The Crusades: a brief essay
Just got my final exam back. Half the points were for the essay and I got full points! 96% overall. A- course grade. Thought I'd share the essay:
Discuss the causes, path and consequences of the Crusades.
The Crusades began in a time when the Byzantine Empire had weakened substantially from its glory days. This possibly happened in the reign of a guy named Stephen but don't quote me on it. Around Europe, we had lots of nobles with their own armies and soldiers whom they led. At the same time, the Catholic Church was fairly powerful; much more powerful than the Byzantine Empire. So the Emperor asks for money from the Pope to aid the Byzantines in their fight against the invading Turks. The Pope goes all gaga. (One assumes he might have had less than noble intentions toward the Byzantine Empire and might have been serving his own causes primarily, but then again, maybe he did it all out of the goodness of his heart.)
So the Pope gives an important speech to tons of people about how the Holy Land was at risk and they must take it back (through BLOOD and DESTRUCTION and PIETY). A bunch of eager beavers run off to the east and get smacked by the Muslims. But the next year, they come back in force and with slightly more organization (though not much) and freak the Byzantine Emperor out by this huge response which was not quite what he intended.
The Crusaders slaughter a ton of Muslims and, in their great and virtuous way, take Jerusalem. This was pretty much a matter of luck because the Muslims outnumbered them and the Crusaders weren't aided by the Byzantines, who were starting to think this wasn't cool at all. The Muslims were fighting amongst themselves, so they were hella distracted and as a result, they lost the Holy Land to the Crusaders, who basically believed they won against such odds because God was on their side. The third wave of Crusaders came to defend their pimptastic hold over Jerusalem and they split the area into four territories. And that was the First Crusade.
The Second Crusade might have been less awesome in the eyes of God because they lost the Holy Land. Whoops. The Muslims banded together after struggling a ton to settle disputes amongst themselves, like the Sunni/Shiite issue which I'm sure they didn't just resolve temporarily and I bet it went away and the Sunnis and Shiites lived in peace forevermore. Anyway, the Muslims take the land back. HOWEVER it's not 'till later (1180-ish?) that Saladin retakes Jerusalem. This prompts the Third Crusade. Richard the Lionhearted, basically remembered as awesome, slaughters a gazillion Arabs in Acre. The English loved him. The Muslims, less so. However, despite his reputedly noble actions and that of his fellows, for some reason God still wasn't down with it and the Muslims retained control of the Holy Land.
The Fourth Crusade is fairly lame, in that it never reaches the Holy Land at all, but it does fight a few battles in other places and Christians slaughter Jews like they were targets in a video game. So all in all, they consider it ok-ish and in the end, they totally got Spain back in their control and people all around the Baltic converted to Christianity, I'm sure by their own volition, so even though the Crusaders never took Jerusalem et al. permanently, it wasn't a total letdown.
Anti-semitism got a kickstart, which is sorta a bad thing even today but at the time a lot of Christians were pretty cool with it. The Byzantine Empire never quite got its mojo back and Constantinople eventually fell to the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century. The Muslims were in a strong position by the end of the Crusades, but they still thought that maybe it (i.e. the Crusades) wasn't quite a wonderful time. Arab Christians were pretty put off by the bloodbath the Christians brought against the Muslims, who always treated the Arab Christians pretty well, so a bunch of them converted to Islam.
In the end, Europe was not victorious over taking the Holy Land, but they still had some fine adventures of murder, rape and pillaging. A ton of luxuries were imported from the east and nobles were happy about that. They could look at their mementos from the glorious days and think very well of themselves indeed.
Discuss the causes, path and consequences of the Crusades.
The Crusades began in a time when the Byzantine Empire had weakened substantially from its glory days. This possibly happened in the reign of a guy named Stephen but don't quote me on it. Around Europe, we had lots of nobles with their own armies and soldiers whom they led. At the same time, the Catholic Church was fairly powerful; much more powerful than the Byzantine Empire. So the Emperor asks for money from the Pope to aid the Byzantines in their fight against the invading Turks. The Pope goes all gaga. (One assumes he might have had less than noble intentions toward the Byzantine Empire and might have been serving his own causes primarily, but then again, maybe he did it all out of the goodness of his heart.)
So the Pope gives an important speech to tons of people about how the Holy Land was at risk and they must take it back (through BLOOD and DESTRUCTION and PIETY). A bunch of eager beavers run off to the east and get smacked by the Muslims. But the next year, they come back in force and with slightly more organization (though not much) and freak the Byzantine Emperor out by this huge response which was not quite what he intended.
The Crusaders slaughter a ton of Muslims and, in their great and virtuous way, take Jerusalem. This was pretty much a matter of luck because the Muslims outnumbered them and the Crusaders weren't aided by the Byzantines, who were starting to think this wasn't cool at all. The Muslims were fighting amongst themselves, so they were hella distracted and as a result, they lost the Holy Land to the Crusaders, who basically believed they won against such odds because God was on their side. The third wave of Crusaders came to defend their pimptastic hold over Jerusalem and they split the area into four territories. And that was the First Crusade.
The Second Crusade might have been less awesome in the eyes of God because they lost the Holy Land. Whoops. The Muslims banded together after struggling a ton to settle disputes amongst themselves, like the Sunni/Shiite issue which I'm sure they didn't just resolve temporarily and I bet it went away and the Sunnis and Shiites lived in peace forevermore. Anyway, the Muslims take the land back. HOWEVER it's not 'till later (1180-ish?) that Saladin retakes Jerusalem. This prompts the Third Crusade. Richard the Lionhearted, basically remembered as awesome, slaughters a gazillion Arabs in Acre. The English loved him. The Muslims, less so. However, despite his reputedly noble actions and that of his fellows, for some reason God still wasn't down with it and the Muslims retained control of the Holy Land.
The Fourth Crusade is fairly lame, in that it never reaches the Holy Land at all, but it does fight a few battles in other places and Christians slaughter Jews like they were targets in a video game. So all in all, they consider it ok-ish and in the end, they totally got Spain back in their control and people all around the Baltic converted to Christianity, I'm sure by their own volition, so even though the Crusaders never took Jerusalem et al. permanently, it wasn't a total letdown.
Anti-semitism got a kickstart, which is sorta a bad thing even today but at the time a lot of Christians were pretty cool with it. The Byzantine Empire never quite got its mojo back and Constantinople eventually fell to the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century. The Muslims were in a strong position by the end of the Crusades, but they still thought that maybe it (i.e. the Crusades) wasn't quite a wonderful time. Arab Christians were pretty put off by the bloodbath the Christians brought against the Muslims, who always treated the Arab Christians pretty well, so a bunch of them converted to Islam.
In the end, Europe was not victorious over taking the Holy Land, but they still had some fine adventures of murder, rape and pillaging. A ton of luxuries were imported from the east and nobles were happy about that. They could look at their mementos from the glorious days and think very well of themselves indeed.