Crusade with Reason
Introduction
There was an increase in tension between the Christians and the Muslims in the 1000s. Byzantine Empire was defeated by the Muslim Turks at the battle in 1071. The Emperor asked the Pope to offer him some help to conquer the Muslims. In response to this, Pope Urban II instructed the European knights to go on a crusade so that they could take over Jerusalem. Jerusalem was considered a home for Christianity since the Christians believed that Jesus had died in Jerusalem. During this period, the Christian pilgrims found it hard to visit Jerusalem. The Muslims had put restrictions on visiting Jerusalem. In the year 1099, the Knights attacked and killed several Muslims in Jerusalem. The streets of Jerusalem were flowing with blood. The control of Jerusalem was taken by the Christians again. This attack is regarded as the first crusade to take place in European Middle Ages.
The crusades refer to the religious and political fights that existed a long time ago. The fights started at around the 1090s. The main reason the fights began is that people wanted to control the holy land that is presently known as Jerusalem. Pope Urban ii the person who took an initiative on the first crusade that occurred between 1096 and 11102. The pope initiated the crusade to offer assistance to Byzantine Empire. Byzantine Empire is a Christian empire that had been attacked by the Turks. Turks was a Muslim Seljuk. The first crusade made European to take over the holy land in 1099. When the Muslims saw this, they unified against the Christians. They formed strong forces that led to the war between the Muslims and the Christians. At that time, the Muslims emerged victoriously. They, therefore, ruled Jerusalem from the year 1291 up to the twentieth century.
The movement of the crusade involved various levels of people from Europe. Men women and children were all involved in the crusade. All aspects of life were also affected by the crusade. Political, economic and religious aspects were all touched by the crusade. Art industry was not left behind various artists and patrons came from various region and traditions to give their expressions in distinct artistic forms. Different forms of art such as mosaic, sculptures, and the coins showed the interaction between the Byzantine and the Eastern Christians. Te crusade has contributed a lot to the world art history, Leading to the appearance of most crusaders in the epic poetry of France and Germany. The crusades later came to occur as a series of events. People in that era participated in the crusade for various reasons. The reasons are discussed below.
The first reason people went on crusades is because they wanted control over the holy land presently known as Jerusalem. They believed that they were the rightful owners of Jerusalem since it was the place where Jesus died. The second reason people went on crusades is that they went because some people wanted to honor, love or revenge. The third reason is that the church forced some people to go on crusades because they had committed various crimes. They had to go on crusades so that their sins could b forgiven or they had to take back all the good things from the holy land. The fourth reason is that some people went to have fun on crusades. . The Pope’s c calling for the Crusade ignited many knights from Europe to go on a crusade. Several people decided to go the crusade. They were all focused on going, but each and every person had a different reason that attracted him or her to the crusade. Most of the young people enjoyed to adventure overseas. Others went to the crusade because they could not disobey the Pope. They knew that if they disobeyed the pope, they had disobeyed God some young People thought that they would acquire a lot of wealth from the Muslims after killing them.
The main reason for the occurrence of the Crusades was to take back Jerusalem. The church believed that Jerusalem was the place where Jesus had died, and, therefore, it should be theirs. The church came up with a rule that said that God had told the pope that it was worthy to kill or to b e rewarded for killing a person who does not believe in God.s Christians considered the Muslims as people who does not believe in God. Therefore, the rule simply meant that a Christian could be rewarded for killing a Muslim. The reality was that God did not instruct the pope that a person would be rewarded for killing a Muslim. The reason the pope made the rule is because he wanted the Christians to take control over Jerusalem for another time. This act of the pope is the reason most knights, wives, children, kings, lords and peasants went on crusades. For instance, the sermon of Pope Urban ii depicted this attack. On his sermon, the Pope illustrated that several Christians had been killed in the name of God, He was pleading for help claiming that he was a messenger from God. He explained how the Saracens had attacked the Christians in the East.
Another reason that ranks second in the list is that people went on crusades for honor, love and revenge. For those people who went for honor, it is because they wanted to explore their village or become famous. Also, they may have gone to fight in crusades for somebody else. Those Christians t that went because of love, their wives may have been killed by killed by Muslims or a Christian and a Muslim might have been fighting for one wife. For the Christians who went on crusades for revenge, their relative or family members might have been killed by Muslims. They wanted to demonstrate their anger on the crusades.
Some people went on crusades because they wanted their time in Purgatory to be shortened. They also wanted to go to heaven. Others believed that when they kill Muslims, they would possess all their belongings. Other Christians wanted to be forgiven their sins. The church also forced some individuals to go on crusade. The church could only force a person who committed a crime. For instance, the 1291 English trials stated that if a person committed a crime by hitting a priest with the sword, then the person had to go to the crusade or pay a trained soldier to go instead.
There are those who went on crusades because they disliked disobeying God. They always thought of fighting. They went t o had fun on the crusades since the Pope instructed that everybody could be killed except the Christians. For instance, during the twelfth century an English writer wrote and said that I knight would love to prepare for war in tournaments. These Christians enjoyed the fights so much because the pope had told them that it was God who had given the order. They saw fighting as a game of fun. Their aim was just kill anybody they came across with provided that the person was not a Christian. They killed many Muslims at that time thereby creating a religious enmity between Christianity and Islam.
Conclusion
The antagonism between Christianity and Islam has been there for centuries. During the 1000s, disputes among these religions were solved by holy wars that involved shedding a lot of blood. Jerusalem city was the main focus o f the two religions. Each wanted to take over Jerusalem. At the first place, Muslims took over Jerusalem after defeating the Byzantine Emperor. The Christians became unsettled about this situation because they believed that they are the rightful owners of Jerusalem. They felt displaced from their land. Therefore, they decided not to surrender but have Jerusalem back whatever the cost. Pope Urban II initiated a crusade whose major objective was to have Jerusalem back from the hands of Muslims.
Although Pope Urban ii initiated the crusade that led to the Christians having back Jerusalem, it was disloyal for him to lie basing the lie on God’s words. God did not tell the pope to kill people who did not believe in him. Also, it was not loyal fort someone to fight on behalf of another person so that the person can be forgiven. The crusade created enmity between Christianity and Islam thereby corrupting peace of the present world. The crusade also led to the development of Western Europe.