SUMMARY
The first of the Crusades began in 1095, when armies of Christians from Western Europe responded to Pope Urban II’s plea to go to war against Muslim forces in the Holy Land. After the First Crusade achieved its goal with the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, the invading Christians set up several Latin Christian states, even as Muslims in the region vowed to wage holy war (jihad) to regain control over the region. Deteriorating relations between the Crusaders and their Christian allies in the Byzantine Empire culminated in the sack of Constantinople in 1204 during the Third Crusade. Near the end of the 13th century, the rising Mamluk dynasty in Egypt provided the final reckoning for the Crusaders, toppling the coastal stronghold of Acre and driving the European invaders out of Palestine and Syria in 1291.
The Second Crusade was the second major crusade launched from Europe as Catholic Holy War against Islam. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa the previous year to the forces of Zengi. The extract is from a letter, written by Pope Urban II to his followers in Bologna, on the 19th September 1096. It is one of four written by Pope Urban II while the First Crusade was being prepared and repeats some of the decisions of the Council of Clermont in November 1095. It is a call to crusade promising those who go that they will be cleansed of all their sins; in other words, crusaders would go to heaven. If a crusade was to happen and stand a chance of success, there needed to be large numbers of people prepared to go East, so the reward had to be a very good one if they were to be induced to go. We can tell then that the writer was directly connected with events because he is writing directly to those who are thinking of joining the crusade
The Third Crusade, also known as The Kings' Crusade, was an attempt by European leaders to reconquer the Holy Land from Saladin. The remission of sins promised to the Crusaders is put in the context of Christian charity. The suggestion is that it is more appropriate to go on Crusade for reasons of piety rather than greed. The two further references are to decrees, which were intended to control recruitment and secure the marital rights of wives. Europe could not be left without sufficient priests and monks to pray for and look after the spiritual needs of those who had not been able to go on crusade, so bishops and abbots would have needed to monitor carefully those clerics and monks who went. At the same time, wives could only be left behind if it was possible for them to maintain the estates and households of those who had gone away. In other words, the pope was here balancing the need to raise crusaders to try to re-capture the Holy Land with the spiritual needs of those who remained at home, and with the need for there to be adequate protection for the lands and property of those who were going East.
My overall purpose of the exbition was to inform you about the first, second and third crusade and tell you what it was like. The perspective of the crusades is in the different times how they worked and went through time with the Frankish-German perspective and much more.
