06-10-2016, 03:24 PM
(06-10-2016, 02:43 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: Actually, the goal of the First Crusade was not to "take back" Jerusalem for the Christians. The primary goal of the First Crusade was to respond to a request for aid from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos against the Seljuk Turks who were encroaching upon his border from the east. Many believe Pope Urban II's personal motivation was to reunite the Eastern and Western churches, which had separated 42 years earlier, under his own control. But Urban II had an additional motivation: to wrest influence from the secular rulers (the kings and leaders in Western Europe), whose power had been growing rapidly at the end of the dark ages.
It was never an effort to "drive back fanaticism". The fact is, it created fanaticism. Pope Urban II exaggerated the threat to the Eastern Empire (the main threat to the Byzantine Empire was always the Byzantines themselves and their penchant for political infighting). Urban claim that the Muslims were ravaging the "churches of God in the Eastern regions" and had seized "the Holy City of Christ" and had "sold her into abominable slavery". The Muslims had ruled over Jerusalem for over 450 years. The period of Muslim expansion and conquest ended in 750, 300 years before the First Crusade. Pilgrimages by Catholics to holy sites in the Seljuk Empire were permitted during this time, resident Christians within the empire were considered as full citizens and Dhimmi ("protected persons"), and intermarriage between Muslims and Christians was not uncommon. This changed, understandably, after the call for the First Crusade.
Urban promised that people joining the crusade would have their punishment for sin reduced through plenary indulgences. Twenty thousand peasants joined immediately, marched into the Rhineland, and began slaughtering Jews (known as the Rhienland Massacres). The peasants eventually made their way to Constantinople where the Byzantine Emperor urged them to stay and wait for nobles from the West to arrive. Instead, they headed into Seljuk territory where they were ambushed near Nicaea. Only 3,000 survived.
Eventually, the nobles from Western Europe arrived with the main crusade force numbering approximately 100,000. They pledged to restore lost territory to the Byzantine Emperor and then marched south. They did retake lost territories, including Jerusalem where they massacred most of the inhabitants. But rather than return them to the Byzantines, they decided to settle down there themselves and set up shop. They set-up four new kingdoms: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli. The kingdoms were actually very well run, particularly considering that they were started from scratch and that support from the Western nations was infrequent and insufficient. The crusader nobles made efforts to incorporate the local Muslim populations into their kingdoms. Also, the kingdoms benefited from power struggles within the Muslim world at that time.
The Second, Third and Fourth Crusades were all efforts to regain territories which the crusaders in the First Crusade had won, but were lost over the years. Salah ad-Din (a.k.a. Saladin, of Kurdish descent BTW) rose to power and reclaimed Jerusalem in 1187. Eventually, all of the Crusader states would fall, one-by-one. By the time the Fourth Crusade rolled around, the crusaders never even made it to the Levant. Instead, they became embroiled in Byzantine political infighting and decided to sack Constantinople and head home instead.
The Crusades were pretty much a debacle. They were an effort by the Pope to increase the strength and influence of the church by reincorporating the Eastern church and by cowing the developing nationalism in Europe. They failed on both counts. The fact the the crusaders decided to hold the former Byzantine lands they retook for themselves and the eventual sacking of Constantinople meant the end of any reconciliation between the East and West churches. The men who went on the crusades did so for personal enrichment rather than for a religious cause. They set up kingdoms that were destined to fade. They would just as soon make alliances with neighboring Muslim nations than work together for a common goal. And, as they proved in the Fourth Crusade, they would just as soon attack Christians as well as Muslims.
Oh I am well aware of the tension between east and west. But the initial crusade was yes going against the Turks. Jerusalem was part of the plan and there never would be a need to fight had Muslims not been so violent. I left the Turks out because I didn't want to write a book. Too much of a Hassle on my phone
