The Crusades are hard to describe briefly. They were not at all united by any one military campaign, but continued for two centuries of European history, when Christian knights, commoners and even children separately went on campaigns in the eastern lands.
The Crusades: A brief look at how it all began
And the beginning was laid in the fall of 1095, when Pope Urban delivered his famous sermon. He called on Christian soldiers to liberate the Holy Land and the Holy Sepulcher, located in Jerusalem and occupied at that time by Muslims. Actually, this was the first and main declarative goal of the crusades. Of course, at their core, they had more significant reasons than just the desire to free the Holy Sepulcher.
The Crusades: Brief Background
The territories of Jerusalem and Palestine have been in the hands of Muslims since the 7th century. However, for several centuries this did not particularly embarrass Christian Europeans. The fact is that until the 11th century these lands were under the control of the Arab caliphs, who not only did not interfere, but also encouraged the travel of Christian pilgrims to their Holy
Earth. Among other things, this had a positive effect on trade and cultural exchange between the two civilizations. However, in 1076, Syria and Palestine were captured by the Seljuk Turks, a more barbaric and less sensible people compared to the Arabs. Very soon, rumors began to circulate in Europe about the desecration of the Temple of the Lord. Moreover, the growing power of the Seljuk state began to threaten the security of Byzantium, the eastern stronghold of Christianity. Thus, the crusades, to a certain extent, became a defensive reaction of the Europeans. Actually, it was the request of the Byzantine emperor Alexei Komnenos for help and protection that anticipated the Crusades. Briefly speaking about the background of these campaigns, it is also important to mention that they were facilitated by economic and political processes within Europe itself. The feudal struggle led to the emergence of a significant number of landless feudal lords (younger sons), who sought to conquer land in the distant countries of the east. The townspeople and peasants were driven into these campaigns by the general deterioration in the position of the mob (serfdom, etc.)
The Bicentennial Campaign of Religious Adventures
The first crusade began in 1096. In 1099, Jerusalem was taken, and the first crusader states appeared on the occupied lands. In the next two centuries there were eight more campaigns. They were often led by European kings.
Perhaps the most famous to the general public is the English monarch, RichardLion Heart. Often the campaigns were predatory in nature. With varying success, the participants in the crusades expanded and lost the land holdings of knightly orders in Palestine. However, the two-hundred-year standoff ended with the fall of the last knightly stronghold in the east, Acre, in 1291. One of the most important factors in the final defeat was the tough policy of the crusaders and the constant attempts to impose on the local population a feudal socio-economic system alien to them, which caused constant opposition from the latter and deprived the Europeans of the necessary economic base to consolidate.
