Byzantium And The Crusades Compare And Contrast

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Byzantium and the Muslims
We have all heard about the Crusades, how two main religions went to war against each other in the name of God. But what were the Crusades really about? The Crusades was a time when two religions, Christianity and Islam, went to war against each other. This was a time when tension between the two religions as well as Judaism resulted in eight major Crusades between 1096 and 1291 and even a Children’s Crusade that ended in a catastrophe. According to Pope Urban II, he preached for Christians to go to war against the Muslims in an attempt to reclaim the Holy Land of Israel i.e. Jerusalem which was under Muslim control. Many Jews, Christians and Muslims were slaughtered during the period of the Crusades. It was also during this time that Christians from the West (Roman Empire) and East (Byzantium Empire) had an unstable relationship towards each other even though it was a part of the same Empire. Both were Christian, only the West was Catholic and the East Orthodox.
As a result of the Byzantine Empire losing a substantial amount of territory to the invading Seljuk Turks, Emperor Alexius I sent representatives to Pope Urban II asking for military aid from
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Everyone but Bohemond accepted taking the oath . In May 1097, the Crusaders and their Byzantine allies attacked Nicea (now Iznik, Turkey) which was the Seljuk Turk capital in Anatolia. After capturing the city due to them surrendering in late June, the Crusaders marched on into Anatolia along with the Byzantines and captured the great Syrian city of Antioch in June 1098 despite relations between the leaders of the Byzantine and the Crusaders worsen . After a number of internal struggles over control of Antioch,

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