Pilgrimage and Crusade

With the rise of the Christian Church, a curious paradox between peace and violence was created that has spread to every corner western culture has touched. War and violence were very prevalent as lords and kingdoms fought to create new boundaries out of the chaos left by the Roman Empire's loss of power to the barbarian invaders. The Church tried to limit this by establishing the so-called Peace or Pax in Latin. During the conversion of the Romans and then the European continent, the priests spoke of Jesus' message of peace and self-sacrifice, but in a world were violence was often deemed necessary, a message of nonviolence was not going to be an easy sell. The concept of justified, or even holy, war was created out of the Christian message. It became God's will that the strong protect the weak, for the Bible says that the meek shall inherit the earth.

Pilgrimage was an established practice long before Christianity came on the scene, and there are many pilgrimage sites that are sacred to more than one religion. Jerusalem has always been the most controversial of such sites being the center for three of the worlds largest religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All three religions hold pilgrimage to be important and believe that every man should travel to a holy site at least once in their lifetime. Although violence on the roads were still hazardous, Christian pilgrims carried outward signs of their journey that all but the most hardened criminals respected out of fear of Godly retribution. This safety of the road became an established Peace dictated by the Church and executed by the local political authority. It was also extended to include women, children and the clergy.

The first crusade was initially an appeal from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Kommenos to Pope Urban II for military aid to protect his boarders against the Seljuq Turks in 1095 CE. Urban II saw this as a greater opportunity to reclaim the whole of Palestine and the Holy Land for Christendom. To that end he began a preaching campaign lasting most of a year calling for a military pilgrimage, a holy crusade. Over the following 200 years there were six major crusade expeditions, along with at least six minor expeditions, the so-called people's crusade, the children's crusade, and the crusades outside of the Holy Land including the Reconquista in Spain, the Albigensian in Southern France, the German crusade, and the Northern crusades against various pagan and heretical groups including Slavic minorities.

Ultimately the Europeans were unable to hold the lands they claimed in Palestine, but they were greatly influenced by their travels and brought back more than war stories. Expanded trade routes were set up bringing in silks and spices. Artisans and intellectuals discovered techniques and ideas lost in western Europe, but preserved in the Islamic and Greek east. Although the crusades were war driven, they also made travel easier, almost a Christian duty, and this allowed the 12th and 13th centuries to thrive in a way they had not since the fall of Rome. Universities were founded in Paris and elsewhere that were not directly connected to the church. Architecture rose to new heights as the Gothic style was created. The 12th century is sometimes called the little renaissance of the middle ages.

For more detail information on the crusades check out Christopher Tyerman's God's War: A New History of the Crusades