The Crusades were a series of military campaigns organised by Christian powers in order to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control. There would be eight officially sanctioned crusades between 1095 CE and 1270 CE and many more unofficial ones. Each campaign met with varying successes and failures but, ultimately, the wider objective of keeping Jerusalem and the Holy Land in Christian hands failed. Nevertheless, the appeal of the crusading ideal continued right up to the 16th century CE, and the purpose of this article is to consider what were the motivating factors for crusaders, from the Pope to the humblest warrior, especially for the very first campaign which established a model to be followed thereafter.
Explanation:
As the historian C. Tyerman points out in his God's War, in many ways 1095 CE was the 1914 CE of the Middle Ages - a perfect storm of moral outrage, personal gain, institutionalised political and religious propaganda, peer pressure, societal expectations, and a thirst for adventure, which all combined to inspire people to leave their homes and embark on a perilous journey to a destination they knew nothing about and where they might meet glory and death or just death. The fervour did not dissipate either. If anything, the success of the First Crusade and the recapture of Jerusalem on 15 July 1099 CE only inspired more people to 'take the cross'. The idea of crusading spread to such endeavours as liberating Spain from the Moors (the Reconquista) and attacking minority targets in Europe such as the Jews, pagans, and heretics (the Northern Crusades). Orders of knights were created to defend the territories gained in the Middle East, and taxes were continuously raised to fund the crusades which followed as Muslim and Christian armies enjoyed both successes and failures, constantly keeping cartographers busy for the next four centuries.
