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Personal Selected Reading
The First Crusade: The First Crusade: A New HistoryA New History
The Roots of Conflict Between Christianity and Islam
By Courtney Scherer
Medieval Christianity emphasized the need for one to fear the contamination of sin tremendously, in fear of eternal damnation. These
people often lived as monks desperate to achieve purity.
Pope Urban II proposed a way for one to be promised a soul cleansed
of sin—a pilgrimage to the Holy Land where they could be blessed and made pure. This was something these people could not refuse.
Pope Urban gave a series of sermons encouraging his Christian people fight for their faith by making a pilgrimage to recover their divine
city of Jerusalem from the alien people—Islam. He claimed, without factual evidence, that these people were tormenting Christian pilgrims who traveled to the Holy Land, in
which case they did not deserve to be given mercy due to their truly
inhumane demeanor.
This powerful proclamation brought about an enormous, unforeseen
wave of between 60,000 and 100,000 people prepared to set out
on the First Crusade, a battle spurred by passionate religious zeal yet known, for these above reasons,
for unspeakable brutality.
This massive army lacked centralized rule and overall
organization. Many of these soldiers were entering this battle with little or no military experience, making their undying devotion to their religious
duties their guiding light throughout many of these unbelievably
troubling, daunting circumstances.
Resources were constantly depleting due to the sheer mass of
the soldiers, giving high vulnerability to starvation and madness. As
desperation grew so did the acts of merciless violence. Yet, faith grew
stronger as these zealous Christians overcame each and every
seemingly insurmountable hurdle.
Ultimately, the events of this First Crusade can be seen as nothing
short of miraculous. Yes, the bloodshed was excessive, but in
the end these Christian rejoiced in having reached their final
destination, and were able to successfully recover their Holy City
from Islamic rule. It was a cruel road that led to a passionate
exuberance, which made these religious warriors forever proud to have made the painful journey.
These crusaders made their fair share of mistakes, and yet we can't necessarily
view them as nothing more than a group fueled by fanatic hatred, but rather a
group fueled by the fear of burning in the fiery depths of Hell for all eternity.
Regardless, from this point on both Islam and Christianity generally remain deeply
rooted in their animosity towards one another, which has led to an
impenetrable wall creating strong divisions between these religions.
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