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Introduction

The Impacts of crusades on European and Middle Eastern Historical development. The Crusades were a group of Holy Wars fought between European Christians and the Seluk Turks between the years of 1096 and 1291. All in total there were eight organized crusades. Jerusalem is a sacred city for Christians; many Christians made regular pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Up to the invasion of the Seluk Turks, the Saracens controlled the city and allowed the Christians to make peaceful journeys to the city. The Christians, when the Seluk Turks took control were beaten and robbed on their pilgrimages. Alexius Commenus, Emperor of the Byzantine Empire, who had controlled Jerusalem prior to the Saracens with the blessing and assistance of Pope Urban II, wanted to remove the Turks from Jerusalem and recover the Holy Lands. In Clearmont France in 1095 after a stirring speech by the Pope thousands of people joined the crusaded and had an armed pilgrimages to the Holy Land (Hamilton, The Crusades, p 2-4). The first Crusades started formerly on November 27, 1095. In this crusade the Christians basically gained back a portion of Jerusalem. In 1144 the Muslims captured control of the land the Crusaders previously gained. The Second Crusade was formed to recapture the city that the Muslims took back, as well as Jerusalem, but in the end the Crusaders were again defeated. Also during the Second Crusade the Muslim named Saladin gained control over all of Jerusalem. ...read more.

Middle

The belief that there has been "no long lasting impacts" on Islamic society must surely be false, an event that spaded 200 years and cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, united both the Western world, and the Islamic world in relative unity, and gave rise to trade between the East and the West would have to have major long lasting impacts. Karen Armstrong is a writer and she writes mostly on the relationship surrounding Jerusalem and the three faiths that revolve around it, on September 19, 1999 she published her article "The Crusades, Even Now" in the New York Times. She writes, "With the Crusades, the West found its soul. It began cultivating its own literary, artistic, and spiritual traditions" (Armstrong, "The Crusades, Even Now," p74). The main point of her article is that the crusades gave the West an identity, and unlike other historians she believes that the crusades should not be remembered as a quest for loot but as a quest for "spiritual knowledge and rightness." She goes on to write "Many survivors returned penniless, for knights often mortgaged their lands at home in order to equip their armies, Crusading's rewards were always more spiritual than financial: it was genuine religious passion...They regarded their Crusade as an act of the love of God" (Armstrong, "The Crusades, Even Now," p74). It is hard to believe that hordes of people would not only risk their lives to defend a city thousands of miles away and loosing their money while attempting it. ...read more.

Conclusion

However with his possible biases aside, he offers the most reasonable account of the crusades taking into view that there are dark sides to human nature, and many people do what they do for personal gains. Treece seems to have the most dead on approach to the impacts of the crusades to both Western and Eastern development. There were many results to the crusades, the combination of the two cultures pushed both civilizations to excel and move ahead faster than they had previously or would have without the contact of the other. However it seems as if the West took more than its fair share away from the crusades. The East united itself and learned new military tactics, however in today's society it seems that the Middle East is again divided. The West took many things that have never been seen, felt, or tasted in the western world, they gained the knowledge to travel great distances across water, and eventually found America, they learned hygiene from the Islamic society, not only bathing practices, but also medicine and physician practices. Greatest off all that the West took from the crusades was the idea that people did not have to settle in their role of life. If you were a serf and tied to your lord's land you could rise up and have bloody adventures. This ideal gave the peasant class the courage, power, and idea to through off the shackles of bonded labor and revolt against oppressive governments. These are the things that had the greatest impact on the development of Europe. ?? ?? ?? ?? ...read more.

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