Among all the crusades, the Fourth Crusade and Fifth Crusade had met their fates of failure due to the wrong decision of strategies to achieve their purpose of saving the holy land of Jerusalem. Their same outcome of failure had something in common that was strategic deviation from the fundamental goal of the crusades. The following section would discuss the fates of the Fourth Crusade and Fifth Crusade by examining their occurrences and their influences.
The Fourth Crusade is another crusade which followed the goal of saving the holy land of Jerusalem from the evil hand of the Muslims through the strategic decision of invading Egypt to pave the way for later conquering the holy land with such a backup base as Egypt. Such a crusade ended up
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the attacking and conquering of Constantinople, capital city of Byzantine Empire (Jotischky, 207). The Fourth Crusade originated from the Pope Innocent III’s call for another effort to march to the holy land of Jerusalem to fight against the Muslims. In 1203, on their way to the holy land, the crusaders reached an agreement with the Byzantine empire which promised to offer the crusaders financial and military support in exchange for the crusaders’help the prince to restore his family back into power. With increasing debt from the Venetians, the crusaders were faced with the choice to conquer the city of Zara to offset the huge debt. However, another turn of events had caused some fundamental change for the Fourth Crusade. In the following months, the prince who was crowned in the clashes with the help of crusaders was later deposed by domestic conflicts. With Alexios Angelos losing power, the crusaders faced cession of the once promised financial and military support from the Venice. Such a truth made the crusaders impatient, who decided to take some actions to change the event. Therefore, they decided to launch attacks on Constantinople and conquered the city through cruel killing. The crusaders finally separated different parts of Constantinople into different territories and built kingdoms on the territories. The Fourth Crusade had many consequences.
On the one hand, the Fourth Crusade had created good conditions for the reestablishment of political and religious power in the Mediterranean regions. Its destructive role in causing the great Byzantine empire to collapse had provided a great opportunity for the Western European nations to access this region through convenient ways of ocean transportation. On the other hand, the Fourth Crusade had many negative consequences for the crusades. It seemed that this crusade had created some great achievement in the Mediterranean regions. But, due to these twists and turns of events had never enabled the crusaders to reach the holy land of Jerusalem and fulfill their dedicated goals to save the holy land. Besides, fighting against the Venetians had incurred more enemies for the crusaders, which further created more hardships and troubles for them to reach and save the holy land. This had actually created a stumbling stone for the later crusades. What is more, for those individual crusaders, they had nothing gained from this dangerous and risky adventure in the Byzantine Empire, and some of them were faced with the outcome of being moved out of the church, which proved to be a huge blow to them who were previously so religiously committed to the goal. Therefore, there is no wonder that the Fourth Crusade had actually weakened the crusaders’ position both in the crusades and back …show more content…
home. The Fifth Crusade was another defeat experienced by the crusaders on their expedition to the holy land. Following previous achievement by cruel killing on their way to Egypt, the crusaders were later called by the pope Innocent III to form another expedition to the holy land via Egypt from 1217 to 1221. After the conclusion of the Fourth Crusade, the Fifth Crusade moved to conquer the Muslim world in Egypt. In the following months in 1218-1219, the crusaders launched a series of siege and attack of Damietta, during which the crusaders were faced with serious challenges from the diseases that killed many people on this foreign land (Joinville & Villehardouin, 20). In 1219, Damietta was conquered during the time when the Muslim leader died. Through this victory, the crusaders got more courage to move to conquer Egypt. However, the crusaders made a strategic military mistake by entering Egypt by the Nile during the summer season. Unfortunately, the crusaders’way on the Nile was intersected by the Muslims who then attacked the lost Damietta and caused the final defeat of the Fifth Crusade. The Fifth Crusade had many consequences.
First of all, the departure from the main goal of the expeditions would cause a subtle change in the perceptions of the western world towards the crusades (Jotischky 213). Originally, the crusades were launched for the holy purpose of saving the holy land of Jerusalem from the Muslims. But the shift to conquer another nations on their road to the holy land would easily cause people to think different about the crusades and doubt about the true purpose of those expeditions. What is more, the Fifth Crusade had a feature of recruiting new crusaders constantly from all walks of life, which could a potential cause for the later defeat due to the inexperienced new crusaders and the aspiration for personal victory and glory under the name of crusades (Jotischky 215-216). All of these had negative consequences that doomed its fate of failure and
defeat. In a word, the Fifth Crusade had weakened the crusaders’ position. The departure from the fundamental holy goal of saving the holy land had placed the role of crusaders in a doubtful position. The lack of leadership in the Fifth Crusade had also contributed to the possible doubt about the crusade leaders and their role in leading the expedition to successfully save the holy land from the Muslims. The wrong strategic decision to attack Egypt first and then reach for the holy land would also cause possible suspicion of the leadership abilities of the Fifth Crusade and the following crusades. All of these had a weakening impact on the crusaders’ position in this crusade and the following crusades.
Now, in 1198, in order to raise the papacy rather than take the Holy Land, Pope Innocent III, called for another crusade. This crusade is mostly being led by French Knights and instead attempting to capture Jerusalem, they end up sacking the Christian city of Constantinople! After the fourth Crusade, the other crusades were disorganized efforts that accomplished little to
Contrary to many commonly held notions about the first crusade, in his book, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading, Jonathan Riley-Smith sets out to explain how the idea of crusading thought evolved in the first crusade. In his book, Riley-Smith sets out five main arguments to show how these ideas of crusading evolved. Firstly, he argues that Pope Urban’s original message was conventional, secondly that a more positive reaction was drawn from the laity (due to the ideas surrounding Jerusalem), thirdly, that the original message of crusading had changed because of the horrible experiences of the first crusaders, fourth, that due to these experiences the crusaders developed their own concept of what a crusade was, and lastly, that these ideas were refined by (religious) writers and turned into an acceptable form of theology. Riley-Smith makes excellent points about the crusade; however, before one can delve directly into his argument, one must first understand the background surrounding the rise of the first crusade.
