The First crusade
The Crusades were a series of Christian attempts to retake the holy land from the “heathen” Muslims. After the Byzantines lost control of Jerusalem Emperor Alexius I talked to Pope Urban II about getting soldiers for the first Crusade in which the Christian Europeans retook Jerusalem. Many other Crusades followed all but the First being miserable wastes of life. After the Muslims started taking territory away from the Christians in their own holy war. The second Crusade failed to take Damascus. The third crusade came around and the Christians had to face a new enemy, Salah Al-Din (Saladin) who led the combined armies of the Muslims. After the third crusade some territory was retaken, and Saladin allowed Christians to visit…show more content… The Byzantine’s contacted pope urban because they knew he could get them the most people from Western Europe. Many people from farmers to the military’s elite accepted the call for Crusade. In the Rhineland a group of Crusaders killed many Jews despite the protection given to them by the pope, because they were the people that killed Jesus, and they could do there job that way. A preacher led the Peoples Crusade by the name of Peter the Hermit who took live modestly to a whole new level, by living in self-imposed poverty. A crusader named Peter Bartholomew believed he found the holy lance, which is the spear believed to have pierced the side of Jesus. He tested if it was the holy lance by taking a test of fire. When he walked through the fire many witnesses said he did not catch fire and get burned. They managed to take a large amount of territory before disobeying orders to wait for the rest of the crusaders and losing many soldiers after being ambushed by the Turks. The Crusaders felt like they needed to save the holy land from the “Heathen” Muslims. But in all reality they were being used by the Byzantines to recapture territory from the Muslims that the Byzantine Empire didn’t have the men or the resources to take back itself. Not to mention that it lost the territory 600 years before to the Turks. The power of the western church allowed for them to call for a Crusade and get a tremendous response out of the…show more content… The Middle East used to be one big empire. And empire that soon decayed into loads of warlords, and the Sunnis and Shi’ites would not help each other. Which allowed the Crusaders to fight the small individual warlords that made their job much easier. The Crusaders later on though had to fight the combined Muslim armies. Which made their job way harder as there were more enemy soldiers. Why the Muslim forces combined is because the Muslims started their own holy war (jihad) to get the land they had controlled for a long period of time back from the Christians who just came in and took it back for the Byzantines. After the First Crusade, Muslims started their holy war and attacked the newly formed kingdom of Jerusalem by taking a region called Edessa. The Christian response to this was to go on a second Crusade to recapture Edessa, but that did not succeed after with 50,000 soldiers the Crusaders failed to take the stronghold of Damascus. Before the Third Crusade the Muslims took Cairo, Egypt from the Crusaders then Salah Al-din or Saladin was given control of the Muslim army. The Third Crusade the Muslims fared a little worse with the Christians retaking a lot of territory but failing to retake Jerusalem the Kingdom of Jerusalem was re-established without Jerusalem however. Saladin allowed Christians to come to Jerusalem on