The Crusades

A returning Crusader

The Crusades lasted 176 years from 1095 until 1271

The most famous military activity in the feudal period was the “Crusades”, a series of wars covering nearly 200 years, from A.D. 1096-1291. Only the First Crusade and to a lesser extent the Third Crusade were successful in terms of military goals. One of the main purposes of the crusades was to make Jerusalem safe for Christian pilgrimages. At the request of the Byzantine Emperor, who wished for a mercenary force to aid his reconquest of his lands, in 1095 Pope Urban II called for feudal knights to retake the Holy Land from the [[Seljuk Turks]]. The Seljuk Turks seemed almost invincible as fighters, having conquered Asia Minor and even beating the once-mighty Byzantine Empire (due to treachery). The Seljuk Turks ruled from the 1000s to the 1200s, and did particularly well under one particular ruler, Malik Shah, who died in 1092. But some Muslims were unhappy with being ruled by the Turks, and once Malik died, dissension in the Islamic world grew.

The Byzantine emperor, Alexius Comnenus, had inherited an empire that had been decimated by Seljuk and Patzinak Turks and he asked the pope for mercenary help to defeat the Muslims. He promised a reunion of the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]] and the Catholic Church and to give Byzantine lands (“fiefs”) to victorious knights from the feudal west.

At the Council at Clermont in southern France, Pope Urban II gave a famous speech. Promising absolution and assurance of salvation to anyone who died in the crusade, he urged a huge crowd to protect Christian pilgrims from the Turks. He demanded that all internal feuds end and he threatened excommunication for anyone who continued to bicker internally. Those who decided to fight in the crusades were said to be “taking up the cross,” because they would stitch small crosses onto their tunics.

At first Peter the Hermit answered the call of Pope Urban and led an unprepared group of peasants in the first mission, which failed. But news of its failure led to renewed determination by the Christians, and a well-equipped religious mission led by the Normans was formed. This became known as the First Crusade.

When the western forces reached Constantinople to join with Alexius’ soldiers, the western army was almost 20,000 men. It proceeded to capture Nicaea in 1097, and went onward to Jerusalem despite intense fighting, mostly between the various factions within the Crusade as opposed to with any Muslim enemies and hardship.

In 1099 the First Crusade invaded and succeeded in capturing Jerusalem, and set up four feudal kingdoms that would remain for nearly 100 years. However, the Christian crusaders massacred the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and many other towns in the process. But it was a huge military victory and Jerusalem was temporarily made safe for the pilgrims.

A mixture of Christian spirituality and military adventure motivated the participants in the Crusades like never before in history and perhaps never since. Genovese Merchants participated also in the hope of undermining Venice's trade links with Muslim Egypt. Many of the crusaders were acting to advance the cause of Christianity. This was not necessarily true for all of the crusaders. Criminals who fought were pardoned, and a crusader was exempt from taxation from the time that he “took up the cross,” until he returned from the war.

A Second Crusade in 1147-49 was a failure, owing to the French King's insistence on betraying and attacking his only Muslim ally, Damascus. In 1187 the Muslims captured Jerusalem under their leader Saladin, which brought about a new call for a Crusade.

The Third Crusade (1189-92) had the limited success of obtaining a truce from Saladin that promised to allow Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem. That Crusade was led by the leaders of France and the Holy Roman Empire and King Richard the Lion-Hearted of England. The first returned home after an argument with Richard at Acre, and the second drowned; only King Richard saw the mission through, and afterwards it took him years before he was able to return to his own land. (The story of Robin Hood uses this as a backdrop)

Two subsequent crusades were tragic. The Fourth Crusade (1202-04) Never reached the Holy Land and ended with the crusaders’ sacking Constantinople — a Christian City and the capital of the Byzantine Empire — wounding it forever and embittering the East against the West further than the previous Crusades had done.

A Children’s Crusade (1212) consisted of peasants leading up to a thousand children on a mission of love to Jerusalem, but the children were captured by Genovese merchants who sold them as slaves to the Muslim powers of North Africa.

The later Crusades saw a revival in religious motivation, indeed, the Fifth Crusade and the Crusade of St. Louis both nearly succeeded in regaining Jerusalem by way of attacking Egypt and failed only through the greed of men like Robert of Artois.

It seems that the Christian armies lost sight of the Christian goals to bring and spread love and Christianity along the way, got drunk with power and glory, and decided to pillage towns and murder people (note that this is breaking many commandments “thou shalt not murder.” “thou shalt not steal”), although this murder and pillage did, in it's own perverse way, spread the faith through fear, and focused instead on founding feudal states instead of the Catholic Theocracy dreamed of by Diambert of Pisa, the second Patriarch of Jerusalem.

The Crusades went against many Christian teachings.