happened without the First; indeed, it was launched in an unsuccessful effort to restore its unravelled work, after Saladin reconquered Jerusalem from the Franks in 1187.
The First Crusade likewise epitomizes the profoundly mixed feelings which modern Westerners have toward their medieval predecessors. The misdeeds of the crusaders are better remembered than their achievements. Today, it is probably viewed most often as either the first demonstration of Western imperialism, or as an incomprehensible expression of fanaticism. Yet the word "crusade" has also entered the language as a synomym for an effort of high idealism and disinterested effort for a greater good. The Second World War was described as a Crusade for Europe, and we speak of launching crusades against drug use or child abuse. After nine hundred years, the First Crusade still carries echoes of both the best and worst of zealous effort.
In its own time, the First Crusade was unprecedented. Never before had Western Europeans undertaken such an effort, so far from home. Never before had they gone so decisively onto the defensive against a civilization wealthier and more powerful than their own. It firmly established the reign of feudal knighthood, an institution just then coming into being. For the people of Syria and Palestine, the sudden descent of an immense army from the ends of the world was almost incomprehensible.
The First Crusade did not come into being out of absolutely nowhere, however. It was triggered in part by events that had taken part in the Middle East during the previous generation, and in part by the pressures of newly emergent social and economic forces in the heart of Europe. It was not, in fact, the first crusade-like expedition, though it was vastly larger in scale than its predecessors, and involved people who for the most part had taken little part in earlier warfare against Islam.
The remainder of this discussion will exam...