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Crusades
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The Crusades were a series of military campaigns during the time of Medieval England against the Muslims of the Middle East. In 1076, the Muslims had captured Jerusalem - the most holy of holy places for Christians. Jesus had been born in nearby Bethlehem and Jesus had spent most of his life in Jerusalem. He was crucified on Calvary Hill... in Jerusalem. There was no more important place on Earth than Jerusalem for a true Christian which is why Christians called Jerusalem the "City of God".
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The Crusades were a series of military conflicts fought between European Christians and Arab Muslims to regain the Holy Land. Most often, the term “Crusades” refers to the campaigns in the Holy Land against Muslim forces sponsored by the Papacy, of which there were four. There were other crusades in the Holy Land lead by private royal armies, as well as crusades against Islamic forces in southern Spain, southern Italy, and Sicily. Furthermore, the campaigns of Teutonic knights against pagan strongholds in Eastern Europe are ... sometimes called crusades. Lastly, military action within Christendom lead against heretical and schismatic groups is also sometimes called a crusade. The four papal-sponsored crusades aimed at securing the Holy Land lasted from A. D. 1097 to 1204.
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The Crusades had far-reaching political, economic, and social impacts, some of which have lasted into contemporary times. Because of internal conflicts among Christian kingdoms and political powers, some of the crusade expeditions were diverted from their original aim, such as the Fourth Crusade, which resulted in the sack of Christian Constantinople and the partition of the Byzantine Empire between Venice and the Crusaders. The Sixth Crusade was the first crusade to set sail without the official blessing of the Pope,[5] establishing the precedent that rulers other than the Pope could initiate a crusade.
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The remainder of the 13th century's Crusades did little better. The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221) managed briefly to capture Damietta in Egypt, but the Muslims eventually defeated the army and reoccupied the city. St. Louis IX of France led two Crusades in his life. The first ... captured Damietta, but Louis was quickly outwitted by the Egyptians and forced to abandon the city. Although Louis was in the Holy Land for several years, spending freely on defensive works, he never achieved his fondest wish: to free Jerusalem. He was a much older man in 1270 when he led another Crusade to Tunis, where he died of a disease that ravaged the camp.
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The Crusades began formally on Tuesday, November 27, 1095, in a field just outside the walls of the French city of Clermont-Ferrand. On that day Pope Urban II preached a sermon to crowds of laypeople and clergy attending a Church council at Clermont. In his sermon, the pope outlined a plan for a Crusade and called on his listeners to join its ranks. The response was positive and overwhelming. Pope Urban then commissioned the bishops at the council to return to their homes and to enlist others in the Crusade. He ... outlined a basic strategy in which individual groups of Crusaders would begin the journey in August 1096.
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Crusades were ... preached against the remaining pagan tribes in Europe, the Wends, Prussians, and Lithuanians. These began early in the 13th century when the pope authorized the Teutonic Order to "convert" the heathen Slav and Balt tribes to the east. This was an ongoing crusade, with operations nearly every year. The crusaders often did little more than raid into Slav and Balt populated areas, gaining loot and combat experience in the process. Some of the tribes under this attack disappeared (like the original Prussians, a Slavic tribe.) Others converted to Christianity and survived (the Wends are a pocket of Slavs that exist to this day near Berlin.) The Teutonic knights were eager to have knights from other parts of Europe come up and help out. European warriors were equally willing to go crusading against the Slavs and this became something of a rite of passage for many German, English and French knights.
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Crusades