The Positive And Negative Impacts Of The Crusades

The Crusades began in 1096 when Pope Urban II called for large armies of Christians

from Western Europe to come fight for their right to enter the Holy Land of Jerusalem. The Holy Land was taken by a fierce tribe of Muslim Turks called the Seljuks. This conflict led to a total of nine major wars that spanned over about two hundred years and with all this warfare it gave many impacts on the people and society. Although the Crusades had many negative impacts, including the deaths of many innocent Christians, Muslims, and Jews, the positive impacts of these wars, including breaking down the power of the feudal aristocracy had a greater significance on the people by introducing them to culture, literary works, and goods from different civilizations.

The First Crusade began in 1096 and lasted for four years. It started when Christian
pilgrims tried to enter Jerusalem while it was under Muslim control. The Seljuk Turks began to mistreat them and then completely took away their right of entry (Jessop 5). Pope Urban II departed for Constantinople with his large army of Christian warriors on August 15th, 1096 and arrived on the 23rd of December (F. Madden 15). A man named Peter the Hermit and a French monk named Walter the Penniless preached the crusade throughout France and Germany and recruited a total of 70,000 crusaders but less than half actually reached Constantinople (Biel 36). This was because Peter’s army went against his orders and sailed to Nicaea instead and attacked its people which resulted in practically every one of the crusaders being either killed, wounded, or taken prisoner (Biel 39). But, when they got there they combined forces with the Byzantines for their long journey to the east. Almost everyone, not just men, wanted to join the battle, including peasants, women and even children and the main reason why was to get relief of famine and disease in their homeland (Biel 35). Another reason why a majority of the people joined was because they truly believed that they were marching under God’s orders and that they were being led by Jesus Christ himself (Biel 36). The other armies then crossed the Bosphorus and first captured Nicaea, and then set out across the Asia Minor for Syria (Madden 41). The survivors of these attacks then captured Antioch and then pushed on towards Jerusalem (Madden 45). The remaining crusaders then reached Jerusalem and they were successful in capturing it (Madden 47). As the crusaders conquered all these areas while heading to Jerusalem, they created a number feudal states called Crusader kingdoms. The four established during this crusade was the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the County of Tripoli, and the Principality of Antioch. But this Christian victory of the Holy Lands was shortly lived.
About fifty years after the First Crusade in 1147, the crusader kingdom of Edessa was
once again under the control of the Muslims. Edessa was invaded by the Muslim sultan Zengi and after the land was under his command, he then killed all the adult male Franks and enslaved all women and children (Biel 77). News about this traveled to the king of Jerusalem, Baldwin III, and he sent one of his bishops back to Rome to urge the pope to call for another crusade (Biel 77). The pope did declare another crusade so Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany led armies into Constantinople and planned to cross to Anatolia and destroy the Turkish armies that had been spotted the previous year (Biel 78). Even with all their efforts, they were unsuccessful and the Second Crusade ended in 1149 (Biel 83).
In 1187, the sultan of Egypt, which was now Saladin, created the largest Muslim Empire
since the Turks and he then sent his armies to capture Jerusalem (Madden 76). Due to the amount of power Saladin had, he was successful in his conquest and Jerusalem was back in Muslim hold. The Third Crusade began and Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor, immediately raised an army of crusaders in the German Empire. He gathered 150,000 men and started their journey to Jerusalem. When he marched into the Asia Minor he attacked the Muslim forces and he defeated them in two great battles, but before he was able to reach his final destination of Jerusalem, his reign suddenly ended with his death in 1190 Biel 96). After his death, King Philip Augustus of France and Richard the Lionhearted agreed to lead the crusade together (Biel 97). Philip arrived first in Jerusalem and when he got there Jerusalem’s King Guy was already laying siege at Acre so together they maintained the siege for seven more weeks until Richard showed up (Biel 99). Richard then pursued the attack with greater vigor than either Philip or Guy had shown and just within a month of his arrival Acre finally fell (Biel 99). After the victory, King Philip had enough crusading and he returned to France (Biel 100). Even though Richard failed to completely recapture Jerusalem, he made a treaty with Saladin that allowed Christian pilgrims to visit Jerusalem safely even though it was still under Muslim control. (Jessop 17) This treaty angered the pope because were it not for the treachery of Philip, then Richard could have stayed in the Holy Land and would have restored Jerusalem and no goal was nearer to his heart than the reconquest of this land (F. Madden 94).
Pope Innocent III did not want the same problems with kings leading the crusade like in
the Third Crusade so he called for one like the first to establish one unified Christian church with Jerusalem as its capital city (Biel 106). Therefore, the pope turned to the wealthy merchants of Venice for help and they were willing (Biel 107). The pope’s plan for this crusade was to attack Egypt since they controlled Jerusalem, but the Venetians were more interested in conquering trade centers and ports in the Byzantine Empire (Biel 107). Without the pope’s approval, the Venetians attacked the Christian port of Zara but he still believed that their next move would be toward Egypt (Biel 107). But yet again the Venetians had a different idea in mind. They instead were planning to conquer Constantinople and they were successful (Biel 107). The Venetians decided to attack Christian areas because Alexius Comnenus, whose enemies had recently thrown him out of Constantinople, asked the crusaders to help him into power again (Carr). Alexius said that he would pay for the rest of the crusade once he was back on the throne and once the Venetians accomplished this, he could not raise the money he promised (Carr). He tried to get the money by taxes, but he became so unpopular that he and his father were killed and a new emperor got the throne (Carr). The crusaders were so angry that they did not get their money that they attacked Constantinople and sacked the city.
The last major crusade that occurred was called The Children’s Crusade in 1212. It was
started by a twelve year old boy named Stephen of Cloyes (Jessop 18). Stephen claimed that Jesus himself appeared to him in a vision and asked him to lead a crusade made up of young, innocent children (Jessop 18). So thousands of children from Germany and France followed Stephen to the Holy Land (Jessop 18). They had no supplies with them on their journey because they trusted that God would take care of them, but many died before they reached the southern coast of Europe (Jessop 18). When they reached the coast of the Mediterranean, Stephen told them the waters would open up so they could walk to the Holy Land but this did not happen (Jessop 19). The children began their journey back home but many of them were kidnapped and sold as slaves (Jessop 19). Over the next eighty years, there were five minor crusades that occurred that all were trying to get the Holy Lands back and were all unsuccessful.
By the end of the crusades, a large number of positive impacts were left behind. Some of
these impacts allowed the people to learn new things like how to build stronger castles, new methods of fighting wars, and learning from Eastern discoveries in science and mathematics (Jessop 20). In fact, the numbers we use today were first developed in the east (Jessop 20). The crusaders also impacted the people by bringing goods from their conquests home with them. Products from Damascus, Mosul, Alexandria, Cairo, and other great cities were carried across the Mediterranean to the Italian seaports (Alchin). They brought cotton, sugar, and spices that were unknown in Europe and Europeans started to copy Eastern comforts like carpets, cushions, and tapestries that helped brighten up their gloomy castles (Jessop 20). Just the crusaders journeys alone introduced them to great cities, marble palaces, superb dresses, elegant manners and with this exposure they came back with finer tastes, broader ideas, and wider sympathies (Alchin). The spirit of maritime venture and adventure which became admired and well known for past achievements in the fifteenth century, inspiring the voyages of Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Magellan, may be traced back to that lively interest in geographical matters brought by the journeys of the crusaders (Alchin). Even though all the positive effects were important, the impact of the feudal aristocracy being broken down and giving prominence to the kings and the people was the most significant (Alchin).
The Crusades were a large part of the reason why feudalism ended during the Middle
Ages. Over time kings started to have an increased amount of authority. Since the nobles offered military service in return for land from the king, many of the nobles died during the wars (Alchin). The nobles sometimes died without leaving an heir, so their lands were then passed back to the king (Alchin). Also, since the beginning of the Crusades, the king levied a special tax to balance out the cost of the wars and to pay this tax the nobles would either sell their land or allow their serfs to buy their freedom (Alchin). With all this probability that land would be given to the king to control and all the money paid to them really increased the king’s power to something they never had before. Feudalism also declined because trade was established between the East and West which was not promoted in a feudal system since everything was based on land while trade is based on money. As a result, currency became increasingly important and the Europeans adopted the banking and credit systems that had been in use for centuries in the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire (Biel 95). This rising importance of money and trade played into the hands of the kings, but crushed the small landlords (Biel 95). The kings and great lords charged tolls to all travelers who used their roads and they collected taxes from cities in exchange for police protection (Biel 95). With the money they collected, they bought spices, silks, glass, and other luxuries, but they also used the money to pay vassals and knights (Biel 95). Even though feudalism was first established to fix the lack of a strong central government, it also brought negative things like no social mobility and there was no equality present either. But, these wars did not only bring positive results with them, there was also several negative impacts as well.
The Crusades brought many devastating, negative impacts even with all the positive that
came from them.

