The
Crusades were military campaigns sanctioned by the Latin
Roman Catholic Church during the
High Middle Ages and
Late Middle Ages. In 1095
Pope Urban II proclaimed the
First Crusade with the stated goal of restoring Christian access to
holy places in and near
Jerusalem. Many historians and some of those involved at the time, like Saint
Bernard of Clairvaux, give equal precedence to other papal-sanctioned military campaigns undertaken for a variety of religious, economic, and political reasons, such as the
Albigensian Crusade, the
Aragonese Crusade, the
Reconquista, and the
Northern Crusades.
[1] Following the First Crusade there was an intermittent 200-year struggle for control of the
Holy Land, with six more major crusades and numerous minor ones. In 1291, the conflict ended in failure with the fall of the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land at
Acre, after which Roman Catholic Europe mounted no further coherent response in the east.
Some historians see the Crusades as part of a purely defensive war against
Islamic conquest; some see them as part of long-running conflict at the frontiers of Europe; and others see them as confident, aggressive, papal-led expansion attempts by Western Christendom. Crusading attracted men and women of all classes.
