Published via Inbox: 2013-04-17 04:26:03
April 16, 2013 20:40
The Crusades were a series of wars taking place in Asia Minor and the Levant between 1095 and 1291, in which Western European nations engaged using the propaganda of religious expeditionary wars. The first crusade was called by Pope Urban II of the Roman Catholic Church, with the stated goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem. The background to the Crusades was the centuries of Arab–Byzantine Wars and the Seljuq-Byzantine Wars and the recent decisive defeat of the Byzantine army by Seljuk Turks at Manzikert in 1071. The Norman conqueror Robert Guiscard's conquest of Byzantine territories added to the problems of the Byzantine Empire. In an attempt to curtail both dangers, its Emperor Alexios I sought to align Christian nations against a common enemy, requested western aid, and Pope Urban II in turn enlisted western leaders in the cause of taking back the Holy Land.[1]
Europeans had historically called the occupants of the Holy Land Saracens, and used this in a negative sense throughout the Crusades and often into European history books into the 20th century.
The term "crusade" is also used to describe religiously motivated campaigns conducted between 1100 and 1600 in territories outside the Levant[a] usually against pagans, heretics, and peoples under the ban of excommunication for a mixture of religious, economic, and political reasons.[b] Rivalries among both Christian and Muslim powers led also to alliances between religious factions against their opponents, such as the Christian alliance with the Islamic Sultanate of Rûm during the Fifth Crusade.
Urban II (ca. 1042 – 29 July 1099), born Otho de Lagery (alternatively: Otto, Odo or Eudes), was Pope from 12 March 1088 until his death on 29 July 1099. He is best known for initiating the First Crusade (1096–1099) and setting up the modern-day Roman Curia in the manner of a royal court to help run the Church.
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with 1.2 billion members worldwide.[1][2][3] It is among the oldest institutions in the world and has played a prominent role in the history of Western civilisation.[4] The Catholic hierarchy is led by the Pope and includes cardinals, patriarchs and diocesan bishops. The Church teaches that it is the one true church divinely[5][6][7][8] founded by Jesus Christ,[9][10] that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles and that the Pope is the sole successor to Saint Peter who has apostolic primacy.[11][note 1][12][note 2][note 3]
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem,[1] is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the Qur'an—which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad—and, with lesser authority than the Qur'an, the teachings and practices of Muhammad as recorded in traditional accounts, called hadith. "Muslim" is an Arabic word meaning "one who submits to God".
