Political and Religious Grounds Upon Which the Crusades Were Based

Crusades: Religious and Political Antecedents

The Crusades

The Medieval Crusades represented an attempt by Western European Christians to retake and hold the city of Jerusalem, in part because it was the birthplace of Jesus (Hansen & Curtis, 2014, p. 359-363). The First Crusade (1096 to 1099) was extraordinary because 50,000 combatants left their homes in France, Germany, and Spain and trekked close to 2,000 miles to reclaim dominion over Jerusalem. The only pay the fighters could expect were the spoils of war and God's favor, but the religious fervor of the period provided the social impetus that would drive these men and their families to seek piety through the act of warfare (Rubenstein, 2011, p. xiii). Rubenstein (2011) came to the conclusion that on an individual level the Crusades represented a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a mechanism through which past sins could be washed away, and the promise of adventure.

This was not a formal army, but a collection of warriors without any clear leadership or combat strategy (Hansen & Curtis, 2014, p. 359-363). Although only 10,000 men were able to complete the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, it was sufficient to overcome the city's defenses. In the absence of a command structure the troops sacked the city and created what Rubenstein (2011) characterized as the Apocalypse. Even though Christianity had overcome pagan rituals that tied worshippers to place or temple by creating a faith that promised salvation through an inner pilgrimage, this was not enough to prevent tens of thousands of Europeans from seeking to reclaim control over what they considered to be the center of their world. As Hansen and Curtis (2014) discuss, the European maps during that period placed Jerusalem at the center with Europe on the lower left, Africa on the lower right, and Asia above.

The First Crusade, at least, seemed to represent a religious journey for the Europeans who made the trip, but from a geopolitical perspective the Crusades were probably inevitable. In 638, control over Jerusalem was again in the hands of Muslims (Rubenstein, 2012, p. 4). During this period, Muslim armies successfully expanded into lands formally controlled by Christian rulers. As a result, the journey to the Holy City had become more dangerous and the number of pilgrims willing to make the trek dwindled. In the 900s, engaging in pilgrimages to churches and other holy sites in Europe became popular, probably due to a Christian desire to rid themselves of their sins and afflictions through sacrifice. In the year 1000, Stephen I became the first Christian ruler of Hungary, which reduced the length of time a Christian pilgrim would spend in hostile lands. Over the next century thousands of European Christians would travel each year to Jerusalem, the center of their world. Christian philosophers of the time were also murmuring about the impending apocalypse at the turn of the millennium and how Jerusalem would figure prominently in that event.

In 1065 a group of German pilgrims were attacked by a marauding Turkish Army unit, but with the help of the walls of an abandoned town and the Egyptian Army they lived to tell their tale of a near-Apocalyptic event back home (Rubenstein, 2011, p. 9-15). In 1095, Peter the Hermit develops a reputation for speaking directly with God and preaches Jerusalem is in need of European military salvation. These two events, together with increasing Turkish incursions into the weakening Byzantine Empire, seem to light the fuse that became the First Crusade in 1096.