Crusades

Crusades Crusades were Christian military expeditions organized mainly to recapture Palestine during the Middle Ages. Palestine, also called the Holy Land, was important to Christians because it was the region where Jesus Christ had lived. Palestine lay along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and Muslims had taken control of it from Christians. The crusaders, who came from Western Europe, organized eight major expeditions between A.D. 1096 and 1270. This was a period when Western Europe was expanding its economy and increasing its military forces. The Crusades were a part of a broad Christian expansion movement. Kings, nobles, and thousands of knights, peasants, and townspeople took part in the Crusades. They had two goals, to gain permanent control of the Holy Land and to protect the Byzantine Empire, a Greek Christian empire centered in southeastern Europe, from the Muslims. But many crusaders also fought to increase their power, territory, and riches. The crusaders won some battles and established a crusader kingdom along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, but their victories had no permanent effect. However, the Crusades increased already existing contacts between the West and the East. These contacts led to additional trade and commerce. The crusaders failed crusades, crusaders, between, western, historians, europe, muslims, however, europeans, empire, east, cities, christians, west, sea, palestine, mediterranean, life, land, holy, eastern, during, control, christian, years, venice, velvet, two, trade, thought, territories, sugar, silk, result, permanent, part