The Holy Wars where armed pilgrimages to relieve the besieged Byzantine Christians and to recapture the holy places in Jerusalem. The Crusades spread across Palestine (First to Seventh Crusades), The Baltic (Albigensian Crusade), Spain (Reconquista), and parts of France. They would create and enhance: Military Monastic Orders [Monk Knights] such as The Knights Templar, Knights Hospitallers, Teutonic Knights, and more. Plenary Indulgence, Certainty of salvation for Catholics if they die in Crusade. The Cult of Chivalry (existed before, but grew to its allure under the Crusades) Introduce Western Christendom to Islam more directly; dispelling the misinformation that Muslims worship a sacred head called baphomet. And much more. The Crusades would inspire the Holy Leagues that fought the Ottomans at Lepanto (1571), and generations of Europeans seeking a holy cause. Today the Holy Wars are steeped in controversy and minsunderstanding. Historians of repute like Jonathan Riley-Smith, Thomas Asbridge, Jonathan Philipps, Jonathan Harris, Thomas McFadden, William Tuerman, Regina Parnoud, and Rodney Stark have begun removing the misinformation and pseudo-history of prejudiced historians like Stephen Runcimen, whose Vicotorian values eschewed their research. To quote Riley-Smith, “why should the Muslims be offended over The Crusades? They won most of the wars and made the Europeans retreat back to their castles in the West.” Afterall the Muslims had struck the first blows, conquering Spain, North Africa, parts of France and parts of Italy in 7th century, and the First Crusade only happened in 1095-99 A.D. (11th century), five hundred years later: and even then the crucinatia (crusaders) weren’t except in Spain responding to the Muslim conquests of Europe, but the threat against Constantinople in what it Modern Day Turkey. Let this be a thread to talk about the Crusades. All views, opinions, and data is welcome.
The siege and sack of Constantinople occurred in April 1204 and marked the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. Mutinous Crusader armies captured, looted, and destroyed parts of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. After the capture of the city, the Latin Empire (known to the Byzantines as the Frankokratia or the Latin Occupation) was established and Baldwin of Flanders was crowned Emperor Baldwin I of Constantinople in the Hagia Sophia. After the city's sacking, most of the Byzantine Empire's territories were divided up among the Crusaders. Byzantine aristocrats also established a number of small independent splinter states, one of them being the Empire of Nicaea, which would eventually recapture Constantinople in 1261 and proclaim the reinstatement of the Empire. However, the restored Empire never managed to reclaim its former territorial or economic strength, and eventually fell to the rising Ottoman Sultanate in the 1453 Siege of Constantinople. The sack of Constantinople is a major turning point in medieval history. The Crusaders' decision to attack the world's largest Christian city was unprecedented and immediately controversial. Reports of Crusader looting and brutality scandalised and horrified the Orthodox world; relations between the Catholic and Orthodox churches were catastrophically wounded for many centuries afterwards, and would not be substantially repaired until modern times. The Byzantine Empire was left much poorer, smaller, and ultimately less able to defend itself against the Turkish conquests that followed; the actions of the Crusaders thus directly accelerated the collapse of Christendom in the east, and in the long run facilitated the expansion of Islam into Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Constantinople_(1204) The Fourth Crusade culminating in the sack of the christian city of Constantinople leaves one wondering how holy and how noble the venture was, or was it perhaps for adventure and treasure, or perhaps some mix of piety and prosperity, and certainly it stands as a black mark on the history of Christianity in the west. It seems odd that the largest city to be sacked on any of the crusades was not a Muslim city, but a Christian city. The truth is that Christians should be offended by the Crusades.
The Fourth Crusade is an abomination: The Crusade Against Christians. Part of the problem was that the Crucinati (crusaders)came from the West with feudal sympathies; i.e. your war lord or king gets deposed, you wage war to reinstate him to the throne. In Byzantium the oppoaite was true, emperors lived in a state of precariousness; if they sis not do a good job, the people could replace the emperor with a better one; this was Byzantine Govt. so when the Alexios IV and his desposed father Isaac II Angelos sought the aid of the crusaders to retake the Byzantine throne; Alexios IV was manipulating Western sympathies and feudalism to take back a throne he lost according to Byzantine Justice. Alexios IV promised the Crusades 200,000 silver marks to pay off the Venetians who had buolt a fleet that was massive and neglected their own buolding flr a crusader force that was a waurter of what was expected. When Alexios dis not pay the silver marks, the Crusadsrs took Consantinople and sacked it. The truth is the whole mess of the Fourth was Alexios IV idea and his machinations. Had he not exploited the Crucinatia (Crusaders), and promised funds he did not have, even in the treasury, the whole affair could have been avoided. It reminds me of Stephen II of Blois who intercepted Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Commenus (Kommenoi), and told him and his armies all was lost at the Siege of Antioch and so Alexios did not relieve the Crusaders at Antioch makong the Crusaders believe the Byzantines so not keep their word. In both the case of the First and Fourth Crusades, a person caused mosunderstandigs and distrust between Byzantine and Latin; in the First Crusade it was a Crusader, Stephen of Blois, in the Fourth a Byzantine, Alexios IV (V). Sources: The Alexiad, Ann Commenus, Penguin Classics, 2009 Byzantium and the Crusaders (Crusader Worlds), Jonathan Harris, 2006 The Crusades: The Authoritative History of The War For The Holy Land, Thomas Asbridge, 2011 The Fourth Crusade and The Sack of Constantinople, Johnathan Philipps, Penguin Books, 2005