Crusades
In the Middle Ages, the largest war in European countries was the Crusades, which involved almost all western European countries. The war ended in defeat, but it was a great victory for the evolution of European history. After the Crusades, the ruined Europe began to limp through the door of modern civilization.
Today we come to the mysterious Middle Ages in Europe and talk about the mysterious history.
The Crusades took place in 1096-1291, on the eve of the embryonic emergence of capitalism.
In 1095, Pope Urban II held the Clement of Clements in France. At the congress, the Pope delivered a lengthy speech calling on Western European Christians to participate in the anti-Islamic crusades that recaptured the Holy Land.
At the pope's behest, all strata of society rushed to join the war. The Church was no longer satisfied with its domination of Western Europe and intended to spread the ideas of Jesus to Islam or further afield. The feudal lords also intended to go to the east to expand their territory. The merchant community had long been dissatisfied with the fact that the Arab merchants were monopolies of the trade routes, and intended to go to the East in search of gold everywhere.
However, in this journey, all the people and horses were ghostly, and they never formed a unified and powerful leadership, and even there was a fire and blood struggle inside. Although the expedition lasted nine times, the result would undoubtedly end in failure.
The deceased Catholic Emperor John Paul II
In Europe, the Catholic emperors were the largest feudal lords, who controlled one-third of the land and population of Europe. In contrast to the East, the royal power of Europe was not only not as strong as that of the Countries of the East, but very weak. The people of Europe have a dual identity, that is, the people of the king and the people of the pope, but the status of the pope's people is always the first.
In western Europe or the Mediterranean region, they are different from the agricultural civilization in the East, their land is fragmented, and it is doomed that the agricultural civilization will not flourish, only the prosperous maritime civilization. If the royal power does not flourish, it will inevitably be replaced by a religious power. Christianity, or Catholicism, arose in Jerusalem. By the 7th century, islam had risen, the theocratic Arab Empire established by Muhammad and his descendants had risen, unifying the whole of West Asia and North Africa, Jerusalem was occupied by Islamic forces, and the contradiction between Islam and Christianity began. In addition, the Arab Empire also occupied the Spanish Peninsula and Sicily, constantly attacking European countries. The contradictions between the two worlds began to intensify.
Although the Crusades ended in failure, their impact on West Asia and Europe was enormous.
The Humiliation of Canossa
After years of wars, especially defeats, the people gradually lost confidence in the Catholic Emperor, and the feudal monarchy waited for the opportunity to enter the stage of history. The "Humiliation of Carlosha" is a concrete embodiment of the struggle between royal power and ecclesiastical power. After hundreds of years of competition, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, after the French feudal monarchy took the lead in establishing the nation-state, the European nation-state was established.
Although the Crusades were defeated as a whole, there were also victories in some areas, such as Italy, who was the only beneficiary of the war. The long war eventually allowed northern Italian cities to replace Byzantium's monopoly on commerce and become a transit point for trade between East and West. Since then, Italy has rapidly moved towards prosperity, and the capitalist economy has begun to rise. But the commercial boom also created the fragility of Italy's feudal monarchy and the retention of Catholic imperial power.
The opening of new shipping routes
If there is an ultimate winner in this war, then this winner is the world. It was this war that led to the establishment of feudal national power in Europe, and the establishment of the European nation-state was able to strike at the Catholic Emperor to the greatest extent, and to breed the literary complexities, religious reforms, and even enlightenment in the later period. It was also the establishment of feudal monarchy that the two feudal monarchies on the Iberian Peninsula could support the opening of new shipping routes. The embryonic growth of Italian capitalism and the eventual breeding of capitalism greatly contributed to the transition of Europe from the Middle Ages to modern society.
Genghis Khan
Next time we have time, we can talk about the western expedition of Genghis Khan and his descendants.
I am a young man in the countryside, an amateur history lover, and I talk to you every day about history and our view of wild history.