth, was important because it gave money to the papacy through tolls and taxes which helped the economy (Bull). With the money from taxes and tolls Christian cites were able to get repaired. Without Pope Urban II starting The Crusades, none of these economic achievements would have

A massive amount of people were slaughtered in bloody massacres. Everyone in sight was killed including men, women, and even children (“History”). Nearly tens of thousands of people died; there is even a myth that there was blood was up to the knees of horses (Cohn). The slayings committed by the Christians and Muslims drove a wedge between the two religions that has never gone away. Even in present times, the fighting has left a “wound” that will never heal (“Pope Urban”). Although the aforementioned taxes helped the economy, they were still a burden on the people. The Holy Wars were extremely expensive, in order to pay for the fourth Crusade, the church people were given a heavy tax