The Crusades and the Renaissance
The Crusades were not without effect on the Renaissance and the Reformation. Friendly intercourse with the Islamic world
brought Europe into contact with accomplishments and virtues which were felt to be lacking at home. Europeans became aware
of a moral system independent of Christianity that was ... worthy of respect. Theological disputations between Christian and
Muslim revealed the fact that Catholic religious laws were not invulnerable. Some Europeans took critical examination of their
own condition. In Germany suspicion of the motives of the Church in urging the wars against the Islam and a reluctance to
contribute toward the realization of the plans formulated by an ambitious papacy and carried on by self seeking warriors became
manifest. Germany will eventually revolt against the infallibility of the Church kick started by a German monk, Martin Luther. The
Crusades constitute a controversial chapter in the history of Christianity, and their excesses have been the subject of centuries
of historiography. The Crusades ... played an integral role in the expansion of medieval Europe.
Beginning in the 11th century, the people of Western Europe launched a series of armed expeditions, or Crusades, to the East
and Constantinople. The reason for the Crusades is relatively clear: the West wanted to free the Holy Lands from Islamic
influence. The first of early Crusades were part of a religious revivalism. The initiative was taken by popes and supported by
religious enthusiasm and therefore the Crusades demonstrated papal leadership as well as popular religious beliefs. They were
... an indication of the growing self-awareness and self-confidence of Europe in general.
Perhaps the most significant effect of the Crusades was a vast increase in cultural horizons for many Europeans. For every
European who went on a Crusade (let alone the minuscule fraction who returned) there were hundreds who knew someone who
had gone, or who had seen the Crusaders march by. Palestine was no longer a quasi-mythical place that people knew only from
Bible readings in church; it was a real place where real people went. Once Crusader kingdoms were set up in Palestine, they
traded with their kin in Europe, sending finished goods to Europe and importing raw materials. The result was a stimulus to
Mediterranean trade. The need to transfer large sums of money for troops and supplies led to development of banking and
accounting techniques.
The most important effect of the Crusades was economic. The Italian cities prospered from the transport of Crusaders and
replaced Byzantines and Muslims as merchant-traders in the Mediterranean. Trade passed through Italian hands to Western
Europe at a handsome profit. This commercial power became the economic base of the Italian Renaissance. It provoked such
Atlantic powers as Spain and Portugal to seek trade routes to India and China. Their efforts, through such explorers as Vasco
da Gama and Christopher Columbus, helped to open most of the world to European trade dominance and colonization and to
shift the center of commercial activity from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.
The Crusades brought to Europe first hand experience of the Near East through the thousands of Crusaders who went to and
from that region. The knowledge and goods brought back to Europeans increased the interest of Europeans in the Eastern
cultures. For the images that had been implanted in the minds of returning Crusaders, it influenced the minds of a great many,
who enjoyed philosophy, logic, medicine, and mathematics discussion with Muslims.
The Church, which had made itself the leader of the Crusades, came to suffer the consequences of their ill success. Faith in
papal absolutism declined; and a new religious spirit appeared, first in the offshoots of Christianity (Cathari and Albigenses), and
later in the Reformation (the pope was not infallible). This spirit was fostered by the inspiration of that higher culture by the
development of the sciences, and by the growth of commerce with the East, which enriched Europe and turned the attention
of men from purely religious to material and cultural interests in the movement known as the Renaissance.
Some historians -- particularly Crusades scholars -- consider the Crusades the single most important series of events in the
Middle Ages. The significant changes in the structure of European society that took place in the 12th and 13th centuries were
long considered the direct result of Europe's participation in the Crusades. Although the explanations for the Crusades may hold
some validity, advances in scholarship of the subject indicate that Crusaders did not particularly look forward to crusading with
its threat of disease, long overland marches, and death in battle far from home. Families left behind in Europe often had to
struggle to manage farms and properties for long periods.
The Crusades did manage to reduce the number of quarrelsome and contentious knights in Europe. The Crusades provided an
outlet for their penchant for fighting and it has been argued that European monarchs were able to consolidate their control much
more easily now that the warrior class had been reduced in number.
Socio-economic factors contributed to the formation of the Crusades as well. In the second half of the first millennium West
Europeans adopted a number of agricultural innovations, including the heavy plow and the horse collar. It seems likely that
these innovations increased food production, which in turn increased population, making manpower for expeditions available
(and possibly creating pressure on existing resources which led men to begin looking for external adventures, according to
some historians). In addition, the rise of a class of lesser nobles who collected and disposed of local production with relative
efficiency may have contributed, by focusing resources in the hands of the very people who could most profitably assist the
crusades.
Treaties with Byzantine Empire allowed merchant cities of Italy, Genoa, Venice, and Pisa to benefit from the trading rights they
were given in the Eastern of the Mediterranean. All of these new goods, found in large commercial quantities, in the Near East,
opened Europeans' desire to reach their sources. Indeed, it can be argued that the Age of Exploration by European ships,
roaming the world looking for India or China, have been inspired by the descriptions of Crusaders to the Holy Land.
One of the most important effects of the crusades was on commerce. They created a constant demand for the transportation of
men and supplies, encouraged ship-building, and extended the market for eastern wares in Europe. The products of Damascus,
Mosul, Alexandria, Cairo, and other great cities were carried across the Mediterranean to the Italian seaports, whence they
found their way into all European lands. The elegance of the Orient, with its silks, tapestries, precious stones, perfumes, spices,
pearls, and ivory, was so enchanting that an enthusiastic crusader called it "the vestibule of Paradise."
In Western Europe, the crusades helped to break down feudalism. Kings at home then increased their authority and feudal lords
were fighting in Palestine. Along with the religious ideas of Western Europeans was the desire for power and land. When the
Byzantines and Muslims were contacted by crusaders, Western Europeans became interested in learning after hundreds of
years of darkness.
The effects of the Crusades on Europe of the Middle Ages were an important factor in the history of the progress of civilization.
The effects of the Crusades influenced the wealth and power of the Catholic Church, political matters, commerce, feudalism,
intellectual development, social effects, material effects and the effects of the crusades ... prompted the famous voyages during
the Age of Exploration.
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