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| | [[Image:Crusader.jpg|thumb|200px|right|A returning [[Crusader]]]] | | [[Image:Crusader.jpg|thumb|200px|right|A returning [[Crusader]]]] |
| | The Crusades lasted 176 years from 1095 until 1271 | | The Crusades lasted 176 years from 1095 until 1271 |
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| − | The most famous military activity in the feudal period was the “Crusades”, a
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| − | series of wars covering nearly 200 years, from A.D. 1096-1291. Only the First
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| − | Crusade and to a lesser extent the Third Crusade were successful. One of the
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| − | main purposes of the crusades was to make [[Jerusalem]] safe for Christian
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| − | pilgrimages. At the request of the Byzantine Emperor, who wished fro a
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| − | mercenary force to aid his reconquest of his lands, in 1095 [[Pope Urban II]]
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| − | called for feudal [[knights]] to retake the [[Holy Land]] from the [[Seljuk
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| − | Turks]]. The Seljuk Turks seemed almost invincible as fighters, having
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| − | conquered [[Asia Minor]] and even beating the once-mighty [[Byzantine Empire]].
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| − | 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 Moslems
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| − | were unhappy with being ruled by the Turks, and once Malik died dissension in
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| − | the Islamic world grew.
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| − | The Byzantine emperor, [[Alexius Comnenus]], had inherited an empire that had
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| − | been destroyed by Seljuk and Patzinak Turks and he asked the pope for mercenary
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| − | help to defeat the Moslems. He promised a reunion of the [[Eastern Orthodox
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| − | Church]] and the [[Western Church]] and to give Byzantine lands (“[[fiefs]]”)
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| − | to victorious knights from the [[feudal]] west.
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| − | At the [[Council at Clermont]] in southern France, Pope Urban II gave a famous
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| − | speech. Promising [[absolution]] and assurance of salvation to anyone who died
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| − | in the crusade, he urged a huge crowd to protect Christian pilgrims from the
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| − | Turks. He demanded that all internal feuds end and he threatened
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| − | [[excommunication]] for anyone who continued to bicker internally. Those who
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| − | decided to fight in the crusades were said to be “taking up the cross,” because
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| − | they would stitch small crosses onto their tunics.
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| − | At first [[Peter the Hermit]] answered the call of Pope Urban and led an
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| − | unprepared group of peasants in the first mission, which failed. But news of
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| − | its failure led to renewed determination by the Christians, and a well-equipped
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| − | religious mission led by the Normans was formed. This became known as the First
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| − | Crusade.
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| − | When the western forces reached [[Constantinople]] to join with Alexius’
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| − | soldiers, the western army was almost 20,000 men. It proceeded to capture
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| − | [[Nicaea]] in 1097, and went onward to Jerusalem despite intense fighting,
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| − | mostly between the various factions within the Crusade as opposed to with any
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| − | Moslem enemies and hardship.
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| − | In 1099 the First Crusade invaded and succeeded in capturing Jerusalem, and set
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| − | up four feudal kingdoms that would remain for nearly 100 years. However, the
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| − | Christian crusaders massacred the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and many other
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| − | towns in the process. But it was a huge military victory and Jerusalem was
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| − | temporarily made safe for the pilgrims.
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| − | A mixture of Christian spirituality and military adventure motivated the
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| − | participants in the Crusades like never before in history and perhaps never
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| − | since. Genovese Merchants participated also in the hope of undermining
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| − | Venice's trade links with Moslem Egypt. Many of the crusaders were acting to
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| − | advance the cause of Christianity. This was not necessarily true for all of
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| − | the crusaders. Criminals who fought were pardoned, and a crusader was exempt
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| − | from taxation from the time that he “took up the cross,” until he returned from
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| − | the war.
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| − | A Second Crusade in 1147-49 was a failure, owing to the French King's insistence
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| − | on betraying and attacking his only Moslem ally, Damascus. In 1187 the Muslims
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| − | captured Jerusalem under their leader [[Saladin]], and the Third Crusade
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| − | (1189-92) had the limited success of obtaining a truce from Saladin that
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| − | promised to allow Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem. That Crusade was led by
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| − | the leaders of [[France]] and the [[Holy Roman Empire]] and [[King Richard]]
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| − | the Lion-Hearted of England. The first returned home after an argument with
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| − | Richard at Acre, and the second drowned; only King Richard saw the mission
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| − | through.
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| − | Two subsequent crusades were tragic. The Fourth Crusade (1202-04) Never reached
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| − | the Holy Land and ended with the crusaders’ sacking Constantinople — a Christian
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| − | City — wounding it forever and embittering the East against the West further
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| − | than the previous Crusades had done. A Children’s Crusade (1212) consisted of
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| − | peasants leading up to a thousand children on a mission of love to Jerusalem,
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| − | but the children were captured by Christian Genovese merchants and sold as
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| − | slaves to, ironically, the Moslem powers of North Africa. The later Crusades
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| − | saw a revival in religious motivation, indeed, the Fifth Crusade and the
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| − | Crusade of St. Louis both nearly succeeded in regaining Jerusalem by way of
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| − | attacking Egypt and failed only through the greed of men like Robert of Artois.
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| − | It seems that the Christian armies lost sight of our goals to bring and spread
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| − | love and Christianity along the way, got drunk with power and glory and decided
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| − | to pillage towns and murder people (note that this is breaking many commandments
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| − | “thou shalt not murder.” “thou shalt not steal”), although this murder and
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| − | pillage did, in it's own perverse way, spread the faith through fear, and
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| − | focused instead on founding feudal states instead of the Catholic Theocracy
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| − | dreamed of by Diambert of Pisa, the second Patriarch of Jerusalem.
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| − | The Crusades went against our Christian teachings and the words of Christ, “love
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| − | thy neighbor as thyself” “turn the other cheek” etc.
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