Backgrounds

Europe and the Mediterranean at the time of the first Crusade
The Seljuk dynasty in its period of greatest extension
To understand reasons that had the history of Europe and the Middle East to take similar paths, we must go back to the years immediately preceding the start of the crossover phenomenon and see what was happening in the world then.

Around the year 1000, Constantinople was erected as the city more prosperous and powerful of the known world. Located in an easily defensible position, in the midst of major trade routes, and a centralized government and all in the person of the Emperor, as well as a capable and professional army, towards the city and the territories governed by this (the Byzantine Empire ) a nation unparalleled throughout the world. Thanks to the actions taken by the Emperor Basil II Bulgaroktonos, enemies closer to its borders had been humiliated and absorbed in its entirety.
However, after the death of Basil, less competent monarchs occupied the Byzantine throne, while on the horizon a new threat emerged from Central Asia. some things They were the Turks, nomadic tribes, in the course of these years, had converted to Islam. One of these tribes, the Seljuk Turks (named for its leader mitico Selyuk), with all the fanaticism of the recent converts, launched against the "infidel" Empire of Constantinople. In the battle of Manzikert, in the year 1071, the bulk of the imperial army was destroyed by Turkish troops, and one of the co-Emperors was captured. Following that debacle, the Byzantines had to cede much of Asia Minor (today the core of the Turkish nation) to the Seljuk. Now Muslim forces had positioned a few kilometers of Constantinople itself.
Moreover, the Turks had also advanced in a southerly direction, towards Syria and Palestine. One by one the cities of the eastern Mediterranean fell into their hands, and in 1070, a year before Manzikert, entered the Holy City, Jerusalem.
These two events shocked both Western Europe and the East. Both began to fear that the Turks were to swallow slowly Christian world, wiping out their religion. In addition, many rumors began to arrive about torture and other horrors committed against pilgrims in Jerusalem by the Turkish authorities. Patience would run out at some point.
The First Crusade was not the first case of Holy War between Christians and Muslims inspired by the papacy. Already during the papacy of Alexander II, that preach war against the Muslim infidel twice. The first occasion was during the war of the Normans in their conquest of Sicily, in 1061, and the latter is part of the wars of the Spanish Reconquista, in the battle of Barbastro 1064. In both cases, the Pope offered the indulgence to the Christians to participate .
In 1074, Pope Gregory VII called for the military Christi ( "Soldiers of Christ") to be in aid of the Byzantine Empire after its defeat in the last battle of Mantzikert. Your call, but was widely ignored and even received enough opposition, along with the large number of pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land during the eleventh century and the conquest of Anatolia had closed the routes to Jerusalem, served to focus much attention on the events of the West of the East .
In 1081, ascended the Byzantine throne a capable general, Comneno Alejo, who decided to deal strongly Turkish expansionism. But soon realized he could not do the job alone, so start rapprochement with the West, although the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity had broken relations in 1054. Alejo was interested in having a Western mercenary army, joined the imperial forces, attacked the Turks at its base and send them back to Central Asia. Particularly wanted to use soldiers in Normandy, which had conquered the kingdom of England in 1066 and at the same time there were expelled them Byzantines of southern Italy. Due to these meetings, Alejo knew very well the power of the Normans. And now wanted as allies.
Alejo sending emissaries to talk with Pope Urban II, to ask her intercession in the recruitment of mercenaries. The papacy had already been shown capable of intervening in military matters when they enact the "Truce of God, which forbade fighting from Friday evening until Monday at dawn, which decreased significantly disputes between nobles bullies . Now it was another opportunity to demonstrate the power of the pope's will on Europe.
In 1095, Urban II convened a council in the city of Piacenza.

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