I have completed the skeleton outline of my history paper. It is about the christians reasons to start the first crusade. Debate, Discuss my arguements.

Les raison pour les Croisades

Introduction
Les Chrétiens du temps des croisades sont très mal vue aujourd’hui. Ils ont la perception d’être des fanatiques religieux intolérant menés par des papes qui désire le pouvoir. Nous regardons les Occidentaux comme la peuple agressives et les peuples Islamique des être passive et calme. Mais les européennes n’était pas des impérialistes qui voulaient le sang des Islamique. Je vais essaie de montré qui les Chrétiens avait des bons raisons pour commencer la première croisade. La première croisade était une attaque de préemption contre un people qui devenait de plus en plus agressif et menaçant avec le temps.

Arguments
1. Après la morte de Mohammed, les guerriers musulmans ont attaquaient le monde Chrétienne. Des pays très Chrétienne a était conquit par les Musulmans. Par exemple : L’Egypte, la Palestine, la Syrie, L’Espagne, et tout l’Afrique du Nord. Finalement, les Turks ont capturaient l’Asie Mineur, qui a était chrétien depuis le temps de Paul.
2. Nombreux Chrétiens était encore dans des pays prix par les Musulmans. Les Chrétiens devait les libérés.
3. Les attaques étaient un mouvement défensif pour décourager les Musulmans de prendre plus de territoire Chrétienne. Les Chrétiennes avait peur que les Musulmans attaquerait dans le cœur de l’europe.

For those of you that don't speak french, you will have to wait for a translation. The Leaf game is back on!!!

Leaf game? :confused:

The first crusade was a load of mercinaries and barbarians heading south to collect on the promises of treasures. Not very pleasant :(

This thread may get a better response from the History forum.

You paint the first crusade and Christian reasoning way too noble. First you state that the Muslims conquered many christian lands. While all the places you mentioned were indeed conquered, they weren't individual countries, but all part of one single empire the Muslims tore up: the Byzantines. The Byzantines it should be mentioned were Orthodox Christians, greatly hated by many Catholics, so the cursaders liberating them is a myth. Their living conditions were hardly bad in the Muslim world save for the occasional madman, and the crusaders occasionally killed these Christians they were liberating in their campaigns. Your third point I think is also somewhat flawed. If Christianity truly wanted to unite to stop Arabic expansion in the 11th century, they could have just once and for all helped the Spanish kingdoms push the Moors back to Africa. The Byzantines had been a buffer state for centuries, no real action was needed there. Attacking the Muslims in the holy land would have done little to stop the Muslim threat in areas such as Spain or Anatolia.

The real reasoning for the Crusades? There were numerous reasons, but not many were noble. At the end of the day, despite involving religion, it was just another war. Nobles wanted power, peasents were told they'd be allowed into heaven if they fought, some were angered by the destruction of the church of the holy scepl... that church in Jerusalem by the madman ruler of the time, and most importantly, militant Turks had stopped Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem from passing through their territory.

The real reasoning for the Crusades? There were numerous reasons, but not many were noble. At the end of the day, despite involving religion, it was just another war. Nobles wanted power, peasents were told they'd be allowed into heaven if they fought, some were angered by the destruction of the church of the holy scepl... that church in Jerusalem by the madman ruler of the time, and most importantly, militant Turks had stopped Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem from passing through their territory.

Eh, I think you're a little critical of Western christendom. What we might consider un-noble now was the society they lived in then.

First of all (to the thread starter), the crusades were no preemptive strike against the Muslims. The muslims had their piece of pie from the Carolingian dynasty (Charlemagne's line) holdings in the past. Mediterranean fighting on the sea between Muslims and Christians had taken place during this time, the difference was that the Christians began to take the fight back to the Muslims.

Nobles wanted power, but land and fiefdoms were upward mobility in that societal context... and well... there wasn't many places to setup shop in Europe in this period. This of course, is reflected in the client kingdoms that are later created up and down the coast.

The Byzantines it should be mentioned were Orthodox Christians, greatly hated by many Catholics, so the cursaders liberating them is a myth.

I agree... keeping in mind that both the Empire (Byzantine is a modern day term, they didn't one day start calling themselves the Byzantines) and the west considered themselves the "universal" or "catholic" church as much as the Orthodox did. The Catholic church had troubles with itself with conflicting doctrine between the continental church and those in "Ireland" and Britian. Hell, lets not get into the differing monastary systems created from the post Carolingian dynasty in the west. Now whats the importance of this information? To stay that Catholics hated the Orthodox is an overstatement, most "Catholics" were ignorant peasants oblivous to the outside borders of their fiefdom. There were troubles between the east and west (brought on by the nasty treatment of the west after "liberation" much earlier among other things), but the pope in the west had just as much strife from an emperor or another suitor to his position in these times. The bottom line though, the West did come to assist the "Byzantines," but lingual differances in this time misconstrued the helped asked for by the Eastern empire... and things just went downhill from there. Not to say they werent bad after the 1054 mutal excommunications... but Christians are Christians (whether they be east or west) and I'm sure the pope would have liked to see Christians fighting Muslims rather then themselves.

If Christianity truly wanted to unite to stop Arabic expansion in the 11th century, they could have just once and for all helped the Spanish kingdoms push the Moors back to Africa. The Byzantines had been a buffer state for centuries, no real action was needed there. Attacking the Muslims in the holy land would have done little to stop the Muslim threat in areas such as Spain or Anatolia.

I think this is reasonable, but we have to keep in mind that Western Christendom only started to recognize a notion of "unity" during these centuries. The papal power in the west during this time was behind in terms of authority unlike the east. This reflects one of the misunderstandings with both churches, while the east could say something and it be done, the west couldnt. The symbolism of Jerusalem and the "Holy Land" was probably a factor in his ability to persuade western christendom to act as well. Its not as if Spain was ignored though, but which objective has more merit?

I'm sorry if my writing is a little slurred or mangled, its too late here... and I needed a break from my paper on Civil War soldiers comparisons... I'll try to fish out my notes from last semesters Medieval Church and State if you want further information (my school has been blessed with a very good if not tediously "insightful" professor from Harvard on this subject of the Christian church). This era of history is so interesting, if not extremely complicated. Who needs World War 2, when you have Frederick II running around, as emperor, with a pope, or two, or three, mixing it up with an excommunication ever so often.

Heres a source or two on the subject you may choose to use to bolster your arguments:

Brian Tierney. "The Crisis of Church and State 1050-1300."

Joseph Lynch. "The Medieval Church: A Brief History"

My first advise would be to correct the essay. Honestly, it's simply awful, stuffed with grammatical and spelling error. Not to be dismissive, just warning you in case french isn't your native tongue.

About the text : it depends if you speak about what the people of the time were feeling, or if you speak about historical facts.

The real reasons for the Crusades were much less nobles than that.

Moved to History.