England and the Crusade Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

England and the Crusade - Essay Example The struggle was between the Muslims and Christians. Each one of them wanted to take full control of Jerusalem, also referred to as the Holy Land. However, in the year 1291, this consistent battle came to an end when the Muslims finally took over Jerusalem. The Roman Catholic Pope was shocked by this defeat and had heart attack that led to his death. From that time, no more war of crusade was seen in Jerusalem (Smith, 1995, p. 66). Pope Urban was depressed to death because he had spent all his time and resources in the crusade. He succeeded in convincing the Roman Christians to join the war. Those who decided to join him were promised a lot of good things. One of such goodies was the forgiveness. Pope Urban had said it in public that anyone who would join the crusade would have all his sins forgiven. On hearing this, many catholic faithful rushed and vowed in public to give their all in the fight. It was during this time that the very Pope also managed to convince and gain the support of other state leaders. Kings from various nations who were members of Roman Catholic and had the same objective agreed to join Pope Urban. These kings provided the Pope with military army and some other forms of support such finance. This is when the big countries like France, England and Germany joined the crusade war (Teall, 1959, pp. 84-95). However, the crusade army did not only cause trouble to the Muslim nations but also to the various countries that they passed through. For example, the crusade carried out by England caused many damages in Sicily and Cyprus. It is thought that some nations joined this movement for their individual gains. They were just hiding in this holy war. The main objective of Pope Urban is also not clearly known. Some scholars tend to argue that his motives were not godly as people may think. They say that he only had personal interests and therefore decided to use the armies of nations such as