What were some causes of the crusades?

Answer 1

I don't believe you can say there are "causes" because history is not just cause-effect-cause-effect... and so on, but there are several characteristics of the Era that made the Western Europeans more than ready to go out and try to take Jerusalem again. To simplify this, the "causes" were because there was an opportunity, someone had the resources to start the war, and there was also the motivation.

There are 3 important players in the Crusades, the Muslim states, the Bizantine Empire, and the West represented by the Churh, and you need to understand what was happening with them to see why the Crusades started.

The Holy land had been a land of conflict for the last 2,000 years or so, and before the Crusades started, it was still a region of conflict between the Bizantine Empire and the Muslim Caliphate. Some developments of the conflict in the 11th century, centered in the arrival of the Seliiyuk turks in the area, weakened both countries. The Caliphate had slowly fractured into many little fiefs in war with each other, which made them weak. At the same time, a tragic defeat at Mazinkert in the 1070's left Bizantium with no army to take advantage of the muslim fracture. If you are looking to "cause #1" for the Crusades, it is that there was this territory up for grabs since the local powers had been weakened and an oportunist could take avantage of the situation.

Which take us to the 3rd player, Western Europe. Europe saw in th 10th Century several climatological, economic, and technological developments that allowed it to finally go out of the 400 years of barbarism it had been forced to suffer by barbarian invaders, famine and ignorance.

The last group of "barbarian" invades, the Normans (who were vikings) had pretty much Westernized, but their spirit of adventure and desire for wealth was still around. As food increased and the survival rate went up, many noble families found themselves with 1-2 male children which could not be inherited land or sent to the Church. Like the Normans, these noble men with no land, looking for adventure, pretty much joined whatever conflict they could find as mercenaries and soldiers of fortune. That usually meant joining the frontier wars on the Baltic Sea, the Norman raiders (a Christianized version of the vikings), the wars in Spain or the Bizantine mercenary forces. "Cause" #2 for the Crusades was because the West had a readily available group of warriors who would embark in an adventure since they pretty much had little to lose.

While it is easy to say all the soldiers who went there did it for wealth, it is an offense to many rich landlords like the Duke of Tolousse or Godfrey of Bouillon who spent far more than what they gained from the Holy Land, and who did it because the Church asked them to do it.

The Church too had finally been able to reorganize itself after centuries of disarray. This is significant, because the Church gave the motivation for the War. Western Europe was christianized, and many people had a religious fervor for the Insitution. These people respected and feared the Church as the mightiest institution of its era. A unified Church also meant that the Pope was finally in control of the situation, and therefore, when he received a letter from the Bizantine Emperor asking the Pope to help him recruit Christians to fight the Turks. The Pope saw the opportunity and the resources, and he honestly felt that recapturing Jerusalem was a worthwile enterprise for the glory of God. It was also much "better" sending all these disinherited warriors to kill infidels than let them slaughter each other in fields of Europe if the Kings decided to employ them. The Pope then gave the motivation by letting the warriors look for wealth in the Holy Land and tying it with Eternal Salvation. To many, this was a unique opportunity, getting a chance to kill "evil muslims" and at the same time go straight to Heaven. In a sense, the Pope preached something not so different from what Al Quaeda preachs. This is the 3rd cause, the motivation was not really wealth, but the ability to find wealth AND eternal salvation. And to many, the Eternal Salvation was far more important than wealth.

Answer 2

Keep in mind, that this is a very broad strokes answer to this question.

There a large number of reasons why the crusades happen, but the history that led up to the Crusades is just as important.

Around 810 we have the Viking Invasions. Vikings where, thieves, murders, rapist and kidnappers. The majority of them subsribed more to clan polytheism type stuff. Well they moved from Scandanavia, all throughout Europe, England and Ireland. (pillaging). They would ransack a city, kill the men and take the women with them. 2 generations later, these Vikings actually had married some of the same women they captured. These woman were most likely Christian, so what you have is a Viking Barbarian civilization with the title of Christians. There is not enough room in Scandinavia and so they head back to thier wives lands.... And now they live all around Europe at this point. Around 910

200 years Earlier the Islamic Expansion was stopped at Tours-France, from about the year 650 until 732, the Islam expansion took over all most all of the middle east, north Africa and Europe.

At this point, the Viking/Christians don't really have land to pillage anymore. These people are barbarians and so somebody gets the bright idea to regain the holy land. So they go over in multiple campaigns (at least 3) and try to regain the holy land. (at first they win), then the Muslims come back and wreck shop.

The sad reality is that the Christians (i am one of them). Most likely killed over 1 million Muslims in the crusades. This is the base for all animosity that Muslims have for Christians. And rightfully so. AGAIN THESE ARE BROAD STROKES.

Answer 3

The main cause was that in the late 9th century there were not enough wars anymore to keep the Feudal Knights busy. They started to get antsy and were fighting one another and terrorizing the local populace. So the Church tried to divert all that violent energy towards a new project : a Crusade. That plan had worked well in Spain and Portugal during the Reconquista.

"The breakdown of the Carolingian Empire in the late 9th century, combined with the relative stabilisation of local European borders after the Christianization of the Vikings, Slavs, and Magyars, had produced a large class of armed warriors whose energies were misplaced fighting one another and terrorizing the local populace. The Church tried to stem this violence with the "Peace and Truce of God" movements, which was somewhat successful, but trained warriors always sought an outlet for their violence, and opportunities for territorial expansion were becoming less attractive for large segments of the nobility."

"In 1063, Pope Alexander II had given papal blessing to Iberian Christians in their wars against the Muslims, granting both a papal standard (the vexillum sancti Petri) and an indulgence to those who were killed in battle. Pleas from the Byzantine Emperors, now threatened by the Seljuks, thus fell on ready ears."

"The Crusades were, in part, an outlet for an intense religious piety which rose up in the late 11th century among the lay public. [...] The result was an awakening of intense Christian piety and public interest in religious affairs. This was further strengthened by religious propaganda, advocating "Just War" in order to retake the Holy Land. [...] Further, the remission of sin was a driving factor. This provided any god-fearing men, who had committed sin, as an irresistible way out of eternal damnation in hell. [...] Most believed that by retaking Jerusalem they would go straight to heaven after death."

"Western European origin" in "Crusades" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades#Western_European_origin

Of course there was never any grounds to that "defiling the Holy Sepulcre, torturing and killing the pilgrims" myth. Christian pilgrims just were visiting Jerusalem after the Seljuks had taken the city, as before. As "people of the book" they were protected, except for the occasional tax for non-muslims.

And it was the crusaders who would later on practice indiscriminate slaughter on Jews, Orthodox Christians, or anybody who didn't look like a Christian Frank.

Answer 4

Every unmarried campaign - I feel there used to be a minimum of 12 or thirteen of them - had been precipitated via the politics of the rulers on the time. The first one began while the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I requested navy aid from Europe in 1095 to aid him with the thread via the Turks. From there at the crusades - even though offered as a holy conflict in opposition to the so-referred to as heretics of the arabian international, the real purpose used to be to acquire land, riches and energy. Those had been the ambitions the vatican set for itself again then.

Answer 5

Well, that is a little controversial. The idea was that the Saracens were defiling the Holy Sepulcre, torturing and killing the pilgrims who went there, and that had to stop.
Some people say, as always, that the Europeans wanted the riches of the region ( money, money, money ), and also that it was a way to distract the very aggressive nature of the "noblemen", who were always fighting each other and making wars for different reasons

Answer 6

Last I checked there was only one cause -- to reclaim the Christian Holy Land (Jerusalem) from the Islam invaders.

Answer 7

Greed
Religion