THE CRUSADES

The Crusades

The Crusades

Introduction

The Crusades were a series of wars fought between the eleventh and the thirteenth century among the armies of the Christian kingdoms of Europe and predominantly Muslim armies on the ground in Asia Minor and the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe (but also in Europe, in Egypt and Tunisia). Although they were blessed and often invoked by the Papacy and motivated by a feeling eminently religious Muslim occupation, which was meant to unlock the land where he was born, preached and died. This was not exactly the wars of religion, since the purpose was never to force Muslims to change their religion, even after the achievements, but rather to procure subjects, and to seize the resources of the countries understood each win.Problem

Crusaders motivation was not only the religious zeal, but there were other reasons for their actions, which also changed over time.Discussion

Building on the crusade calling Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095 accompanied by cries of God wills, many crusaders convinced to fulfill the expulsion of Muslims from the Holy Land of God's will and to achieve the remission of all their sins. This must be before the Christian background reports and rumors seen on the Muslim rulers' atrocities against the Christian population of the Holy Land and the destruction of Christian institutions, such as the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1009. Compete with economic interests, religious motifs appeared over the years partly into the background - this is particularly evident in the conquest and looting of the Christian city of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade. Regarding the Crusades in the East they never disappeared completely, but they had great influence on the Christian population in Europe especially among the non-noble crusaders, where religion was an important motive (Crusades, 2011).Relationship with Islam

A key foreign, policy issue for the Christian world represented Islam, in its drive westward, first into the middle of the 7th Century, the Christian Byzantine Empire attacked. Ostrom / Byzantium lost since the Monophysite schism in the religious opposition to the Greek and Roman Empire areas related provinces of Syria and Egypt within a few years to the Arabs that were there to greet maybe parts of the population as liberators (which is controversial in the research); it claimed, however, theta they are still dominated in the Greek Asia. The western North Africa contributed to the end of the 7th Century against the Arab resistance while the Spanish Visigothic kingdom collapsed around 700 within a few months under the storm Arabs so that Arabs in the West only by the Frankish Empire were stopped and driven back.

After the Byzantine Empire in 751 of the Lombards had been displaced from Central Italy (case of the Exarchate of Ravenna), it was the beginning of the 8th Century, mainly limited to the Orthodox heartland of Asia Minor, the coasts of the Balkans and southern Italy. In the following period, the kingdom was in the 9th and 10 Century to a modus vivendi with the Arabs, which led by military alliances with individual Arab ...