why did the crusades happen?

Question

and also describe king Richard 1st (a.k.a Richard the Lionheart) involvement in the third crusade.

Answer 1

The Crusades were a series of military conflicts of a religious character waged by Christians from 1095-1291,
see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades#Historical_context

Answer 2

King Richard was in one of the holy crusades which ended in failure, what a surprise his involvement isn't the main point about the Lion, what makes him so Famous is that he did nothing but Tax England and either go on a crusade or war with France (wasn't France at the time) he cared so little for his Nation that his reign was appalling and showed no promise in the future, he was even captured and the poor country peasants had to pay to get him released! They say that he was a terrible king but a good soldier, I think that sums him up nicely if you want to learn more check him up on wikipiedia or buy a book if you want a little more info then wiki has to offer.
Oh and they happened because a city in the east called for help to fight back the Turks I believe I think the city was byzantine can't remember that well though been a while since I've been looking up the crusades.

Answer 3

The crusades happened because a lot of people wanted the Holy Land for their religion. King Richard led the English into battle against the Muslims in the third crusade.

Answer 4

Actually, the Crusades began abt. 1090 AD.

Orthodox Christians were being conquered by Muslim invaders. These Christians wanted nothing to do with Islam so, they appealed to the Catholic Church for help.

The Catholic church sent them help but didn't stop there, they wanted to expel Muslims from Jerusalem to take back their Holy grounds.

Most Muslims use the Crusades as an anti-Christian defense when in actuality, if Muslims had left people alone there wouldn't have been the Crusades as we know it.

I'm sure that the Catholic church may have found another reason but it was Muslims who gave the actual, originating reason why the Crusades started. Just like now, Muslims can't seem to leave non-Muslims alone, look at the Sudan. It's a Muslim nation but Christians are there and other religions but Muslims just can't get it through their heads that not everyone wants to be a Muslim and will fight them every step of the way.

Muslims just hate hearing that -- the truth hurts.

Answer 5

Several reasons the Crusades happened.

One reason is there was a split in the Church in the middle of the eleventh century and the Pope wanted an excuse to reunite it under his rule. He might have been under a lot of pressure from many bored knights who wanted revenge against Muslim armies who had raided Spain more than two centuries prior.

Richard I agreed to accompany Philip II on the third Crusade after Jerusalem fell to Saladin. He signed a treaty with Saladin allowing Muslims and Christians to worship freely in Jerusalem, but that treaty was betrayed.

Answer 6

The same reason as the Muslim Jihad of today.
The belief they were fighting in the name of religion for the greater good of God.
They wanted to take Jerusalem from the Turks. It led to bloodshed, destruction and the pointless massacre of hundreds.
On the other hand the Crusaders discovered innovations that improved their own civilisations when they returned to Europe, paving the way for the Renaissance.

Answer 7

The Crusades began when the Byzantine Empire asked the Pope for help in fighting back the turks they were battling in the east. Pope Urban II called for a crusade and promised absolution from sin for going on one.

People went on them for several reasons. Religious zeal, the desire for land and glory, and the need to escape problems at home among these.

Once the crusades got to Constantinople, they were sent on to Jerusalem in order to spare Constantinople form having to "host" the people it could ill afford to tolerate much longer.

richard the Lionhearted went on crusade, and his country was a shambles while he was gone. He lived a contentious existence with his brother, John, and they always battled it out. His disasterous reign and that of his brother after him led to the English monarchy losing its power and John being forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215.

Answer 8

First of all, you can't really refer to the various episodes of Europeans trying to win back the Holy Land known as "The Crusades" in terms of one monolithic event. Each of the seven crusades, (four major, three minor), were different. They were different in terms of their motivations, participants, their key events and their outcomes. Here’s a very short summary but it’s composed entirely from my memory.

Most of the crusades, (but not all), were motivated by three factors.

The first was greed, the second peace, and the third, piety. (This matrix would be most clearly shown in the First Crusade.)

European royal society had adopted the custom of all of the father’s fortune going to the eldest male heir. This left any other surviving male heirs in a precarious posistion. For example, a second son could perhaps be sent to seminary and eventually be made a bishop but a third son would have to make his own way if he ever wanted to be his own man free of his brother’s house. For awhile, second and third sons could go off into the European wilderness as knights and earn their fortunes battling pagan barbarians. But eventually, as Europe was Christianized, land began to be in short supply. This would soon leave Christian fighting Christian for each other’s land. The head of Western Christendom, the Pope in Rome, was horrified by this notion. He tried various tactics to stem the bloodshed, from declaring “Truces of God”, (which forbid fighting on holy days), with little success.

Thus the idea of a crusade to reclaim the city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land sought to kill two birds with one stone. Idle rich nobility could go to the Middle East to earn their fortunes and at the same time, Christians could stop killing others Christians.

