First Crusade Research Paper

The First Crusade began in November 1095, when the pope Urban II gave his famous speech in Clermont, France. Many people responded to his call to fight for the Holy Land, leading to the People’s crusade, responsible for the massacres of thousands of Jews in Mainz. When that first attempt failed, the army decimated by the Turks, the actual First Crusade, sometimes called the Baron’s crusade, began in 1096. It was composed of four armies, led by Godfrey of Bouillon and Robert Guiscard, among others. After a successful siege of Nicaea, winning the battle of Dorylaeum and capturing Antioch, the crusaders finally arrived to Jerusalem and after 8 months of siege, captured it in July 1099. The other seven crusades followed through the 11th, 12th and 13th century As will become evident, the First Crusade had multiple political and military consequences in the development of Western Civilization. It led to the seven subsequent crusades, the establishment of the “crusaders states”, the creation of military orders, the centralization of monarchical power and diminution of the Pope’s influence, the firsts pogroms and the first contact between oriental and occidental cultures, which later led to the expeditions

They followed for three centuries, specifically in the years of 1146, 1189, 1199, 1217, 1228, 1249 and 1270. The crusades encountered various degrees of success, the last one being an absolute disaster, disease and severe weather having killed off most of the army. As became evident, it put an end to the attempts by European Christianity to take back to Holy Land. If the First Crusade was mainly motivated by religious faith, the other ones were mostly political and military campaigns. The principal goal was to keep control over the Latin territories, also called The Levant, and of course to conserve Jerusalem, the Holy