The First Crusade was a widely appealing armed pilgrimage, and mobilized a vast conquering force at a time when the Christian Church was moving towards centralization and greater political influence in Europe. The Church gained a wider audience more accepting of its leadership, benefitted economically, and developed its own militarily force. These outcomes, along with the Church’s documented ambition to expand and its reversal of prior teachings, support the idea that the First Crusade was a deliberate political maneuver, intended to to expand and consolidate the authority of the
The crusades for the most part, are largely misunderstood. The Crusaders were not gullible, or stupid to travel so far, but rather, patriots for Christ. Although Europe was left in poor hands, they were still cheered on. The crusades were, in fact, triggered by Muslim aggression.
The first crusade was held only in order to fulfill desire of the Christians of the recapturing the center of the Christian faith-Jerusalem, which has been controlled by the Muslim nation for more than 400 years. This military campaign was followed with severe cruelty and harsh actions against Muslims which cannot be justified with anything but religious and material interest.
In 1095 Pope urban II call all Christians to take part in what would become the world’s greatest Holy War in all of history. Urban’s called Christians to take up arms and help fight to take the Holy Land of Jerusalem back from the accursed Muslims. During this time of war the whole world changed. Land boundaries shifted, men gained and lost and gained power again, and bonds were forged and broken. The Crusades had a great impact on the world that will last forever. There were many major social, political, religious and economic changes that occurred during the crusades. But first, a brief history to give backbone to these reasons.
In the end of the eleventh and middle of the thirteenth century there were nine wars between muslims and christians that are now called the crusades. All nine wars were meant to take over the holy land (what is now israel) from the muslims. The most successful of those battles was the first and second. The worst of the crusades was the fourth crusade. The Crusades didn’t have a positive effect on trying to take over the holy land.
The eminent historian Jonathan Riley-Smith defines ‘crusade’ as “holy war fought against those perceived to be the external or internal foes of Christendom for the recovery of Christian property”. This would suggest that the Crusades were primarily an endeavour intended to promote Christian expansionism through the acquisition of both territory and religious converts. However the Crusades can also be interpreted as a means for independent Christian rulers to demonstrate their piety, amass wealth through loot and enhance their prestige; all of which would be beneficial to the rule of their own territories. In addition to this, the Crusades were intended as a defensive measure in
Among some of the largest conflicts in the world stand the Crusades; a brutal conflict that lasted over 200 years and was debatably one of the largest armed religious conflicts in the history of humankind. Since this is so clearly an event of importance, historians have searched vigorously for the true answer as to why the crusades began. Ultimately, because of accusatory views on both the sides of the Christians and of the Muslims, the two groups grew in such hatred of each other that they began to act in deep discrimination of each other. Moreover, Christian motives seemed to be driven mostly by the capture of Jerusalem, the dark ages of Europe and the common-folks desperation for land, wealth, and a spot in heaven. What seems to be continually
Obviously the largest problem that came out of the war was the many deaths that were sacrificed for the wrong reasons. Since the crusades had finished because they finally realized it was a lost cause, some may say that those people died for no reason. Other instances where the crusades were bad were the now broken relationship between Jews and Christians and the bitterness between Christians and Muslims. On the first crusade, Christians went through Jewish communities on their way to Jerusalem. Forcefully baptizing them and killing them if they did not convert was not the best way to make the Jews care for the Christians. Christians after the crusades saw them as sacred religious movements, while the Muslims thought of them as the christians trying to expand their territory and rule as much land as they possibly
The goal of the Crusades was to regain the Holy Lands in the name of the church and drive the Muslims out of Jerusalem.
The First Crusade from 1095 to 1099 has been seen as a successful crusade. The First Crusaders carefully planned out their attacks to help promote religion throughout the lands. As the First Crusade set the example of what a successful crusade should do, the following crusades failed to maintain control of the Holy Land. Crusades following after the First Crusade weren’t as fortunate with maintaining the Holy Land due united forces of Muslims, lack of organization, and lack of religious focus.
God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades by Rodney Stark, will cause readers to question much of what they know about the Crusades, the Crusaders themselves, and the formidable Muslim forces they encountered along the way in liberation of the Holy Land. Stark gives compelling reasons for the Crusades, and argues that readers should not be too quick in following the lead of historians who cast the Crusaders in less than positive light. Stark makes his case supported by evidence that vindicates the valiant struggles of the Crusaders who accomplished the task of keeping Christianity alive through troubled times.
The Fourth Crusade is considered one of the most successful yet one of the most confusing. There has never been a clear cut answer as to why this happened other than Pope Innocent III had called to return to the Holy Land and take Jerusalem the “Holy City” back from the Middle East. But was this really the end goal of the Fourth Crusade. I propose no, that this wasn’t the main goal but instead it was merely a guideline for the Fourth Crusade. The real meaning behind the call for the Fourth Crusade was to reunite the Roman and Byzantine Churches, to obtain wealth from Byzantium and to pay off the Venetians.
Fourth Crusade (1201-1204) Pope Innocent III called for the Third Crusade against the Egyptians for control of Jerusalem. Due to a lack of funds, the Crusaders agreed to help Venetians capture the Byzantine port, Zara. Long story short, the Crusaders were diverted from course, because they lacked proper leadership, and ended up capturing Constantinople in a Civil War.