How Did The Crusades Influence The Evolution Of The World

“As long as there has been one true god, there has been killing in his name.” This statement is as true today as it was nearly a thousand years ago. For much of modern history, religion has been a driving force for thousands of people and has often been used as a form of justification for many actions, of which many have been misguided and atrocious. Perhaps one of the most well known of these events was the Crusades. The Crusades were a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims, beginning in the year 1095 and lasting nearly 200 years, which were sanctioned by the Catholic Church with the primary aims of halting the expansion of Islam and reclaiming the Holy Land from Muslim rule. Though the Crusades have officially ended, they have had a profound and lasting impact on the evolution of the world since that time. Below is a brief summary of the history and events of the Second Crusade and

The growing fear of the Muslim threat caused a spark which ignited into the Second Crusade. This crusade was led by two powerful European rulers, King Louis of France and King Conrad of Germany. There was poor communication between the two leaders and their forces were largely divided, as a result they both suffered crushing defeats at the hands of the Turks. Upon failing to secure Edessa, the crusaders marched to Jerusalem to regroup. There they decided to launch an assault on Damascus, which was occupied by the Muslims at the time. Once again, they suffered a crushing defeat, after which the crusading army dissipated. For these reasons, the Second Crusade is considered a complete failure from a Christian standpoint. However, the crusaders were successful in one aspect of the Second Crusade on their campaign in the Iberian Peninsula, an event which has become one of the single most important events in the evolution of European