The most significant negative impact that they brought was that the death toll was about two to six million of innocent Muslims, Jews, and Christians (Alchin). If crusaders were not killed there is a very likely chance that they were kidnapped or became slaves. And even though these wars are known to be between Christians and Muslims, anti semitism was also a big part that happened. Large mobs were assembled during the First Crusade and they were ready to start their journey of defeating “the enemies of Christ”, especially those who were Jewish (Biel 37). Devoted crusaders instigated searches for Jews in hundreds of European cities and villages and those they found, they accused of disbelief in Christianity and crimes against the church (Biel 37). They then forced the Jewish families into one small section of a city and set it on fire and as a result, thousands of men, women, and children were killed (Biel 37). These wars also caused the Byzantine Empire, which had stood for nine centuries, to crumble as a result of the sack of Constantinople (Biel 111). The sacking of Constantinople also intensified the split between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox that occurred in the Schism of 1054. This event was seen as so inexcusable and unforgivable that there was no chance of the split to heal. Overall the Crusades caused the presence of an inevitable, immovable wedge between Christians and Muslims, and the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches (Biel

111).
Over a span of two hundred years the Crusades have had lasting impacts on the people
and society. But, even with several negative impacts, the positive impacts have a much more prominent and significant impact since they did introduce people to culture, literary works, and goods from all different people. The positive effects were all long term and lasted for centuries after and the negatives were awful, but they did not end up heavily influencing later people and society. The Crusades were not just a series of wars with a goal of getting the Holy Land of Jerusalem back under the control of the Christians and having that be the only outcome. Over this period of two hundred years, the crusaders had brought the rest of Europe into contact with many different cultures and customs of surrounding territories that have had a forever lasting effect on them.