tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-923654623409244615.post-41531249679283516332007-10-07T11:22:00.000-07:002007-11-05T04:52:33.470-08:00Summary of The Major Crusades <div align="center"> </div>The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw an on-going stream of pilgrims and small crusading parties, but eight major crusades stand out. The first crusade, mainly French, begun in 1095, was the most successful. Four great armies left in 1096 and took cities along the way. When Jerusalem fell in 1099, they massacred Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. Then the leaders divided up Palestine and Syria into European-style feudal territories, each governed by a European feudal lord.<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5118673178287644914" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_wX0ryj-RWpw/RwkuIsEnoPI/AAAAAAAAAHY/---J1L6-0GQ/s320/44.jpg" border="0" /> The Major CrusadesThis map from the book of AZIZ S. ATIYA, Crusade, Commerceand Culture The second Crusade, 50 years later in 1147, arose in response to ‘Imad al-Din Zangi’s 1144 reconquest of Edessa, and in response to the preaching of Bernard of Clairvaux, the greatest European figure of the day. It collapsed and failed badly. The third crusade left in response to Jerusalem’s 1187 fall to Salah al-Din (Saladin). This was the best equipped. Three great armies were led by Richard Lion-heart of England, Philip II of France, and the Holy Roman emperor Frederick Barbarosa, Europe’s greatest warrior. But Frederick accidentally drowned, the other two kings quarreled, and the whole crusade dissipated.The fourth crusade, from 1202 to 1204, was diverted from Palestine to Constantinople for political and financial reasons. The western armies sacked the city, overthrew the Byzantine emperor, and set up a Latin Kingdom that ruled for 60 years (until 1261). But they did nothing to the Muslims. Its main outcomes were vastly to deepen the divide between Greek and Latin Christianity, and to precipitate the Byzantine Empire’s long slow slide to oblivion.The fifth Crusade in 1220 attacked Egypt with the intention to advance toward Jerusalem. On this one, Francis of Assisi went as kind of a chaplain, but with a side agenda to win the Sultan for Christianity and make peace through dialogue. The Crusade failed; the armies never got out of Egypt, but Francis won the Sultan’s lasting friendship. In the sixth crusade of 1228, perhaps the second most successful, Holy Roman emperor Frederick II (1212-1250) secured Jerusalem for the Christians by treaty, not conquest. He crowned himself king of Jerusalem and re-opened Jerusalem for pilgrims. This arrangement lasted until 1244. The seventh and eighth Crusades, in 1248 and 1270, were disasters. They were led by pious Louis IX of France, who became known as St. Louis. But not even piety could procure victory. In the seventh Louis was captured in Egypt, and in the eighth he died. The last Western holding in Palestine was lost in 1291. For two more centuries people talked of Crusades and smaller crusading parties ventured out, but large-scale support for them was gone. Many things changed as a result of the Crusades. In the West, warfare in Europe diminished somewhat, for the Crusades did give an outlet for restless nobles. Commerce increased between Northern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea. Westerners glimpsed a bigger world, complete with the splendid cities, ancient civilizations and different cultures. Contact with Arab and Muslim scholarship increased. Interaction between English, French and German folk sparked ethnic consciousness, the seed of nationalism. Kings grew stronger because rival nobles had moved to the East. The Papacy, now seen as the defender of Christendom, grew stronger. Schism between the Eastern and Western churches grew deeper and harder. Finally, the Crusade came to be used against dissenters within the church. In the Middle East, there was tremendous cost in lives and money, but no permanent conquest of the Holy Land; Islam was not slowed. What did happen, though, was the hastened the fall of the Byzantine Empire. The divided and quarreling Muslim powers found temporary unity against the Europeans, but in the longer run the Western distraction made them more vulnerable to the thirteenth century Mongols from China. Finally, the Crusades worsened relations between Muslims and Christians. Respect almost disappeared. When hostility took political expression among Muslims, it birthed a new kind of political radicalism with a militant edge.In sum, the Crusades increased and broadened Europe’s economic and intellectual expansion, but the campaigns themselves failed, and the Middle East is largely Muslim today. What remains, besides Crusader castles, is a high and hard 900-year-old wall of misunderstanding between Christians and Muslims, and resentment against the West.secbloghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03028325472038557621noreply@blogger.com