Skip to main content

What were the religious, political, and economic motivations behind the Crusades?

The religious motivation for the Crusades is the one most people know about: Europe was predominantly Christian and ruled by Christian governments while the Middle East was predominantly Muslim and ruled by Muslim governments. People in each religion believed (as many still do today) that their religion is the one true religion and everyone else's religion is wrong; furthermore, a substantial proportion believed that those who do not believe the right religion should suffer or even be put to death. Thus, there were a large number of Christians willing to kill Muslims simply because they were Muslims, and conversely a large number of Muslims willing to kill Christians simply because they were Christians.

But that is not the whole story of the Crusades.


There was also a substantial political motivation; European governments found that by launching wars and conquering territory in the Middle East they could strengthen their own power at home. In particular, the Catholic Church used the Crusades as a means of uniting all Christians in Europe under one banner and solidifying the authority of the Church in public life. There were strategic reasons to establish military footholds in the Middle East, particularly as a bulwark against the rise of Turkey.


Finally, there were economic motivations. The Middle East has always been a region very rich in natural resources (today we think in terms of oil, but back then petroleum was basically useless; they were more interested in precious metals like gold and silver, as well as simply rich farmland and comfortable living space). European governments reasoned that by capturing territory in the Middle East they could secure access to these natural resources and thereby make themselves wealthier. To some extent this was true, though they probably would have actually made more wealth by trading peacefully with Middle Eastern cultures rather than going to war to conquer them.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more