Personal Selected Reading

The First Crusade: The First Crusade: A New HistoryA New History

The Roots of Conflict Between Christianity and Islam

By Courtney Scherer

Medieval Christianity emphasized the need for one to fear the contamination of sin tremendously, in fear of eternal damnation. These

people often lived as monks desperate to achieve purity.

Pope Urban II proposed a way for one to be promised a soul cleansed

of sin—a pilgrimage to the Holy Land where they could be blessed and made pure. This was something these people could not refuse.

Pope Urban gave a series of sermons encouraging his Christian people fight for their faith by making a pilgrimage to recover their divine

city of Jerusalem from the alien people—Islam. He claimed, without factual evidence, that these people were tormenting Christian pilgrims who traveled to the Holy Land, in

which case they did not deserve to be given mercy due to their truly

inhumane demeanor.

This powerful proclamation brought about an enormous, unforeseen

wave of between 60,000 and 100,000 people prepared to set out

on the First Crusade, a battle spurred by passionate religious zeal yet known, for these above reasons,

for unspeakable brutality.

This massive army lacked centralized rule and overall

organization. Many of these soldiers were entering this battle with little or no military experience, making their undying devotion to their religious

duties their guiding light throughout many of these unbelievably

troubling, daunting circumstances.

Resources were constantly depleting due to the sheer mass of

the soldiers, giving high vulnerability to starvation and madness. As

desperation grew so did the acts of merciless violence. Yet, faith grew

stronger as these zealous Christians overcame each and every

seemingly insurmountable hurdle.

Ultimately, the events of this First Crusade can be seen as nothing

short of miraculous. Yes, the bloodshed was excessive, but in

the end these Christian rejoiced in having reached their final

destination, and were able to successfully recover their Holy City

from Islamic rule. It was a cruel road that led to a passionate

exuberance, which made these religious warriors forever proud to have made the painful journey.

These crusaders made their fair share of mistakes, and yet we can't necessarily

view them as nothing more than a group fueled by fanatic hatred, but rather a

group fueled by the fear of burning in the fiery depths of Hell for all eternity.

Regardless, from this point on both Islam and Christianity generally remain deeply

rooted in their animosity towards one another, which has led to an

impenetrable wall creating strong divisions between these religions.