The Crusades (or Wars of the Cross) were seven Military expeditions in the Middle Ages for the conquest of Palestine, the first occurring in 1095 led by Godfrey of Bouillon, to the Holy Land, originally sanctioned by the Church and Pope. They were called Crusades, because the warriors wore the sign of the cross. The antagonism between the Christian and Islamic nations had been intensified by the possession of the Holy Land by the Turks and by their treatment of pilgrims to Jerusalem; and the first strenuous appeal was assured of response alike from the pious, the adventurous, and the greedy. The proclaimed objective of the Crusades was two fold - to ensure the safety of pilgrims to Jerusalem, and to recover the Holy Land for Christendom. Their reality was the plunder of the captured lands and the genocide of all Saracens before them. The last crusade occurred between 1248 and 1256 and between 1268 and 1270 and was conducted to satisfy the religious scruples of Louis IX.
Captured cities were cleansed of all 'pagans', Muslims and Jews, with all men, women and children being murdered by the Christian crusaders. When Jerusalem was captured during the First Crusade, more than 30,000 of its inhabitants were killed. Almost a thousand years later the Arabs still recount the horrors inflicted upon them by the Western Europeans 'barbarians', which included - according to Christian witnesses - murdered children being spit roasted and eaten by the crusaders, and adult victims being boiled and eaten.
On returning from the Crusades, many of the soldiers were absolutely destitute and immediately availed themselves of robbery in order to obtain clothes and food. Research Crusade
Abbreviations
Warfare
Research Crusade