This is quite a succinct history of the crusades. For once Wiki gets it just about right.
The
Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the
in the
. The best known of these Crusades are those to the
in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were intended to recover
area from
. Concurrent military activities in the
against the
(the
) and in northern Europe against pagan
,
and
peoples (the
) also became known as crusades. Through the 15th century, other church-sanctioned crusades were fought against heretical Christian sects, against the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, to combat paganism and heresy, and for political reasons. Unsanctioned by the church,
of ordinary citizens were also frequent. Beginning with the
which resulted in the recovery of Jerusalem in 1099, dozens of Crusades were fought, providing a focal point of European history for centuries.
In 1095, Pope
proclaimed the First Crusade at the
. He encouraged military support for
against the
and called for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Across all social strata in western Europe, there was an enthusiastic popular response. The first Crusaders had a variety of motivations, including religious salvation, satisfying feudal obligations, opportunities for renown, and economic or political advantage. Later crusades were generally conducted by more organized armies, sometimes led by a king. All were granted papal
. Initial successes established four
: the
; the
; the
; and the
. The Crusader presence remained in the region in some form until the
in 1291. After this, there were no further crusades to recover the Holy Land.
Proclaimed a crusade in 1123, the struggle between the
and
in the
was called the
by Christians, and only ended in 1492 with the fall of the Muslim
. From 1147,
in
against pagan tribes were considered crusades. In 1199,
began the practice of proclaiming political crusades against Christian
. In the 13th century, crusading was used against the
in
and against
; this practice continued against the
in
and the
in
in the 15th century and against
in the 16th. From the mid-14th century, crusading rhetoric was used in response to the rise of the
, only ending in 1699 with the
.
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