What was the historicaI impact of the Crusades?

Campaigns to recIaim the hoIy

Iand from MusIims
Pope Urban II Ied the initiaI
crusades
Urban II -
A Pope's Promise
"All uho die. uhether bg lond or bg seo, or in
bottle ogoinst the pogons, sholl hooe immediote
remission (forgioenessJ for sins."
%he Crusades Effect on the Economy of Europe
Average Crusader saved 6 years of
income for one year of crusading
Merchants throughout Europe charged
high prices and made huge profits
1. Crusades benefited ItaIian port cities
through increased trade
2. First Jewish HoIocaust Christian
massacre of Jews
3. FeudaI System CoIIapse
4. Creation of 4 strong nation-states:
PortugaI, Spain, EngIand, & France
What was the historicaI impact of the Crusades?
%hey marked an expansion of the infIuence of
Western Christendom at the same time that Eastern
Christendom and Byzantium were decIining.
%hey stimuIated the demand for Asian Iuxury goods
in Europe.
%hey also aIIowed Europeans to Iearn techniques for
producing sugar on Iarge pIantations using sIave
Iabor, which had incalculable consequences in later
centuries when Europeans transferred the pIantation
system to the Americas.
Christians and MusIims
%his fourteenth-century painting
illustrates the Christian seizure of
Jerusalem during the First Crusade in
1099. %he crowned figure in the center is
Godefroi de BouiIIon, a French knight
and nobleman who played a prominent
role in the attack and was briefly known
as the king of Jerusalem.
Mehemet II Ieads %urkic IsIamic
invasion of ConstantinopIe.
What was the historicaI impact of the Crusades?
MusIim schoIarship, together with the Greek learning
that it incorporated, fIowed into Europe.
%he Crusades hardened cuIturaI barriers between
Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman CathoIicism. Moreover,
Christian anti-Semitism was exacerbated.
European empire building, especially in the Americas,
continued the crusading notion that "God wiIIs it."
%he Crusades have also on many occasions proved
politically or ideologically significant when the worIds of
Europe and IsIam have coIIided over the past two
centuries.