Dating back to 1050 A.D Europe and the Middle East use to be religiously divided between the Christian states and the Muslim states. These two states had never gotten along always resulting in conflicts. Years later an emerging powerful group from central Asia, known as the Seljuk Turks, began to reign over the Middle East claiming lands for their own. The Byzantine empire, once known as the most powerful Christian empire in the Middle East, had fallen to the command of the Seljuk Turks in 1071 during the battle of Manzikurt. In 1095 Alexius I Comnenus, emperor of Byzantine, had issued a letter for help to his neighbouring Western Christians to help take back the holy land. This letter was received by Pope Urban II in which he saw this as a chance to create a glorious army. This was the beginning of the first crusade.
The …show more content…
They would be saving Jerusalem from the Muslim state and therefore strong Catholic believers saw this as a glorious moment to take part in a war. This led thousands of knights and regular towns people all over Europe to be persuaded to go to war. The Pope had originally hoped to target only knights and skilled soldiers to join this crusade therefore he had had set a date for the commencement of the crusade for the summer of 1096. Although, a monk named Peter the Hermit had persuaded large parts of France and soon gathered up his own army composed of peasant men, women and kids. This large group of people were known as the People’s crusade. This was a group of mal-educated and behaved people. They travelled along the river Danube in search for Jerusalem. Due to their lack of knowledge, they believed that any city they encountered on their way was Jerusalem and so they had slaughtered thousands of innocent Jews. This is Albert of Aix who had written about what he had witnessed during this massacre of the
The …show more content…
They would be saving Jerusalem from the Muslim state and therefore strong Catholic believers saw this as a glorious moment to take part in a war. This led thousands of knights and regular towns people all over Europe to be persuaded to go to war. The Pope had originally hoped to target only knights and skilled soldiers to join this crusade therefore he had had set a date for the commencement of the crusade for the summer of 1096. Although, a monk named Peter the Hermit had persuaded large parts of France and soon gathered up his own army composed of peasant men, women and kids. This large group of people were known as the People’s crusade. This was a group of mal-educated and behaved people. They travelled along the river Danube in search for Jerusalem. Due to their lack of knowledge, they believed that any city they encountered on their way was Jerusalem and so they had slaughtered thousands of innocent Jews. This is Albert of Aix who had written about what he had witnessed during this massacre of the