Crusades for christianizing or Holy Land?

Question

were the Crusades meant to convert people who werent Christian, or was it meant to regain the Holy Land and Jerusalem? I KNOW what wikipedia says, but i am still confused. did they do this for conversion, or simply to take back Jerusalem and the Holy Land in the name of Christianity? please explain your answers...

Answer 1

It was definitely to take back the holy land. They would much rather kill the non-Christians than waste any time converting them.

Answer 2

Particularly the early Crusades (and mind, "Crusade" is a term that wasn't coined until the 3rd Crusade) were aimed to take back the Holy Lands (as it used to be held under the Roman/Byzantine Empire). The Pope also desired to bring Byzantine under his power by making the Emperor indebted (up to, and beyond, this point the Emperor denied that the Pope was the head of the Christian Church).

However, many efforts were also made during the Crusades to convert heathens and stabilize the area (I think, but am not positive, that the Hospitilars were part of this effort, among their other duties).

Curiously, if it hadn't been for the infighting in the Roman Empire during the 6th and 7th centuries, the Crusades would have never happened (the infighting created a power vaccum in the area that allowed the then ill-trained and ill-equiped Muslims to invade the area and gain important footholds that they capitilized on).

Answer 3

Muslim armies had conquered much of northern Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Spain, which had been some of the most heavily Christian areas in the world.

Thousands, and possibly millions, of Christians died during this drive to eventually bring the entire world under Islam.

The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II to check the advance of the Muslims and regain control of the city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land.

I am sure that some atrocities were committed by both sides during this war but by most people's judgment this was a just war.

With love in Christ.

Answer 4

If it weren’t for the “Crusades,” the Western free thinking, democratic, liberal world would have not existed. Europe would have been an Islamic continent starting from Spain onwards imposing their Islamic law, and the Pilgrims who migrated to North America would have not happen. We love to demonize what the Crusaders did, (and I’m sure there were atrocities too, but we got to see the big picture here) but never thought about what it has done for Western Civilization and the culture it brought us, like banking, commerce, trade, and democracy. We could have kissed all of that goodbye if it were not for the Crusades, who not only protected the Christians in Jerusalem, but also protected Europe and Western Civilization as well

Answer 5

Crusades, theoretically, were meant to take back the Holy Lands.

However, the reality was that Crusades were fronts for the greeds of European merchants and slave traders.

Answer 6

so as (btw - i'm a former Catholic, yet studied Church historic previous for a number of years till now growing Pagan) The Christian church did certainly propose the crusades and the Inquisition. It develop into there conception that all peoples were meant to hearken to and understand and trust the word of Christ. they extremely did not care how the conquered people were switched over, in hardship-free words that they were. The Church on the instant develop into,regrettably, very corrupt. back, the activities easily got here about and it got here about because the Church develop into better fascinated in belongings and wealth and its personal skill than contained in the people as we talk in historic previous. It develop into an exceedingly unhappy day for Christianity and one which does convey shame to better straightforward Christians even now. It develop into justified then through the concept they were 'saving the souls' of a majority of those heathens and infidels and that the soul develop into of better significance than the human body or existence. The Roman Catholic Church has apologized for those crimes hostile to humanity and warranted the international that the Church of now is not any longer the Church of then. i do not undergo in concepts the precise Pope that printed the encyclical, yet i understand there develop into one, i imagine it develop into Pope Paul VI. i won't be able to ever see any church being waiting to propose persecution of absolutely everyone in this scale ever back. that's a a lot diverse international than the that of the middle a lengthy time period even as the unique persecutions got here about.

Answer 7

They were to take "back" (as if Europeans ever had) the Holy Land.