Ancient history

The Crusades

During the Arab rule in Palestine Christians had freely exercised their worship but when the region came under the control of the Turks churches were destroyed and pilgrimages were forbidden; this aroused much apprehension in Christian Europe where pilgrimages were essential for the manifestation of the faith.
The Holy Land , Palestine in fact, it was the set of places where Christ had lived and the impossibility of accessing these places and the Holy Sepulcher did not leave Christians indifferent.
In this regard Urban II convened a Council in 1095 in which he urged Christians to invest their energies to free Jerusalem which means cruce signati because who was committed to go to free the Holy Sepulcher he had a red cross on his robe .
The pope's appeal garnered a lot of support and an expedition led by Peter the Hermit called "crusade of the beggars" was improvised , because the entourage was made up of people of dubious origin, peasants, people with no future who sowed violence in Palestine especially against the Jews, accused of “ deicide ”Because they had put Jesus to death .
In 1097 the first crusade known as the “ barons started ”Which was attended by warriors led by Goffredo di Bouillon , Duke of Lower Lorraine and Bohemond of Altavilla , Norman lord of southern Italy.
More than one hundred thousand followers went to Palestine but many died from heat and disease before starting to fight.
In 1099 Jerusalem it was conquered and the Muslims who resided there were massacred .
Several Crusader States were born including the Kingdom of Jerusalem , the most important, administered by Goffredo di Buglione himself who became the Protector of the Holy Sepulcher . Around 1187 the Turks had managed to regain the territories and Jerusalem was reconquered by Saladin , a great leader who succeeded in unifying Islam and that he showed a certain tolerance towards Christians.
The Second Crusade , in 1147, it was led by Louis VII of France , the third it was led by the emperor Frederick Barbarossa , who died just while it was still in progress, by the French king Philip Augustus and by the English king Richard the Lionheart . He only achieved the goal of establishing the Kingdom of Cyprus .
The Fourth Crusade , launched by Pope Innocent III in 1202 it is remembered for the violence with which the crusaders attacked Constantinople , without even reaching Jerusalem .
The fifth , saw Frederick II in 1217 at the helm; with the sixth the German emperor managed to negotiate with the sultan of Egypt and obtain the liberation of places of worship for Christians for ten years .
The seventh and eighth crusades were both led by Louis IX the Saint in 1248 and 1270.
We also remember the so-called children's crusade , organized in 1212 , when a French teenager named Stefano aggregated a large number of boys, about 50,000 , to go to the Holy Land ; the outcome of the crusade was ominous for them because they were sold as slaves .
In the period of the Crusades, monastic-knightly orders were born such as that of the Hospitallers , that is, of the Knights of Malta , of the Templars and the Teutonic knights, made up of German knights .

The chapter of the crusades was definitively closed when, in 1291, the last Christian stronghold located in the city of ACRI also fell.