The Crusades of the Holy Land

It was a lovely autumn day in northern France, not unlike any other day in the countryside.   But November 27, 1095 would change history evermore.  At the steps of an unfinished cathedral, Pope Urban II preached a Crusade.  He bid European knights to go forth to the Holy Land (mainly Jerusalem) and free the city from the hands of the heathen Turks.  Thus, it began.  

Many people, both professionally and personally, have discussed the reasons for the Crusade at great length.  Ostensibly, the Pope asked the armies to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from Turkish hands, though pilgrims were traveling in peace to the religious site.  The Crusade started in a time that was already volatile and full of conflict, when European knights were battling each other and the Muslim armies were carving up the East.  It was an era ripe for war, but none of the participants could have known the Crusades would go on for almost two centuries before true peace was achieved.  The Crusading armies set out garbed in bright red crosses, and the faithful all surely believed that theirs was a true mission of God.

The Europeans might have called them heathens, but the Muslim culture was a highly advanced one at the beginning of the Crusades.  Warriors were more often than not learned men, educated and well-read.  Their weapons were similar yet different, and they had a very foreign set of battle strategies.  Despite European ideals, the crusading armies may have been outnumbered from the very start.  The Crusaders marched forward to wrest away the land they considered Holy, and may or may not have realized that the Muslims also called the area the Holy Land.

The Crusades, Broken Down