Crusaders Essay Example

Crusaders Essay The topic of the essay is whether I think that thefirst crusade was a war or a religious movement.That is a very hard question to answer. I think that it may have started out as a religious movement with all the religious frenzy that such a movement can convey.However, in my opinion thefirst Crusade was a war.It was a that was ostensibly using the freeing of the holy land and of helping Alexius as an excuse go to war. It was a grand cover up to gain territory. War has been used throughout most of history as an excuse.It became apparent to me that thefirst crusade was no exception.It was an excuse to garner land, and excuse to gain power, it was even used as an excuse to kill Jews.Even with the so-called religious leaders such as Peter the hermit.With the other leaders such as Bohemond and Raymond, Baldwin I found it was a much clearer view of their reasoning, at least to my mind. I want to analyze the motivations of the leaders of the crusades. For it is these motivations that lead me to the belief that this was just a war. I further more believe that even Urban himself knew that there would be many that stepped foreword that would use Urbans Crusade for political purposes including to a certain extent Urban himself. The calling of the Crusade was a political opportunity for Urbans pontificate, attracting loyalty from a wide range of disparate countries and asserting the Church;s role as a unifying force.That he was concerned about the leaders of his crusade once they were out of his sight is apparent.Why else would he have made so may statements about ;for you are also called shepherds see that you are not occupied after the manner f mercenaries; (pg 51) or ;For if because of the sloth of your management; (pg 52), and ; let those; he said ,;who are accustomed to wage private wars wastefully even against believers;(pg 53).However, it is also apparent tha