Crusades...?

Question

What are the crusades?
who are them?
when did it take place?











this is not my home work!
(first three people get a "thumbs up")

Answer 1

The Crusades began as a means of preventing petty noblemen from fighting one another.

In 11th and 12th century Europe, there was a lot of civil strife--knights fought one another, ravaging each other's lands. Most kings were really too weak to prevent it, and the fact that the idea of being part of a nation hadn't caught on to any appreciable extent didn't help matters. Thes knights and lords considered themselves pretty much free agents--the Count of ABC considered himself as good as any king within his own domain, and if he had a gripe with the Earl of DEF, well, he'd war against him.

Needless to say, this led to a lot of bloodshed, destroyed crops, and just your general raping, killing, pillaging, and burning.

So the Pope came up with the idea that these Christian nobles would be better employed fighting the Turks than fighting one another, and proclaimed the First Crusade (of course, it wasn't called that--they had no idea that it would be just the first in a series). A lot of fringe benefits were attached, too--tax relief, excommunication for any who tried to invade a crusader's lands in his absence, plus the assurance of Heaven if he died while on his holy mission--a neat blend of the here and now and the hereafter.

Sounded good on paper, certainly, but whenever you have two or more human beings you invariably have conflict. Most of the nobles were quite full of themselves and very touchy as to points of honor--or pride. There was dissension in the ranks almost at once, because everyone wanted to be a chief and no one wanted to be an Indian.

Of course, they also were exposed to luxury items virtually unknown in Europe as well, and since they were used to pillaging one another, it was a simple matter to pillage whoever got in the way. Despite the noble ideals of the Crusades, many regarded it as a chance to get rich on plunder, and did so merrily.

There were other Crusades as well--the Peasants' Crusade felt that the common folk might be able to achieve what the powerful could not; it was long on simple faith and very short on planning and practical concerns. They never even reached the Holy Land, nor did the participants in the Children's Crusade, another naive attempt to recover the shrines connected to the life of Christ. The children thought that they, because of their innocence and purity (and humility--like the Peasants' Crusade, their ranks were NOT filled by the children of the nobles), would succeed where the adults had failed.

What happened was a miserable loss of the innnocence and purity, because most of them ended up abused and dead or sold into slavery. Very few made it back home, and those who did probably were the ones who turned back within a few miles of ther native villages.

An interesting sidelight is the well-known tale of The Pied Piper, who led the children of Hamelin away, never to return, when the residents of the town refused to pay him for getting rid of their rats. This is believed by some to be a reference to the Children's Crusade.

As to when they took place, it was primarily in the 1100's and 1200's--they were definitely a product of the Middle Ages.

Answer 2

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns conducted in the name of Christendom[1] and usually sanctioned by the Pope.[2] They were military campaigns of a religious character typically characterized as being waged against pagans, heretics, Muslims or those under the ban of excommunication.[3] When originally concieved, the aim was to recapture Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the Muslims while supporting the Byzantine Empire against the "ghazwat" of the Seljuq [4] expansion into Anatolia. The fourth crusade however was diverted and resulted in the conquest of Constantinople. Later crusades were launched against various targets outside of the Levant for a mixture of religious, economic, and political reasons, such as the Albigensian Crusade, the Aragonese Crusade, and the Northern Crusades.

Answer 3

Yes the crusades started as a great idea to take Jerusulem back from the turks... It was a noble idea (if you were a christian) but they became more of a piliage and plunder mission as time wore on, many of the crusaders felt it was ok to take wealth because it was supporting them. The saddest of the crusades was the children's crusade. A large group of children (teens I think) decided to make it a noble act again and marched toward Jerusulem with the idea of freeing the city from Turkish rule. However all were either killed or became slaves before reaching the city.

Answer 4

The Crusades took place during the medieval times over a few hundred years.
Usually the Catholic church decided that the Holy cities needed to be "saved by the unholy Muslums".
so thousands of poor and rich would march off to save something that didnt need to be saved.
Basically it was the European world against the Middle eastern World.
A king would decide to go after the grail and the holy cross he knew the Muslums were keeping in their unholy places and so he would go to save it and all the places that Jesus would have been.

Answer 5

okay well first of all the crusades are not a "them" they are a series of important events in history.

to christians and muslims, palestine was the holy land, a place of pilgrimage for hundreds of years.after the arabs conqured palestine in 637,christian pilgrims were still able to visit jerusalem safely, but this changes with the arrival of the seljuk turks in 1095,pope urban II called on christians to free palestine from muslim rule. knights and ordinary people set out, led by peter the hermit and walter the penniless. most of them never reached palestine,and the rest became a wild,hungry mob. in 1099,a well diciplined crusader army recaptured jerusalem, massacring its inhabitants. they established four socalled latin states, or kingdoms in palestine and syria. at first the saracens,as the crusaders called the seljuk turks, left the crusader kingdome alone.
some heads of the christian kingdoms behaved badly toward the muslims. in 1187, saladin defeated the christians at hattin and recovered jerusalem. in 1191,england's richard I(the lionheart) led an army to the holy land.he took cyprus and the city of acre,which had been under seige by christian forces, but he was unable to recapture jerusalem. he and saladin signed a treaty sharing the holy land,including jerusalem--the christians founded a "second kingdom" of the holy city with its heart at acre.
the fourth crusade began in 1202, but the crusaders were unable to pay venice for transportation. so,in exchange for transportation, they agreed to loot constantinpole on venice's behalf. in 1212 up to 50,000 chuildren from france and germany set off for palestine,but most of them died of hunger or became slaves--this is known as the children's crusade.the fifth crusade to egypt failed; the last three crusades (1218--1272) were also unsuccessful. in 1291, palestine was finally conquered by the sultan of egypt.

Answer 6

you tell me and we'll both know