One of the earliest voices against the worldliness of the Catholic church. He urged the church to return to poverty. Pope Innocent II banished Arnold from Italy, so he fled to Paris to study under Abelard and aroused the wrath of Bernard of Clairvaux. Returned to Rome, where the people seized power while the Pope was away and placed Arnold into the leadership of the secular government. 10 years later, Pope Hadrian IV placed Rome under interdict and with Emperor Frederick Barbarossa captured Arnold and executed him in 1155.

[tags]Abelard, Arnold, Arnold-Abbot-of-Brescia, Bernard, Bernard-of-Clairvaux, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]

In 1147, this mystic called for the Second Crusade while the kingdom of Jerusalem faced its first crisis. As one of Christendom's most influential churchmen and abbot he pursued Peter Abelard as devoutly as he preached the Second Crusade. Felt that faith brooked no dispute and worked to have Abelard condemned at a church council at Sens in 1140.

[tags]Abelard, Bernard, Bernard-of-Clairvaux, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Peter[/tags]

Driven by religious fervor, love of adventure and dreams of personal profit, crusaders from western Europe for 200 years attempted to expel the Muslims from the Holy Land. All the great and colorful figures of this era were caught up in the consuming cause, from Peter the Hermit, who inflamed the First Crusade, to the saintly Louis IX, King of France, who inspired the Sixth and Seventh.

For centuries peaceful pilgrims had been traveling from Europe to worship at the birthplace of Christ. The rise and spread of Islam in the Near East during the seventh century did not interrupt this traffic. By the tenth century bishops were organizing mass pilgrimages to the Holy Land. During the eleventh century, however, Christian pilgrims encountered persecution, and when the Seljuk Turks, new and fanatical converts to Islam, came sweeping and plundering into the Near East, the situation became especially tense. The