The Crusades Grade 7 Social Studies

The Crusades From the Christian standpoint, Why did the Crusade’s happen? The first premise was that of violence. Defined crudely as an act of physical force which threatens, deliberately or as a side effect, homicide or injury to the human body. It was not intrinsically evil. Which is to say, like a surgeon who amputates a leg despite the patient wanting the leg not to be amputated. The violence is this case can be seen as a positive despite the critical endangerment of said human life.

The Crusades The second premise was that of Christ’s wishes for mankind were associated with a political system or course of political events in the world. For the Crusader’s, Christ’s intentions were embodied in a political conception, the Christian Republic; which is a single, universal, transcendental state ruled by him. His agents thus would be popes, bishops, emperors and kings. A personal commitment to its defense was believed to be a moral obligation for those qualified to fight.

The Crusades Every Crusader took a vow, which he or she was committed to fulfill as a penance: that is an act, often of self punishment, which constituted an attempt to repay the debt owed to God on account of sin. Christ was believed to authorize Crusades himself – his representative on Earth, the Pope. The idea of penance remained at the heart of the Crusades throughout its history.

The Crusades A crusade was fought against those perceived to be the external or internal foes of Christendom for the recovery of Christian property or in the defense of the Church or Christian people. As far as popes were concerned, the Muslims in the East and in Spain had occupied Christian territory, including land sanctified and made his very own by the presence of Christ himself, and they had imposed infidel tyranny on the Christians who lived there.

The Crusades