Conflicting religious ideologies accounted for the atrocious attack on the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. That single attack changed foreign policies and relations for the entire globe. However, it was not the first time that religious considerations had triggered violent conflicts that changed world affairs. The crusades also played a crucial role in influencing the political and international relations among different nations. In November 1950 at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urnbanus II called for an armed crusade to unshackle the holy land from Muslim rule. His call would shape or influence world history for many years. The causes of the crusades were religious, political, and economic. However, the crusades were met with varying degrees of success. On the religious front, although they failed to liberate the Holy Land, they led to an integration of the Western Christian culture with the Eastern Muslim beliefs, leading to the transfer of knowledge, information, and ideas between the two cultures (Gregg, 2008; Jones, 2004). Furthermore, the Crusades helped to maintain the European civilization by repelling Muslim invaders and taking the battle to their territories, thereby ensuring that the Roman Catholic Church continued to exercise its power in European affairs (Gregg, 2008; Jones, 2004)
One of the most extensive implications of the Crusades was the redistribution of political power throughout Christendom. Ideally, it led to the consolidation of political power in the hands of the Roman Catholic Church. The Crusades were expensive affairs, and to finance them, the organizers employed various strategies. According to Jones “one can trace the concept of income tax to the Crusades” (2004, p 25). The same author attributes the emergence of the wealthy middle-class to the Crusades since many merchants and non-nobles accumulated wealth providing supplies and transportation services the Crusader armies.
One unforeseen consequence of the Crusades was the persecution of Christians who held unorthodox religious beliefs. The heretics, as the offending parties were called, were targeted for elimination. The seriousness of the issue comes to light when one recounts that at least one major crusade, namely the Albigensan Crusade of 1209, which targeted the heretics residing in the south of France (Jones 2004). As a result of the close interactions among the Christian Crusaders and the Muslim defenders of the east, the doctrines of the Christian Church were threatened. Initially, the church responded by using extreme measures such as the inquisition as well as the institution of reforms that were targeted at cementing the role that the church played in society. However, the attempts were misguided and did not achieve the expected results. For instance, the use of violence against heretics, Muslims, and Pagans within Christendom as well as its use against organized Crusader organizations, such as the knight’s Templars, did not eliminate them fully. It simply pushed the expression of different religious opinions underground. (Gregg, 2008; Jones, 2004)
In some cases, the distinction between the church and state affairs was blurred, as was the case in the 1179 decree that the secular authorities should punish the heretics since “heresy was treason” (Gregg, 2008, p. 36).The immediate significance of the reforms happening in the church in the 11th and 12th centuries was the consolidation of the pope as the head of the secular authorities that existed at the time. However, the reforms failed to establish the needed relief for the peasants who felt persecuted, overtaxed, and disempowered by the church as it existed then. It is possible that the seeds for the Calvin reforms were laid during this period, since the common citizen had no redress from the overt influence of the church, leading to the reformation movement headed by John Calvin during the 16th century (Gregg, 2008).
Indeed, the Crusades were one of the worst religious conflicts between Christianity and Islam. They transformed the face of the world by influencing how the Christian West and the Islam east treated each other. They also changed the economic and political structures of the European nations that participated in them. The reforms that followed soon after tended to strengthen the pope’s authority over secular affairs, cumulating in a schism in Church affairs and the eventual emergence of the Protestant Movement. Due to these and many other political, economic and social effects attributed to them, the Crusades will linger on in world history as a period when religion brought out both the worst and the best in men in both the Christian and the Islamic faiths.
References
Gregg, S. (2008). Church History. Retrieved from <http://media.theos.org/steve%20Gregg/reference/church%20History.pdf>
Jones, R. (2004). The crusades: a brief history (1095-1291). Atlanta: Acworth Press.
