The Crusades: Christian Holy War
Jerusalem is one of the oldest cities in the world. It is a city
that has been fought over sixteen different times in its history.
Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times,
attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.
The city of Jerusalem was the center of faith for three major
world religions. For the Jews, it was their homeland. It had
been promised to them by God, whom they believed had
covenanted (agreed) with Abraham to give him the land of
Israel. To the Muslims, Jerusalem was the location where the
Prophet Muhammad had ascended into heaven. After Mecca
and Medinah, Jerusalem was Islam’s third most holy city. To
the Christians, Jerusalem was both the location of Christ’s
birth and the location of his death. It is also the location of
much of the New Testament. Throughout history all three
religions have controlled Jerusalem.
The first of the three religions to control Jerusalem was
Judaism. It is the oldest of the three religions and dominated
Jerusalem over 3,000 years ago. Later, the Eastern Roman
Empire, which had become predominantly Christian thanks to
Emperor Constantine, took control of the city. In the year
600, Muslims conquered the Jerusalem, but they continued to
allow Christian and Jewish pilgrims to visit Jerusalem. They
even allowed Jews and Christians to live in the city.
In 1095, a different tribe of Muslims took over Jerusalem.
They refused to allow Jewish and Christian pilgrims to enter
the city. Pope Urban II (head of the Christian Church) heard
about this and called for Christians to do something. He asked
for a volunteer army to go and take back Jerusalem. The word
“crusade” comes from the word Crux, which means “cross” in
Latin. As a sign of their fighting for their religion, each
crusader wore a red cross on their shield, armor, helmet, cape
or other clothes. About 30,000 knights and other fighting men
took up the challenge and left to retake Jerusalem.
The Crusades were a series of wars during the Middle Ages
where the Christians of Europe tried to retake control of
Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the Muslims.
The crusaders were promised that they would receive eternal
life if they died while fighting non-Christians. As a result,
these Christians killed thousands of non-Christians, including
Jews and Muslims, as they traveled to Jerusalem. In some
cases, they slaughtered entire Jewish communities.
After two years of travel, hunger, and disease, the Crusaders
reached Palestine. Jews and Muslims both fought to keep the
Christians out of Jerusalem. After some very hard fighting
and a three month siege of the city, the Crusaders won and
recaptured Jerusalem. The crusaders killed almost all of the
non-Christians in the city, including women and children.
Some of the knights stayed to defend the city, but most
returned to their homes. One of the unexpected results of the
Crusades was that the Crusaders brought back new foods,
literature, art, inventions, and ideas from the Arabs.
Success was short lived. About 50 years later, Muslims again
captured Jerusalem. The new pope called for another crusade
to retake the city. There were several more crusades none of
which were successful. There were 9 crusades total, but the
first was the only successful one for the Christians.
There was an even greater tragedy in the making. One of the
Crusades was the Children's Crusade. A child in France had a
vision (supposedly a message from god) and his belief was
that only children were pure enough to be allowed to capture
the holy city. Soon thousands of children from France and
Germany gathered to try and reach Palestine. Thousands died
of hunger, freezing to death, disease, and accidents before they
even reached the Mediterranean Sea. When they finally got to
the sea, there was no way to get to Jerusalem. The children
who survived went back home in disappointment.
Europeans never gave up the idea of recapturing Jerusalem,
they just sort of stopped trying.