The First Crusade Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The First Crusade - Research Paper Example so pope urbans religious apparel often tends to shroud the true aspects of the First Crusade and the circumstance that Pope Urban himself was up to his own induce is often ignored. Indeed historians have interpreted the moment of the First Crusade differently. The lack of any unique primary document on Pope Urbans (II) motive for the crusade has laid the event open to interpretation. These interpretations revolve mainly around deuce-ace points a. the 11th century reform movement, b. the Seldjuk or Muslim threat to the eastwardern Roman Orthodoxy, c. affirmation of papacy on entire European Christendom. But an astute analysis of the event will reveal that on the whole of these trinity causes had their, more or less, equal shares of influence on the First Crusade. Seldjuks Threat in the East as a Primary Cause of First Crusade Though there is a common tendency among the historians to underrate the Seljuk threat to the Eastern Christendom considering it as a secondary cause of the First Crusade and to view it as a mere excuse to move eastward, the Seljuk bang on the Byzantine Empire was no less important as a psychological penury than other causes. In a concrete sense, it might be a mere excuse in Pope Urbans political and religious scheme, but it was a demonic cause to repeat the commoners sacrificial emotion for the war in its essence. In fact, First Crusade was the product of the reincarnated commoners passion for a holy war against the infidel and the unfaithful that were commonly considered to be the Seldjuk during the late 11th century. The extremity of knightly religiosity to achieve ablution for sins, restored faith of the commoners in church, superiority of the Popes and the churchs victory of the Emperor- all unitedly functioned to boost up the common peoples zeal to fight for the Holy Land and eastern Christendom against the invading Seldjuk. Even if Islam and Christianity coexist on the east bank o f the Mediterranean Sea for more than three hundred years before the 1000s, as Thomas Asbridges claims, the increasing Seldjuk attacks on the Byzantine Empire, the get the best in Manzikert in 1077, the conquest of religiously important cities like Antioch and Nicaea, Turkish invasion and conquest of Anatolia, etc were puckish blows on the 11th century Christendom that made the Western church reformers feel the pressure on the East and eventually provoked the superior papacy to successfully characterize the invaders as the infidel and unfaithful who mustiness be challenged. In an article, Paul Crawford describes the crisis as following In 1071 the Turks met and crushed the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert, near Armenia. As a result the entire heartland of the Empire, in Asia Minor, lay open and defenselessly (Crawford 2). The atrocities of the Seldjuk are reflected in a Letter of Alexius to Count Robert of Flanders The holy places they desecrate and destroy in limitles s ways, and they threaten them with worse treatmentFor almost the entire land from Jerusalem to Greece, and the whole of Greece with its upper regionsand right away almost nothing remains except Constantinople. (Alexius) East-West Schism as one of the Causes of First Crusade Indeed for Pope Urban II there was no