What do you think this man fights for?
The word “Crusade”
comes from the Latin word
“Crux”, meaning cross.
It refers to the cross on
which Christ was
crucified.
Life in the Middle Ages was hard.
People did not understand the
world around them.
They could not understand why
the harvest failed, why their child
got sick or why their cow died.
They did not know what the stars
were, or that the Earth revolved
around the sun, or why objects fell
to the ground.
Life was fragile, precarious and a
complete mystery.
The only source of comfort in people’s lives, the only thing that offered
people explanations of the world around them, was the Church.
The Church has never been as important to people as it was then.
The word Islam means both 'peace' and 'submission'. It is the second
largest religion in the world with over one billion followers. Islam was
revealed over 1400 years ago in Mecca, Arabia. Followers of Islam are
called Muslims.
Muslims believe that there is only One God. The Arabic word for
God is Allah. According to Muslims, God sent a number of prophets
to mankind to teach them how to live. Jesus, Moses and Abraham are
respected as prophets of God. They believe that the final Prophet
was Muhammad (peace be upon him). Muslims base their laws on their
holy book the Qur'an, and the Sunnah. The Sunnah is the practical
example of the Prophet Muhammad.
There are five basic Pillars of Islam. These pillars are the declaration
of faith, praying five times a day, giving money to charity, fasting and a
once in a lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca.
The Arab world at the time of the Crusades was
relatively peaceful. An Arab gentleman was expected to
be a poet and a philosopher as well as a warrior.
By the time of the Crusades, the Arab world had already
correctly calculated the distance from the Earth to the
Moon. One Arab man had even suggested that if he
could split the atom, it would destroy a city the size of
Baghdad. Jerusalem under Muslim rule was a multicultural
city and pilgrims had free access to holy sites.
However, in 1071 fanatical Turkish Muslims captured the city of
Jerusalem and stopped tolerating pilgrims. Pope Urban II called for
a Crusade to regain the holy city.
The first Crusade was in 1096A.D. 30,000 foot soldiers and 10,000
knights on horseback took the city of Jerusalem and held it for nearly
ninety years.
In the 1180s, the Arabs found a
strong leader in Saladin. Richard
the Lionheart fought him but
eventually failed to beat him.
The Children’s
Crusade, 1212.
Children
and
peasants
travelled
from
the Rhineland
and Southern
France.
What actually
happened
to
them remains a
source
of
considerable
historiographical
debate.
The Knights Templar
The Templar Knights were a Christian
religious order. They were both monks and
soldiers, who protected pilgrims in Jerusalem
in the aftermath of the first Crusade.
Some of their financial innovations could be
considered the foundation of modern
banking.
But… there is no more mystery to them than
that!