During the middle Ages, the whole of Europe experienced much violence and sickness through their development. Through all of this suffering and chaos, people looked to religion to ease their worries. Religion has always been an aspect of humanity that, ironically, both heals and causes troubles. Because people were so passionate about their gods and what they believed in, there was much violence on the subject, and some of that violence even became wars, called the crusades. Because religion was one of the biggest parts of the culture in the middle Ages, the crusades are a huge part of studying that era, and it is essential that one takes the time to study them if one was to truly understand the culture of that time period.
The crusades, essentially, were a series of wars fought between the Christians and the Muslims in Europe and Northern Africa. This document, given to the Frankish Army at the beginning of the crusades, states:
"Now we hope that none of you will be slain, but we wish you to know that the kingdom of heaven will be given as a reward to those who shall be killed in this war. For the Omnipotent knows that they lost their lives fighting for the truth of the faith, for the preservation of their country,, aiid the defence of Christians. And therefore God will give then, the reward which we have named. " This is saying that the Church is recognizing that it is against the Ten Commandments to kill, however, one who dies in battle for God will be forgiven of his sins, no matter how many men he's killed. The fact that this was issued so surely to the European armies who were fighting for Christianity shows how desperate the Catholic church was to keep hold of its power. The church had to be positive that they would not lose control of the people in Europe, and the Muslims, who did not wish to follow the orders of the church posed that threat.
Another issue the Catholic church was concerned with was that the Muslims had gained control of their holy land, Jerusalem. The History Channel Website states that "Though the goals of various Crusades varied, their primary aims were fervently religious: retake control of the Holy Land, conquer pagan areas and check the spead of Islam. " Again, the main concern of the church during the crusades was power, which goes hand in hand with ownership of land. The possession of that holy land meant that the church was in control of what happened on that ground, and that it was kept sacred. They did not want the Muslim religion being celebrated on the land where their ancestors had practiced Christianity and Judaism. The goal of the crusades was to take back what they had considered to be "rightly" theirs.
that a pagan race had overcome the Christians and with horrible cruelty had
The fact that the crusades in the middle Ages even took place shows somewhat the panic that the church was experience with all of the chaos that was happening, even outside the religious word. While religion was a huge part of most people's lives, there was also much that people were distracted by, and religion was losing value for those who were not very strong on their faith to begin with. This panicked the church even more so, and it was evident that other religions were beginning to crop up. An article issued by Gregory VII says, "a pagan race had overcome the Christians and with horrible cruelty had devastated everything almost to the walls of Constantinople, and were now governing the conquered lands with tyrannical violence, and that they had slain many thousands of Christians as if they were but sheep. If we love God and wish to be recognized as Christians, we should be filled with grief at the misfortune of this great empire [the Greek] and the murder of so many Christians." The main focus from this excerpt is that Gregory VII sees all of these people (the pagans and the Greeks for example) as threats, because their beliefs were contrary to the church. With all the disease and poverty going through Europe, any extra loss of control was incredibly detrimental to the church. The event of the crusades made the Catholic church seem more powerful and put more reassurance back into the church, which calmed the Christian people down a bit.
The reasoning in the crusades is possibly the biggest reason one must study them to understand the culture of the middle Ages, because it brings up the prominence of the church in that time period. There was a very large loss of control in the Church, and the fact that commandments were ignored and altered in the process of these wars shows how insecure the leaders could be. When one studies the crusades, they begin to understand the instability of the governments that existed all across Europe.
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