Crusades

Crusades

2006

The Bible and the Koran divided the world into two parts , separated by the Mediterranean but touching at the extremities . A conflict between these two great world forces , each one imbued with a fanatical desire to spread its teaching , was inevitable .The Crusade movement was in a certain sense the high-water mark of the conflict . The causes of the Crusades were both positive and negative

Thousands in Europe , actuated by honest motives such as the hope of securing spiritual benefits , the wish to expiate sins , the desire to

extend Christianity , the yearning to convert the Mohammedans , and the determination to overthrow a grave enemy to western civilisation and progress , gave their means and their lives to this sacred undertaking The cries for help which came from the Christians in Jerusalem and from the Eastern Emperor fell on sympathetic ears . All of the forces and causes , operating in various ways , produced the most remarkable manifestation of military power coupled with religious fervour which Europe had yet witnessed . It seemed as if Mohammedanism itself had spread the contagion of its own fanaticism to the followers of the Prince of Peace

In time the Crusades covered approximately two centuries from 1096 to 1291 . They directly affected all Europe , northern Africa , and western Asia . They occurred in an age when Europe was decentralised politically by feudalism imbued religiously with the ardour and ideals of Hildebrand industrially almost wholly undeveloped educationally ignorant and credulous and socially controlled by monasticism and chivalry . In the Crusades there was an arrayal of pan-Christianity against pan-Mohammedanism , or European civilisation versus Asiatic civilisation . The Crusades were , broadly speaking , one great movement with a series of waves , which held the world 's destiny in its results and which was a natural manifestation of the civilisation of the day both from the Christian and the Mohammedan sides . The purpose of the movement was primarily to wrest the Holy Land from the Mohammedans and to restore it to Christianity . But a great variety of secondary purposes and motives , both good and bad , induced people to co-operate in the enterprise . The devout , the romantic , the adventurous , the discontented the mercenary , the criminal , and the sinner , all took part but for different reasons . From the standpoint of the primary purpose , the Crusades were a failure but viewed from their effects on civilisation they were a success . It is difficult to reduce them to any specific number , though for the sake of clearness they may be divided into four major Crusades and four minor Crusades , with an unclassified children 's Crusade . The idea of a Crusade had been developed by the conflict with the Moors in Spain , the heathen Saxons , the pagan Slavs , and various heretical sects , and it was employed , after the Crusades ended , in European history for some centuries to come

The Council of Clermont met in November , 1095 , and immediately thereafter enthusiastic preparations were begun for the First Crusade From March to June of the following year , the rabble vanguard was...