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Analysis of the Crusades

On a November day in the year 1195, in one of the most famous of medieval scenes, Pope Urban II addressed an enormous throng at the French town of Clermont. He spoke, in emotional language, of the Holy Land and the Holy Places, groaning under the rule of the Muslim infidel, and of the outrages perpetrated against Christian pilgrims. He called upon the nobles in his audience to end their destructive private wars against one another, and for the sake of all Christendom to turn their swords against the infidel: to mount a great pilgrimage in arms for the rescue of the Holy Land. His audience, which had wept at the sorrows and outrages he had portrayed, now raised their voices thunderously. "Deus Veult!" they cried: "God wills it!"

Five years later, on June 15, 1199, followed perhaps one of the most infamous scenes of the Middle Ages. A Frankish Christian army stormed Jerusalem, and proceeded to assail the population with fire and sword. One of their own chroniclers spoke of how the knights "rode in blood to the knees and bridles of their horses," as they advanced through the streets. The Jewish population of the city had taken refuge in the main synogogue; the doors were barred from without and it was set afire, burning all within alive. Not even the Christians of the city, indistinguishable from the rest to the invaders' eyes, were spared in the tumult.

Such were the beginning and the climax of the First Crusade. More than any single episode of the age, perhaps, it was decisive in shaping both the subsequent history of the Middle Ages, and our modern perceptions of the era. It is true that the Third Crusade, the crusade of Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, is probably more famous today; Richard and Saladin are both household names, whereas Raymond of Toulouse, Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemond, and the other leaders of the First Crusade now evoke only the vaguest of popular images. But the Third Crusade, could not have ...

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Analysis of the Crusades. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 10:48, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1692388.html