Taking Back the Holy Land, Religiously or for the Sword

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Taking Back the Holy Land, Religiously or for the Sword

The Crusades have been a heated and debated topic for centuries. The main reason the crusades started was because of religious factors and the promise of indulgences by going to the Holy Land and defending all of Christendom from the infidels (p. 102). This brings us to a second point which is, the personal gain for Christians in the East and an expansion of economic and territory to the East (p. 111). Christians wanted to take back the Holy Land from the Moslems and reclaim it for Christendom. The crusades affected Christian Medieval Europe on every fiber, but were the Christians crusades motivated by religious factors or by bloodlust and plunder?

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).

Hans Eberhand Mayer takes a stance on views that the crusades were motivated by religious factors. For one the Christian Churches in the West wanted to help the Christian Churches in the East (p. 102). When the papacy finally had the power to help these churches, men had a clearer view of what must happen and that was to free the Holy Land from these infidels (p. 102). The papacy went on a recruiting mission that would turn into a crusade and gathe...

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...ne could look at it both ways, but the crusades took place for personal gain and conquest. Medieval Europe wanted revenge for when the Moslems took over Spain and parts of Italy (p. 112). As the Moslems were ousted out of Italy, the Europeans launched campaigns against North Africa shortly afterwards, then later to the Holy Lands (p. 112). Another important point is that Jerusalem holds a great economic and demographic expansion to the East (p. 113). This had a great effect on Europe; it renewed income in the form of markets, for the people, and tremendous personal gain for the individual to satisfy their greed and bloodlust (p. 114). Apart from the personal gain a crusader may acquire, he may fight for the Holy Land and kill his fair share of enemies with no sin attached. What we see throughout European history is that it is plagued with greed and bloodlust.

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