i get to pick my topic for a paper on the crusades... does anybody have an interesting topic i could do?

Answer 1

Do one on the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Jerusalem, The Knights Templar. They fought for the Christians, they invented international banking and they evolved into present day Freemasons. The image on the Shroud of Turin is reported to actually be the image of the last Grand Commander of the Knights Templar, Jacques deMolay. Pope Clement VI and Phillip III of France had him tortured to try to get their hands on the Templar Treasure that's supposed to include the Ark of the Covenant. Theres a whole lot of books on the subject and it's hot right now with the success of the DaVinci Code. Check out Borders or Barnes & Nobel and you'll see a lot of books on the subject

Answer 2

Comparison's to modern jihad are interesting but at the same time difficult due to difference in motivation and in the way in which they are actually waged. Your knowledge of Muslim theology, even among scholars there is considerable debate about jihad and its true meaning, would have to be pretty solid to attempt this comparison. It's possible but i would urge caution as it is ambitious to say the least.

Also the amount of information pertaining to the so called 'childrens crusade' is very slender and you would struggle to construct a meaningful paper out of it.

If you wanted something more simple about the first crusade (which is my more specialist area) you could try and assess to what extent the crusaders were motivated by religious zeal or whether arab divisions were the most important reason in the success of the first crusade.

Answer 3

An intresting topic to choose would be the diffrences between the Christian Crusades and Islamic Jihad's. You could talk about 1. why were they fighting? 2. Recruting for the Crusades. 3. Fighting for the Holy Land. 4. The signifance of Jerusalem. and 5. Who won?

Answer 4

How about the sack of Constantinople on the way there - it was the Second Crusade (probably) - the Crusaders had to pay the Dalmations and Venetians back for ferrying them to the Holy land so they sacked Constantinople to get loot to pay them. It was also interesting because that is how the wealth of the Roman Empire went from Rome to Constantinople when the Emperor Constantine moved the capital there (modern day Istanbul) and then back to Venice.

How about that - or you could do Bernard of Clairvaux and his selling of the mission ... the medieval church and propaganda...

Have fun !

Answer 5

What level of class is this? You can do women's role(s) during the Crusades.
Or- Answer the question; Was there more than religion being fought over as far as the Crusades were concerned?
Or- talk about the Children's Crusade and what about it is fact and which part is fiction.

:-)

Answer 6

Well, after the 4 major Crusades, there were a few minor ones, none being successful. One was a group of children/teenagers that went very bad. Try finding info on that one maybe?

Answer 7

You might consider how the crusades impacted Muslim culture or how the crusades contributed to the rise of Islamic militancy.

Answer 8

Urban II called all faithful/capable men to join, and gave a speech that justified the cause, and granted the participants salvation in heaven if they joined the fight. Below is a link to five different translations of the speech, they are all similar in content so don't read all of them unless you're really bored (I had to for a class).

Answer 9

u could do a report on the Muslim stand point and how they are not the aggressor that history makes them out to be. and that the Cristian's were the cruel ones like how when they took back Jerusalem they killed every one including the women and children and the knights Templar were there as well

Answer 10

you could compare the old crusades to the iraq war. some people think it is the new crusade."