Piety played a role too of course. A sense of religious devotion motivated the more common folk, those who loathed to leave their farms for any extended period of time, as their farm was usually their livelihood. Fighting for a Christian-controlled Holy Land was the best act of penitence one could ever do.

Many wishing to bash the Catholic Church or Christianity in general often overemphasize the role the Church played in the crusades. Yes, religious piety did play a big role but the Church itself played a smaller one. Only three of the seven had anything to do with the Church as an institution and only two were directly called for by the Church. And under no circumstances did it ever call for women and children to be butchered. (Yes, it did happen but the blame should be addressed towards Christians, not the Church or Christianity in total. For faith, any religious faith, can not always be held accountable for what its followers do.)

One of the crusades that had nothing to do with the Church was the Third Crusade. This one was almost comical in its failings. It was led by the three most powerful monarchs in the Western World, the rules of England, France and Germany (HRE). Richard the 1st, the “Lionhearted”, Phillip the 2nd, “Augustus” and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

Frederick, who was already in his 70’s, somehow fell off his horse and drowned in a very shallow river, with most of his army going home promptly afterwards. Phillip and Richard were bickering with each other during the entire trip and the French king got fed up and took his army home just before they reached the Holy Land.

Now Richard was a brilliant soldier if nothing else, (he certainly wasn’t much of a king otherwise as he spent only 6 months of his reign in England), and won victory after victory in the Holy Land. He captured almost everything, except Jerusalem. Dejected, he would actually get captured by hostile forces on the way home and became prisoner of Emperor Henry the 6th, Frederick’s son. He was ransomed for 100,000 pounds sterling and finally went home after a year in captivity, spent mostly writing songs about how unfortunate he was.

Answer 9

Islam took control of Jerusalem in 638AD. For the next four hundred years Christians and Jews continued to live in the city, and the Middle East under Muslim control. They were taxed, but not forcibly converted and were able to continue their religions. Pilgrims were welcome from Europe. Byzantium and Islam competed for control of the Middle East, but Byzantium had 'other concerns' fighting in the West and the North and was happy to mostly co-exist with the Islamic rulers of Jerusalem. The Moslems for their part were happy to trade with the Byzantines and Western Europe, and were comfortable with the Christian and Jewish populations in their territory. The situation changed with the decline of the Arab/Persian Islamic State (the Abbasids) in about 1000AD and the invasion from the East and North of the Turks. The Byzantine army was defeated at the battle of Manzikert in 1071.

From that time on, although life in Jerusalem continued fairly orderly, the passage through Turkey and Syria became very dangerous for pilgrims. Byzantine authority in the Middle East declined and they called for assistance from the West. Rome (basically the Pope) which had been competing for primacy in the Church with the Byzantines since 441AD, saw a chance to increase his authority by sponsoring an expedition to 'recover' Jerusalem and put the Byzantines 'in their place'. Europe was awash with nobles without territory, including the 'new' race of Normans (Vikings who had settled in Normandy in the 900's) who were eager to join a crusade. Northern Spain had just been reconquered by the Christians (after 300 years of Islamic rule), and the wealth and power that flowed to the victors was an incentive to others to try their hand at conquering the Middle East. Into this volatile mix came a few religious visionaries or fanatics, who whipped up crowds in France and Germany with the thought of marching to the Holy Land, and of killing Jews.

Essentially the Turks put an end to the moderate Islamic rule of the Middle East and upset the balance of power between the Christian Byzantine Empire and their Arab neighbors. Western European leaders saw the confusion as a chance to push the Byzantines out of the picture and take control of the Middle East (and all of its lucrative trade), while more 'common' folk saw it as a chance for adventure, glory and plunder - following the example of Spain.

The wars and conquests that followed were waged largely on Western European terms which involved favoring battle over negotiation, and which saw entire cities put to the sword if they resisted. The Byzantines who saw war as a failure of diplomacy and a shameful admission of failure, were increasingly less in control of the situation, culminating in the fourth Crusade which captured their capital Constantinople and saw the city burned and thousands killed in the streets. Muslim hostility to the West hardened during this period.

Richard was typical of a late-stage Crusader, unwilling to learn from the experience of earlier princes who had found that they could live profitably side by side with their Muslim neighbors. He was brave, and his battlefield tactics were generally good, sometimes brilliant. But Saladin out-generalled him by letting the conditions beat RIchard, who was under pressure from his allies to achieve victory or withdraw. Hmm, that's an interesting parallel... Especiallly when you think that Richard left England's finances in ruins and between him and his brother crippled the monarchy (which led to Magna Carta).

Answer 10

Some may find this hard to believe ( chuckle) But "the church" is all about worldly power, control and greed. Do some research. Can you imagine how the "crusades" might just serve these agendas? I can :)))