what is considered to have been the most significant factor in causing and continuing the crusades?

Question

is it religious fervor? population expansion and land hunger in Western Europe? Fear of Islam ? please justify

Answer 1

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.)

So yes, to address your questions directly; land hunger played a big role, more so than any population expansion. Europe was headed towards overpopulation but it wasn't there yet and ultimately the "Black Death" would take care of that problem. Religious fervor factored in but really only for the rank and file soldier. Fear of Islam, not so much right now for the Western Europeans. The Byzantine Emperor feared Islam to be sure, he actually asked the Pope in Rome for help before the First Crusade, (which would have happened anyway.)

Answer 2

11/50 SSM states is not a winning record. Don't get me started on votes concerning prop 8. SSM has drawbacks outside of religion. I believe in legalized pot, however my Dem Governor turned it down when it went to the polls, it still got voted down in my state. Evolution is a theory. Abortion is something I am against, but since the punishment is only compensation to the father in the case of killing a fetus, it is not a big deal to me. However, when you lower the age requirement I believe you open the door for lowering the age of consent. Rise of the non religious? Don't make me laugh. Even secular entities like the UN have religious undertones just not Christian.

Answer 3

religious fervor. but money was another major factor. remember that during the middle ages that the majority of the money lenders were jews. this meant that if you were a good cristian, you would first kill the "christ killers". if you were in debt to them, you were rewarded by cancelling the debt. there were many pogroms against jews that started with religious fervor against the saracens

Answer 4

It was the curch, once again trying to take over the world. The pope is the one who called for the crusades i think.