Causes And Consequences Of Medieval Crusades

Causes and Consequences of the medieval Crusades The Christian crusades arose from the Byzantine Empire 's struggles, and the misunderstandings between the Turks and Christian travelers. Byzantine used these misunderstandings to Byzantines ' own advantage to strengthen itself, during a critically weak moment for the empire. The crusades that broke out became many holy wars and lasted from 1096-1270. These holy wars caused a lasting impact on the economy and surrounding areas. Princess Anna Komnene accounts the byzantine emperor 's struggles, and how emperor Alexius was able to start a war that prolonged the life of the Byzantine empire. The crusades expanded Europe 's domain for a time, ensuring Christian trade routes and unified the Catholic …show more content…
The incoming crusaders had negitive effects on the lands they traversed. The Emperor realized to late he did not want the West 's help, the crusaders could turn on him and greatly outnumbered his army. This is apparent though Alexius ' daughter, she writes “he (Alexius) dreaded their arrival for he knew their irresistible manor of attack,...seemed to disregard their truces readily for any reason that cropped up.” This view point highlights the differences between the West and East Crusaders marched through Byzantine traveling to the holy lands. Some of the poor, unarmed crusaders had little discretion once the fighting started, zealously seeking battle. When western armies came, they had numerable effects on the land and it 's people. The Byzantine emperor fretted over their arrival because he believed rumors about the westerners barbarians and thought that they could turn on Byzantine. His assumptions about the westerners held up. The westerners zeal and eagerness to fight, and sheer numbers filled up huge routes, crusaders started fighting civilians. They persecuted any Jews they found, giving them the choice to convert to Christianity or die Crusaders looted local people for food and supplies. In Princess Anna 's account she very negatively describes the western crusaders as them being far greater and more terrible then the rumors about them. further strain on the economy as rivers of people fill up the roads with people who need to eat. She describes the zeal Westerners, dubbed 'Franks ', as they haphazardly marched on, they terrorized civilians looted food to take on their way as they passed through many countries to get to the holy lands. The large volume of people drained local economies as well as presented a viable threat against