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

In 1095, this Pope proclaimed the First Crusade to regain the Holy Land. He urged Christians to take up the cross and strive for a cause that promised not merely spiritual rewards but material gain as well. Urban appealed for crusaders in the name of the church; the purpose of the Crusades was the conquest of the infidels in the Holy Land; and this high calling excused somehow the total disregard for noncombatants and prisoners.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Crusades, history, Pope-Urban-II[/tags]