The Crusades

Crusades were military expeditions undertaken by Christian dominated western European societies - beginning in 1095 under the order of Pope Urban II - and continued as a tradition of religious rivalry by many of his hate driven predecessors, to capture what was known to them as the holy land, or modern day Palestine. The dates for the last crusade range from 1270-1798. The term "crusade" (Latin for cross)

Has since the days of medieval combat, been applied to any wars fought against Pagan peoples, Christian heretics or foes of the papacy. To a greater extent, the term "crusade" can be used to infer any war fought over religious, moral or political ground.

The beginning of the Crusades is often linked to the political upheaval caused within the military superpowers that resulted from the vast conquest of the so called Ð''Seljuk Turks' in the 11th century. The conquest of both Syria and Palestine by the Seljuk Turks alarmed the Christian societies of Western Europe into the realisation that their supremacy would be short lived. Numerous bands of Turkish invaders penetrated deep into the cores of the Byzantine Empire and subjected many Greeks, Syrians and Armenians to their rule. Events such as this were the partial cause of the blood-driven times that were the Crusades, but the dominant reason for which the Crusades began, was to feed the hunger for both religious power and political dominance which so few of the Christians desired.

In a strained effort to attempt to explain why the Crusaders were so eager to put their lives on the line, numerous bodies of historians have looked towards and pointed to numerous letters hinting at a dramatic boom in both population and commercialism between the 12th and 14th centuries. The Crusades are thusly explained by these historians as a simple excuse to expand the European empire and accommodate for both the then growing population and the new lifestyle which by then had well and truly been embedded into the Medieval era. The expeditions were also looked upon as a means of obtaining instant wealth and for this reason were looked upon quite highly by nobles, merchants and knights as a chance to expand what would seem an ensured future and by the majority of the poorer society, as an opportunity of survival.

Despite the fact that these reasons hold some validity as to why the Crusaders lined up so eagerly, one would wonder why they were so eager to risk disease and unhygienic conditions when numerous writings have proven that many of the Crusaders who accompanied this journey were aware of dangers as such. Families left behind as a consequence of men leaving their families to fight someone else's battle, often struggled to manage farms and large plots of land over the prolonged periods of time that were the Crusades. The concept of Crusaders fighting to obtain riches has since its creation become difficult to justify. In those times and even in the modern era, warfare is a costly affair, and if a Crusader wished to go on expeditions as such whilst retaining their usual lifestyle, they would have to earn over four times their usual income just to stay alive and well.

Nevertheless, despite its dangerous, harsh and costly enterprises, the prospect of crusading held a broad appeal for the society of those times. Of course, one must understand those times to truly understand its popularity. The society back then was one of believers, and

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