Position:Home>History> Did the Holy Crusade really happen and if so, who did they kill?

1) Q: Did the Holy Crusade really happen!?

A: The Cusades were a series of nine military campaigns with the objective of recapturing Jerusalem and the Holy Land, which had fallen under Muslim rule, and establishing a Christian kingdom there!.

However, some of these campaigns were aborted, while others could be counted together as one, so their effective number could be reduced to seven or eight!.

Over time, however, the objective of the Crusades changed and they became wars of conquest, thus straying from their original goal!.

For further reading: http://en!.wikipedia!.org/wiki/Crusades

2) Q: Who did they kill!?

A: As in all wars, the carnage was extensive on both sides!. also, the international law of the time (in Latin "lex gentium", or "law of the peoples") stated that, when a city was conquered by force (for example after a siege or a military attack), it was a legal right of the winner to kill all the male inhabitants, rape all the women, enslave all the children and plunder the city for three days!. The men could, however, also be captured, taken prisoners, held hostages or sold as slaves!. Sometimes it was the Christians' turn to capture, plunder and ravage a Muslim city, while some other times it was the Muslims who re-captured and destroyed a Christian oupost!.

3) Q: Do you know when they happened!?

A: The Crusades were carried out approximately between the years 1100 and 1270 A!.D!.

4) Q: How did they decide who lived or died!?

A: The fate of war and civilian prisoners, as well as of the general population, was decided by both parties' military and political leaders, i!.e!. by the Christian or Muslim kings and generals (at the time, kings were usually also the supreme generals of their armies)!. However, survival on the battlefield is pretty much a matter of luck - or lack thereof!. Many people, even some of the poorer knights, died of malnutirion and starvation, as resources and food were scarce!. Since sanitation was very poor and water was particularly hard to come by, it was not uncommon to die of disease as well!.

5) Q: Where did the Christians build their new churches!?

A; As I said, the main objective of the Crusades was not to convert the Muslims or to build churches in Palestine, but to reconquer the Holy City of Jerusalem and to establish a Christian rule there, also in order to allow pilgrimages to the town and to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre!.

Therefore, the Christians beseiged and conquered various middle-eastern cities!. The capital of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem was the city of Acre (now located in the Western Galilee district of northern Israel)!. At the time, however, the Christians referred to the city as "Saint-Jean d'Acre", which is the French for "St!. John of Acre"!. Other important centres of the Kingdom and the nearby Crusader states were Ascalon (today called Ashkelon and located in the South District of Israel), Edessa (located in today's Turkey), Antioch (an ancient city that has evolved into the modern city of Antakya, in Turkey) and Tripoli (in Libya)!. The Christians did manage to beseige and conquer Jerusalem, but only to lose it to the Muslim army of the Kurd Saladin!.

Of course, new churches were buit in all these cities, but most of the money was spent on defensive city walls and fortifications!. However, it is interesting to point out that the Crusaders rebuilt the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (supposedly built on the site where the New Testament says that Jesus was crucified, on the purported site of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus!.), which had been destroyed and fallen into ruin!. That church was the very heart of Christianity, and it was an important pilgrimage destination!.

5) Q!. Who built the churches, and what non-christian things are in them!?

A: Over the centuries, the cities of Acre, Ascalon, Edessa, Antioch and Tripoli, as well as the Chrch of the Holy Sepulchre, have changed hands several times!.

Here you can see several pictures of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as it is today:

http://en!.wikipedia!.org/wiki/Church_of_t!.!.!.

The Church was destroyed and rebuilt several times, and it underwent major renovation in 1555!. It contains important Christian relics such as the Stone of Anointing (believed to be the spot where Jesus' body was prepared for burial) and the True Cross (believed to be the original cross on which Jesus died)!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Sorry, I only know little about the Crusade!. But there are actually 4 crusades happened!. The 1st crusade happened on 1095 when the Byzantine emperor turned to the pope and called for all Christians to start a holy war against the Seljuk Turks so that the holy land (Jerusalem) can be theirs!. Thousands of Christians rushed to join the Crusader armies!. On 1099, Jerusalem, an empire of the Seljuk turks that time, fell in the hands of the 1st crusaders!. The 2nd crusade happened on 1144!. The 3rd crusade happened on 1187!. I don't have much knowledge about those two crusades but the 4th crusade, also known as the Children's crusade, happened on 1212 wherein 50,000 children set off from France and Germany for the holy land (Jerusalem)!. Many died in the journey and many more were captured and sold as slaves in Africa!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Yes, certainly the Crusades really happened!. Between 1095 and 1272 there were at least nine crusades (depends how you count them) to the Holy Land, and there were also crusades in other parts of the world: e!.g!. against the pagan inhabitants of the Baltic countries, the Cathar heretics of Southern France, and the Muslims in Spain!. You can get basic information about them in Wikipedia!.

I can't make out what your last two questions are about, or how they relate to the crusades!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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