The Encyclopedia of World Religions

108 S Crusades

In the course of the 11th century, the territory of Palestine came under the control of the Seljuq Turks. The Seljuqs were less welcoming than the earlier Muslim rulers had been to Christians who wanted to visit holy sites such as Bethlehem and J ERUSALEM . In addition, the advance of the Seljuqs posed political and economic threats to the Latin speaking parts of Western Europe. In response, on November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II appealed to Christendom to liberate the Holy Land. To entice people to participate in the efforts, he offered Cru saders forgiveness of their financial debts as well as of their sins. There were four major Crusades and a num ber of minor ones. The First Crusade lasted from 1096 to 1099. The major contingent, led by sev eral noblemen, crossed the Mediterranean Sea, engaged the Turks in battle, and eventually man aged to establish four Crusader states along the coast of Palestine. The most important was the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Surrounded by hostile forces, these states were not genuinely viable. After 200 years they disap peared entirely. The second and third major Cru sades were attempts to recover territory that the Crusader states had lost to Muslim counterattacks. The Second Crusade (1147–49) was a response to the fall of the Crusader state of Edessa; the third (1188–92) to the capture of Jerusalem and other territories by the great Muslim leader Saladin. The Third Crusade, whose leaders included King Rich ard I, the Lion-Hearted, of England, was moder ately successful. The Fourth Crusade (1202–04) illustrates well the questions that loom over the entire crusading enterprise. The Crusaders had assembled in Ven ice, but they could not pay for their passage. So at the instigation of the Venetians, they sacked a mercantile competitor of Venice, Zara, a Christian city in Dalmatia across the Adriatic. They also took up with a claimant to the throne of the Byzantine Empire. He promised the Crusaders that if they restored him to power, he would provide them with the funds that they needed. The deal fell through, and the Crusaders sacked Constantinople, the cap ital of (Christian) Byzantium, in 1204. Constanti

and hearing the words, “In this sign you will con quer.” He removed the restrictions against prac ticing Christianity, and Christians used the cross widely for decorative purposes. At first Christians depicted bare crosses. Eventually artists also por trayed Jesus suffering on the cross, sometimes in graphic detail. The symbol of the cross has played an impor tant role in Christian RITUAL . Cross-bearers have led processions, perhaps at first in imitation of proces sions put on for the rulers. Christians have marked out a cross as they prayed by touching their fore head, their heart, and their shoulders. In 326 Con stantine’s mother, Helena, claimed to have discov ered remains of the actual cross on which Jesus was crucified. Christians have used these remains, and others, as relics to help them WORSHIP , espe cially in the Middle Ages. The symbol of the cross has also been impor tant socially and intellectually. The C RUSADES got their name from the red crosses that the crusaders wore emblazoned on their shirts. Many theologians have used the cross to guide their reflections. An ancient theologian, Justin Martyr ( c. 100– c. 165), saw the cross in every tool necessary for human survival. Others have seen in the cross a symbol of G OD ’s domination over the entire universe. The sufferings and death of Jesus stand at the center of Martin L UTHER ’s thought. Therefore, many have called it a “ THEOLOGY of the cross.” Not all Christians, however, have used visible representations of the cross. Churches influenced by the thought of John C ALVIN have not tradition ally displayed crosses or crucifixes. Crosses were thought to violate the restrictions against worship ping images. In the 20th century many, but not all, Calvinist churches abandoned this restriction. They now use crosses the way other Christians do. Crusades A number of movements in Catholic Western Europe, especially during the 12th and 13th centuries, that aimed to free the “holy land” from Muslim rulers. The name derives from crux, the Latin word for CROSS . The Crusaders wore large red crosses sewn onto their shirts.