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In essence, the Crusades were attempts to reconquer Christian lands taken by Muslims!. If there is a 'fault' it lies exclusively with the Muslims, owing to their seizure of originally Christian lands!.

Islam began in Arabia with the prophet Muhammad in AD 622!. Since Islam spread through conquest, it expanded by seizing lands originally owned by Zoroastrians (Persian Empire) and Christians (Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Libya and present-day Algeria/Tunisia/Morocco)!.

By AD 735, Islam had lapped at the walls of Constantinople (capital of the Christian 'Byzantine Empire'), through Spain and into southern France (where it was repulsed at Tours by Charles Martel)!. Observe that Islam seized huge amounts of land originally belonging to Christians!. (It would do the same in the far east, where it seized control of most of India from Hindus, and in Central and Eastern Africa!.)

It then split into three 'caliphates' as a result of sect differences and lost much of its expansionist surge!. In the west, Christianity staged a gradual recovery, hampered by a similar split between Catholic (western) and Orthodox (eastern) churches in the 700s over a point of doctrine!. As a result, the Byzantine Empire (the surviving part of the Roman Empire, controlling Greece and Asia Minor) and the western barbarian kingdoms fought separate battles against Islam (and more often fought each other)!.

By AD 1000, the Christian recovery in both east and west was well under way despite centuries of infighting, with Spain slowly being liberated despite occasional setbacks and the Byzantine Empire starting to regain Syria and Palestine!. Then everything changed when the Seljuk Turks conquered Armenia and invaded the Byzantine Empire!. In AD 1071 the Seljuks defeated the main Byzantine army at Manzikert, and the new emperor of the weakened Byzantine Empire appealed to western Christian lords for men to fight the Turks and regain the lost territories (which, critically, included that most holy of cities, Jerusalem)!.

The status of Jerusalem was key to the First Crusade: although it had been under Moslem control for much of the period between 640 and 1070, Christian pilgrims were usually allowed access!. This was cut off entirely by the Seljuks, and so directly affected the religious well-being of every would-be pilgrim (pilgrimage was as important then as pensions are now)!. Thus, when Urban II delivered his famous speech to the assembled noble knights of Europe (not all of them, but a representative portion) they responded 'deus vult!' (God wills it!)!.

Urban's speech was convincing to Christians at the time!. It would seem less so now, in our less religious and more cynical age!. Unsaid in the speech was the feature that appealed to landless knights, younger sons who did not inherit a patrimony: any expedition to lands afar raised the prospect of gaining one's own fief (this is why many crusaders stayed in the Holy Land after the First Crusade)!. Some ambitious nobles were keen to gain new holdings: Bohemond and Tancred of Taranto both sought to carve out principalities for themselves!.

Landed knights were generally less keen to join: the prospect of a neighbour stirring up trouble while they were gone was a considerable deterrent!. Only if they needed the blanket 'remission of sins' (including those to be committed on crusade) would they have an incentive to go!.

Was it a holy war!? To begin with, certainly: a war undertaken by God's will to free the holiest city on earth (in Christian eyes)!. Later, when the crusader knights had settled into their new-won fiefs, ruling over predominantly (eastern) Christian townsmen and peasants (with numbers of Muslims and Jews), it became much like anywhere else: Christian princes would take Muslim allies against another Christian prince, and vice versa!. Religion mattered less than advantage!. Only when a major Muslim leader arose with a religious agenda (reconquest) did the matter become once again a religious conflict!. (The Third Crusade occurred as a direct result of the loss of Jerusalem to Saladin's Saracens!. But even crusaders could get sidetracked: the Fourth Crusade, instead of trying to free Jerusalem, treacherously attacked and partitioned the Christian Byzantine Empire at the insistence of the Christian Venetians!.)

Who had most impact!? It is hard to say!. The Muslims eventually took control of the Middle East, largely because they had reunified while the Christian kingdoms were still fighting each other!. The rise of the Ottoman Turks, which created the most serious Muslim threat to Europe, occurred after the period of the Crusades!. But the iconic symbol of the crusades is the small band of Christian knights prevailing against a huge Muslim army!. This occurred often enough (but only when the Christians were well-led) for the Muslims to develop a serious inferiority complex about knights in general and the military orders (Templars and Hospitallers) in particular!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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An argument against joining the crusader armies is that as they travelled they murdered lots of innocent Jews that were minding their own business!. The Christians were totally at fault for that!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Do your own homework little girlWww@QuestionHome@Com

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