Peasants Crusade example essay topic

The Crusades were a bloody time period. They were a military campaign by the pope and the Roman Catholic Church to take back Jerusalem from the Muslims. They lasted from the 11th- 13th century. They were catastrophic and left Europe in ruins.

Although the Crusades were such a violent period of time, they had a positive impact in history because of their role in the renaissance and exposing the Western world to the Eastern. The Crusades were an outlet for the intense religious tension between the Muslims and the church which rose up in the late 11th century. This all started because the church and the catholics wanted the Holy Lands back from the muslims. Around this time the church was the biggest institute and people were god-fearing. Pope Gregory VII wanted to control more lands and wanted to get back the lands that they had lost to the muslims. So in order to get back these lands he launched The Crusades which he insisted to the peasants was a holy war instead.

A major part of the fighters in the crusades were untrained and unqualified peasants who went out to get back the holy lands for the church from the 'evil muslims'. This was called the Peasants Crusade. In order to get these peasants, who knew no better, to go and fight the church told them that if they were to go and fight these 'horrible muslims' then they would automatically get admission into heaven. Of course this automatically appealed to the peasants being that they were so god-fearing. They thought that if they helped the church then they would go to heaven and so they jumped at such an opportunity to get a get-into-heaven-free card. These people in all their religious glory went in and attacked the city of Niche.

And got killed. The city of Niche was a well fortified city controlled by Seljuk Turks. The peasants went in and attacked and literally got slaughtered. Only 2000 peasants survived their hasty attack.

Unfortunatly most of the crusades went this way. The goal of the Crusades was to regain the Holy Lands in the name of the church and drive the muslims out of Jerusalem. No such thing happened. The crusades were a complete and utter failure. But the aftermath of the crusades had a positive effect on Eurasia. For one thing it weakened the church's grip on the peoples lives.

This was a very good thing because it lead to trade between the Arabs and the Europeans. During the crusades ideas and goods were shared and the people saw the different goods that different places had to offer. And this lead to trade and opened trade routes. It exposed europe to all the goods Asia had to offer. The other main positive result of the crusades was its impact on the renaissance. The crusades lead to the exchange of ideas between the East and the West.

When the people came back from the crusades they had a lot of art and literature from the east. These people then wanted to learn more and educate themselves. This lead to the creating of universities. More people went and learned, more people grew thoughts about the way things worked. This lead to more exchange of ideas and more people experimented, learned, wrote, discussed, philos ified and such. This is what lead to the renaissance and pulled europe out of the Dark Ages.

Also because of The Crusades and the West being exposed to the East, ideas and goods were exchnaged and it changed Eur aisa and the world forever.