Violence in The Crusades

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The Crusades were a bloody time period. They were a military campaign by the pope and the Roman Catholic Church to take back Jerusalem from the Muslims. They lasted from the 11th- 13th century. They were catastrophic and left Europe in ruins. Although the Crusades were such a violent period of time, they had a positive impact in history because of their role in the renaissance and exposing the Western world to the Eastern.

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.

A major part of the fighters in the crusades were untrained and unqualified peasants who went out to get back the holy lands for the church from the ?evil Muslims? (Medieval Europe 164-167). This was called the Peasants Crusade. In order to get these peasants, who knew no better, to go and fight the church told them that if they were to go and fight these ?horrible Muslims? then they would automatically get admission into heaven. Of course this automatically appealed to the peasants being that they were so god-fearing. They thought that if they helped the church then they would go to heaven and so they jumped at such an opportunity to get a get-into-heaven-free card. These people in all their religious glory went in and attacked the city of Nicaea (TWW, 104), and got killed. The city of Nicaea was a well fortified city controlled by Seljuk Turks. The peasants went in and attacked and literally got slaughtered. Only 2000 peasants survived their hasty attack. Unfortunately most of the crusades went this way(TWW)

The goal of the Crusades was to regain the Holy Lands in the name of the church and drive the Muslims out of Jerusalem.

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