The Crusades 2 Essay Research Paper The — страница 2

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location of a very holy relic, the holy lance. Legend held that the Lance had been used to pierce Christ at his crucifixion. When a team went out to the location that the dream foretold, they did indeed discover a lance. The Crusaders proceeded to fight a large battle at which the Turks and Arabs retreated. They’re celebrated and believed that the course of events was a sign from God. Their next step would be to advance to Jerusalem. They set out in 1099 from Antioch, with a smaller force, for some had stayed behind to hold Antioch. Along the way, several more towns fell and the monk who dreamt of the lance was believed to be a fraud. They seiged Jerusalem for a month, believing god would not let them take it because of sins. The priests performed a day of purification rituals

and led them around the walls of the city. They finally broke into the walls of Jerusalem on July 13 and proceeded to kill everyone inside they could find, mostly Jews and Muslims. The Crusaders had succeeded in their goal and all that was left was to divide the land among the Christian lords. The first crusade had been a great blood bath, but was only the beginning. Saint Bernard instigated the second crusade to free the city of Eddessa from the infidels who had recently regained it. The campaign was launched by a mixed military force but in reality, only the French made it to Antioch. An order of knights known as the Templars took control of the remaining French forces, but by this point, there was only confusion and separation. The second crusade ended in humiliation. In 1187,

the Muslim king, Saladin captured Jerusalem and sparked the third crusade. Once again, France, England, and Germany answered the call, however Germany was stalled with the death of their leaders while France and England were too busy fighting among themselves to make any progress. The fourth crusade brought the capture and sacking of Constantinople. This permanently ended relations between the Eastern and Western Christian worlds. It also marked the beginning of the decline of the papacy, as Pope Innocent III lost control of his own crusade. The fifth crusade was equally ineffective and was the last officially launched crusade. Jerusalem was recovered during the sixth crusade in a bargain with the Muslims and the seventh was once again a failure. Crusading had lost its passion in

Europe. (Heer, Friedrich. The Medieval World p 132) The atrocities and the disasters, the immeasurable suffering, and the apparently meaningless sacrifices that accompanied the crusades all cast a heavy shadow over the West. The crusades had opened up a new world to the people of Europe. Contact between the Muslim and Christian had been very sparse aside from the rare border skirmish. The launching of the crusades opened up a floodgate of people, and with them, their ideas, inventions, and beliefs, between the Middle East and Europe. The Muslim knowledge of the Greeks and Romans slowly began to trickle back to the feudal western world. This marked the beginning of the end of the Middle Ages and was one of the main causes of Europe’s renaissance. Bibliography Duggan, Alfred. The

Story of the Crusades. New York: Pantheon Books, 1963 Edbury, Peter W. The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade. Hampshire: The Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 1998 Finucane, Ronald C. Soldiers of Faith. London: The Chaucer Press, 1983 Heer, Friedrich. The Medieval World. New York: Mentor Books, 1961 Knox, Dr Ellis L. “The Crusades.” The Classroom. http://crusades.boisestate.edu/eou/ classroom.html 4/6/00 Knox, Dr Ellis L. “The Crusades.” The Crusades. http://history.idbsu.edu/westciv/ crusades/00.htm 4/6/00 Michaels, John. “The Crusades” Grolier’s Internet Encyclopedia. 2000 ed.