Crusading movement

Crusades were waged in the Iberian Peninsula, in northeastern Europe against the Wends, and in the Baltic region; other campaigns were fought against those the church considered heretics in France, Germany, and Hungary, as well as in Italy against opponents of the popes.

In the latter part of the 11th century, Christianity's requirement to avoid violence was still a significant issue for the warrior class, so Gregory VII offered them a potential solution.

[12][13] When Urban II launched the First Crusade at Clermont in November 1095, he made two offers to those who would travel to Jerusalem and fight for control of the sites Christians considered sacred.

In feudal Europe, the formation of disciplined units was a significant challenge, strategic approaches and institutional frameworks were underdeveloped, and power was too fragmented to support cohesive organisation.

These orders became Latin Christendom's first professional fighting forces and played a major part in the defence of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the other crusader states.

[58] Historian Jean Flori suggests that the Church's intent was to eliminate its rivals' ideology in order to justify Christianity's participation in aggressive and violent conflicts.

[64] The origins of the crusading movement lie within the nature of Western Christian society in the late eleventh century rather than any external provocation, despite intense propaganda about the Turks' actions.

While the Seljuk Turks' incursions into Anatolia increased after the Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, Islam had controlled Jerusalem since 638 without eliciting a comparable Western reaction.

[75] Paschal's successor Pope Calixtus II shared his Spanish interests and in 1123 at the First Council of the Lateran it was decided that crusading would be deployed in both Iberia and the Levant.

Although initially the response was muted, the involvement of Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercian order gained momentum for the effort, which ultimately shaped the ideology and practice of crusading.

Examples of Epic poetry include the Chanson d'Antioche describing the events in the Siege of Antioch and Canso de la Crozada about the crusading against the Cathars in Southern France.

But there are examples in the literary language of southern France, Occitan, French, German, Spanish, and Italian that touch on the topic in an allegorical that date from the later half of the century.

Doing this enabled anyone to become involved, irrespective of gender, wealth, or social standing in a imitatio Christi, an "imitation of Christ", a sacrifice motivated by charity for fellow Christians.

[85] Apocalypticism and the expectation of an imminent Second Coming, provided apocalyptic themes because the goal of Christian control of Jerusalem highlighted its eschatological role within religious thinking.

[87] As news spread of the serious threat to the faith preachers' rhetoric emphasised the sanctity of Apostolic poverty, while demonstrations and marches in northern France and the Rhineland broke out that later became known as the Children’s Crusade.

In this he demonstrates that the term pueri referred to youths or individuals of low social status, and that this movement was not solely composed of children but included marginalized groups like shepherds and agricultural workers.

Dickson's work interprets the "Children's Crusade" as a form of social critique driven by a desire to return to apostolic simplicity and dissatisfaction with societal leaders.

Critical primary sources include the Würzburg Annals and Humbert of Romans's work De praedicatione crucis which translates as concerning the preaching of the cross.

Italy experienced a state of political anarchy with the church in Rome granting crusade indulgences to anyone who could be recruited to fight against the threat presented by merceneries and the popes and the papacy that was now based in Avignon.

While the success or failure of propaganda varied in extent, local attitude and capability, there is no evidence that it was popular apathy or hostility that caused the faliure to mobilize large scale crusading against the Turks.

The discussions with John V Palaiologos resulted in agreement to unify the Latin, Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Nestorian, and Cypriot Maronite churches and commitments of military support for the Byzantines.

The State of the Teutonic Order became the hereditary Duchy of Prussia when the last Prussian master, Albrecht of Brandenburg-Ansbach, converted to Lutheranism and became the first duke under oath to his uncle Sigismund I the Old of Poland.

[148] Age of Enlightenment philosophers and historians such as David Hume, Voltaire and Edward Gibbon used crusading as a conceptual tool to critique religion, civilization and cultural mores.

[149] Alternatively, Claude Fleury and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz proposed that the crusades were one stage in the improvement of European civilization; that paradigm was further developed by the Rationalists.

[151] Gibbon followed Thomas Fuller in dismissing the concept that the crusades were a legitimate defence, as they were disproportionate to the threat presented; Palestine was an objective, not because of reason but because of fanaticism and superstition.

[155][156] The historian Thomas F. Madden argues that modern tensions are the result of a constructed view of the Crusades created by colonial powers in the 19th century and transmitted into Arab nationalism.

War, to the Byzantines, was justified solely for the defence of the empire, in contrast to Muslim expansionist ideals and Western knights' notion of holy warfare to glorify Christianity.

[157] Scholars like Carole Hillenbrand assert that within the broader context of Muslim historical events, the Crusades were considered a marginal issue when compared to the collapse of the Caliphate, the Mongol invasions, and the rise of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, supplanting Arab rule.

The first modern biography of Saladin was authored by the Ottoman Turk Namık Kemal in 1872, while the Egyptian Sayyid Ali al-Hariri produced the initial Arabic history of the Crusades in response to Kaiser Wilhelm II's visit to Jerusalem in 1898.

[141] Madden argues that Arab nationalism absorbed a constructed view of the Crusades created by colonial powers in the 19th century, contributing to modern tensions.