The CrusadesThe CrusadesA Brief LookA Brief Look

The CrusadesThe Crusades • A series of military campaigns from the 1090s to the 1400s by a variety of European military groups into parts of the Byzantine Empire and Muslim controlled Middle East.

Why did the CRUSADES begin?Why did the CRUSADES begin?

Read Pope Urban II’s speech –

List in your notebook the:

“The top 5 reasons” that Christians should go on a crusade.

Categorize your five reasons.Categorize your five reasons.

What are the political, economic, social, and religious reasons he gives?

Events that may have led to the Events that may have led to the CrusadesCrusades

A Christian Church in Jerusalem was destroyed by the “Caliph” of the region.

Pilgrim routes (to the Holy Land) were closed for a period of time.

The Byzantine Empire was losing territory to Islamic Turks; Byzantine leaders requested assistance from other Christian kingdoms.

And so they fought . . .And so they fought . . .

THE CRUSADESTHE CRUSADES• The Islamic groups holding the regions

of the Middle East were not unified at the time and were “caught off guard” by these invasions.

• Each crusade was different—rarely unified.

• Massacres were committed by Muslim and Christian armies during the wars.

Crusader Crusader KingdomsKingdomsEventually, Eventually,

European armies European armies took and held took and held regions in the regions in the

Middle East for Middle East for nearly a century.nearly a century.

RESULTS of the CRUSADESRESULTS of the CRUSADES

BECAUSE of several hundred years of “contacts” with the Byzantine & Islamic regions. Western Europe experienced an:

• Increased desire for “eastern” goods

• increased trade connections with the African and Asian markets.

• exposure to Islamic learning, innovation, and technological advancements

Late Medieval Trade RoutesLate Medieval Trade Routes

RESULTS of the CRUSADESRESULTS of the CRUSADES

On the Byzantine Empire

• Weakening of the Empire due to the pillaging of Constantinople and taking of Byzantine lands.

• Severed political and religious connections to Western Europe.

Siege of ConstantinopleSiege of Constantinople

RESULTS of the CRUSADESRESULTS of the CRUSADES

On the Islamic groups of the Middle East• Very little change in politics or culture

• The Islamic Leader, Saladin, helped unify Muslim forces and re-conquered most of the Middle East and Anatolia by the 1200s.

• Though crusades continued, Muslims held the “Holy Land”