Crusades Essay Research Paper Crusades military expeditions

Crusades Essay, Research Paper

Crusades, military expeditions undertaken by Western European Christians between 1095 and 1270, usually at the request of the pope, to recover Jerusalem and the other Palestinian places of pilgrimage known to Christians as the Holy Land from Muslim control. The name crusade (from Latin, “cross,” the emblem of the Crusaders) was also applied, especially in the 13th century, to wars against pagan peoples, Christian heretics, and political foes of the papacy.Background The origin of the Crusades is rooted in the political upheaval that resulted from the expansion of the Seljuk Turks in the Middle East in the mid-11th century. The conquest of Syria and Palestine by the Muslim Seljuks alarmed the Western Christians. Other Turkish invaders also penetrated deep into the Christian Byzantine Empire and subjected many Greek, Syrian, and Armenian Christians to their rule. The Crusades were, in part, a reaction to these events. They were also the result of ambitious popes who sought to extend their political and religious power. Crusading armies were, in a sense, the military arm of papal policy.Beyond all this, the Crusades coincided with a time of dramatic growth of European population and commercial activity. The Crusades provided an area of expansion to accommodate part of this growing population. They also offered an outlet for the ambitions of land-hungry knights and noblemen. At the same time, the expeditions offered rich commercial opportunities to the merchants of the growing cities of the West, particularly the Italian cities of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice.Crusading thus had a broad appeal to numerous Europeans. Some went on Crusades out of greed, some out of religious fervor; almost all Crusaders sought adventure, and many of them believed that their participation would virtually guarantee personal salvation.The First Crusade The Crusades began formally on Tuesday, November 27, 1095, in a field just outside the walls of the French city of Clermont-Ferrand. On that day Pope Urban II preached a sermon to crowds of laypeople and clergy attending a church council at Clermont. In his sermon, the pope outlined a plan for a Crusade and called on his listeners to join its ranks. The response was positive and overwhelming. Pope Urban then commissioned the bishops at the council to return to their homes and to enlist others in the Crusade. He also outlined a basic strategy: Individual groups of Crusaders would begin the journey in August 1096. Each group would be self-financing and responsible to its own leader. The groups would make their separate ways to the Byzantine capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), where they would meet. From there, they would launch a counterattack against the Seljuk conquerors of Anatolia along with the Byzantine emperor and his army. Once that region was under Christian control, the Crusaders would campaign against the Muslims in Syria and Palestine, with Jerusalem as their ultimate goal.The Crusading Armies In broad outline the First Crusade conformed to the scheme envisioned by the pope. Recruitment went forward vigorously during the remainder of 1095 and the early months of 1096. Five major armies of noblemen ultimately assembled in late summer, 1096, to set out on the Crusade. The majority were from France, but significant numbers also came from southern Italy and the regions of Lorraine, Burgundy, and Flanders.The pope had not foreseen the popular enthusiasm that his Crusade aroused among nonnoble townspeople and peasantry. Alongside the Crusade of the nobility a popular one materialized among the common people. The largest and most important group of popular Crusaders was recruited and led by a Picard preacher known as Peter the Hermit. Although the participants in the popular Crusade were numerous, only a tiny fraction of them ever succeeded in reaching the Middle East; even fewer survived to see the ultimate triumph of the Crusade at Jerusalem.The Conquest of Anatolia The armies of Crusading nobles arrived at Constantinople beginning in November 1096 and continuing through May 1097. The Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus pressured the Crusaders into turning over to him any former Byzantine territory that they captured. The leaders resented these demands, and although most of them ultimately complied, they became suspicious of the Byzantines.In May 1097, the Crusaders attacked their first major target, the Anatolian Turkish capital at Nicaea (modern Iznik, Turkey). In June the city surrendered to the Byzantines, rather than the Crusaders. This confirmed the latter’s suspicions that Alexius intended to use the Crusaders as pawns in order to achieve his own goals.Shortly after the fall of Nicaea, the Crusaders encountered the principal Seljuk field army of Anatolia at Dorylaeum (Eskisehir). On July 1, 1097, the Crusaders scored a great victory there and nearly annihilated the Turkish force. As a result the Crusaders met little resistance during the rest of their campaign in Asia Minor. The next major obstacle was the city of Antioch in northern Syria (now Antakya, Turkey). The Crusaders besieged the city on October 21, 1097, but it did not fall until June 3, 1098. No sooner had the Crusaders taken Antioch than they were attacked by a fresh Turkish army from Mosul, which arrived just too late to relieve Antioch’s Turkish defenders. The Crusaders repulsed the relief force on June 28.The Capture of Jerusalem Resting at Antioch