Crusades

A number of movements in Catholic Western Europe, especially during the 12th and 13th centuries, that aimed to free the "holy land" from Muslim rulers. The name derives from crux, the Latin word for CROSS. The Crusaders wore large red crosses sewn onto their shirts. In the course of the 11th century, the territory of Palestine came under the control of the Seljuq Turks. The Seljuqs were less welcoming than the earlier Muslim rulers had been to Christians who wanted to visit holy sites such as Bethlehem and JERUSALEM. In addition, the advance of the Seljuqs posed political and economic threats to the Latinspeaking parts of Western Europe. In response, on November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II appealed to Christendom to liberate the Holy Land. To entice people to participate in the efforts, he offered Crusaders forgiveness of their fi nancial debts as well as of their sins. There were four major Crusades and a number of minor ones. The First Crusade lasted from 1096 to 1099. The major contingent, led by several noblemen, crossed the Mediterranean Sea, engaged the Turks in battle, and eventually managed to establish four Crusader states along the coast of Palestine. The most important was the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Surrounded by hostile forces, these states were not genuinely viable. After 200 years they disappeared entirely. The second and third major Crusades were attempts to recover territory that the Crusader states had lost to Muslim counterattacks. The Second Crusade (1147–49) was a response to the fall of the Crusader state of Edessa; the third (1188–92) to the capture of Jerusalem and other territories by the great Muslim leader Saladin. The Third Crusade, whose leaders included King Richard I, the Lion-Hearted, of England, was moderately successful. The Fourth Crusade (1202–04) illustrates well the questions that loom over the entire crusading enterprise. The Crusaders had assembled in Venice, but they could not pay for their passage. So at the instigation of the Venetians, they sacked a mercantile competitor of Venice, Zara, a Christian city in Dalmatia across the Adriatic. They also took up with a claimant to the throne of the Byzantine Empire. He promised the Crusaders that if they restored him to power, he would provide them with the funds that they needed. The deal fell through, and the Crusaders sacked Constantinople, the capital of (Christian) Byzantium, in 1204. Constantinople became the center of a Latin state, which did not last out the century; the Crusaders also established small states known as Frankish kingdoms in the Greek Peninsula. They never engaged Muslims in combat. The Crusades have provided European culture with much legend and literature. They were a particularly rich source of material during the Romantic movement in the early 19th century. They also led to the founding of several religious orders. One order was the Knights Templar, a short-lived military- religious order, originally based in Jerusalem, that turned to banking when the last of the crusader states fell. Another was the Knights Hospitalers, an order originally charged with caring for the needs of pilgrims. It continues today as the Knights of Malta. On balance, however, the main outcome of the Crusades would seem to be senseless expenditure and misery. Although technically warring against Muslim armies, the Crusaders found excuses to attack others, many of whom had no adequate means of defense. In addition to Orthodox Christians, such as those who fell victim to the Fourth Crusade, a large number of European Jews were slaughtered by those infused with the crusading spirit. Equally senseless was the so-called Children's Crusade of 1212. In this venture, children from the area around the Rhine attempted to cross the Alps under the leadership of a 12-year-old boy. They wanted to go and fi ght for the Holy Land. Most died of hunger and exposure. Ten to 20 years later rumors spread that some of these children had been spotted, now grown up, working as slaves on galleys sailing the Mediterranean.