The Capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, Research Paper Example

By many accounts the advent of the western crusades remains an important chapter in the history of the Christian Church in the trajectory slides of its phases of evolution. Essentially, they were a series of military aggressions under the auspices of the Holy Roman Empire and the Latin Christian dominated mainland Europe; the crusades were carried out with among other things the primary goal of reasserting Christian dominance in the Holy Land spanning the period between 1095 to 1291.

During this period the crusaders did not just fight against the occupying Muslim Arab occupiers but also groups that were considered to be foes of the papacy.

As stated in the preceding paragraph, the whole saga of the crusades occupy an integral part of the annals of Christian history largely because of the legacies it left from politics to trade and commerce and social relics that can even be felt in our day and age. Internal feuding and power struggle amongst the crusading groups often times resulted in an unexpected diversion from the original goals and mandates of the crusading warriors. For instance, the Fourth Crusade of 1202 under the authority of Pope Innocent III was carried out to oust the Christian Constantinople and the subsequent division of the Byzantine Empire amongst the supreme forces within the crusaders. Indeed, this historical action is in marked contrast to the First Crusade which was in response to the Byzantine Emperor Alexius call for help to resist the Arab Muslim invasion.

Initiated in 1095 by Pope Urban II, the First Crusade resulted in the siege and eventual takeover of Jerusalem from the enemies of Christendom. That was not to be the last of such battles, taking into consideration that the crusaders had to still engage in recurring battles at some points involving the Jews and other pagan settlers due to continuous shifting allegiances and alliances during the period of the crusades (pp 56-78). The Fourth Crusade was especially instrumental in the creation of the Latin Empire and its satellite states.

On the sociopolitical sphere, the crusades are widely credited for impacting the European landscape during the middle ages, bearing in mind that it set the stage for the steady transition into the republican nation-state concept in use today. Thanks to the several crusading expeditions, there was a progressive transfer of important knowledge in technical subjects from the Asian Arabian world into mainland Europe in addition to that the crusaders served as the link between Europe and Asia The crusades did also bolster trade and commerce due to the increasing demand for supply of logistics and support services for the fighting armies heralded a new dispensation of massive trading unparalleled in the days of the Middle Ages. Mainland Europe therefore experienced an influx of new products coming from the crusading missions.

Works Cited

Jackson J.Spielvogel. Western civilization, volume 2. Wadsworth Publishing: 2006