Influence of the Crusades on Westen Sociey

 Abstract：In the European history, the Crusades was the first attempt to break the situation of mtul isolation on a larger scale for all nationalities in all regions and to estaglish wider connections within the whole Europe. It has quickened the commerce in Europe since the 11th century and has expanded the Est-west trade. Thus in economy, the whole Europe hs established an increasingly inseparable totality. The townspeople class has strengthen its power and it has played an important role in pushing forward the politicl unity of European countries.
Key words：the Crusades; western society; influence
I. Introduction to the Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religion-driven military campaigns waged by much of Christian Europe against external and internal opponents. Crusades were fought mainly against Muslims, though campaigns were also directed against pagan Slavs, Jews, Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians, Mongols, Cathars, Hussites, Waldensians, Old Prussians and political enemies of the popes. Crusaders took vows and were granted an indulgence for past sins. The Crusades had far-reaching political, economic, and social impacts on wetern society, some of which have lasted into contemporary times. The Crusades originally had the goal of recapturing Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim rule and were launched in response to a call from the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire for help against the expansion of the Muslim Seljuk Turks into Anatolia. The term is also used to describe contemporaneous and subsequent campaigns conducted through to the 16th century in territories outside the Levant usually against pagans, heretics, and peoples under the ban of excommunication for a mixture of religious, economic, and political reasons. Rivalries among both Christian and Muslim powers led also to alliances between religious factions against their opponents, such as the Christian alliance with the Sultanate of Rum during the Fifth Crusade.The Crusades had far-reaching political, economic, and social impacts, some of which have lasted into contemporary times. Because of internal conflicts among Christian kingdoms and political powers, some of the crusade expeditions were diverted from their original aim, such as the Fourth Crusade, which resulted in the sack of Christian Constantinople and the partition of the Byzantine Empire between Venice and the Crusaders. The Sixth Crusade was the first crusade to set sail without the official blessing of the Pope. The Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Crusades resulted in Mamluk and Hafsid victories, as the Ninth Crusade marked the end of the Crusades in the Middle East.[The Gospel in All Lands By Methodist Episcopal Church Missionary Society, Missionary Society, Methodist Episcopal Church, pg. 262 ]
II. Influence of the Crusades on Westen Sociey
The Crusades kept all Europe in a tumult for two centuries, and directly and indirectly cost Christendom several millions of lives (from 2,000,000 to 6,000,000 according to different estimates), besides incalculable expenditures in treasure and suffering. They were, moreover, attended by all the disorder, license, and crime with which war is always accompanied. On the other hand, the Holy Wars were productive indirectly of so much and lasting good that they form a most important factor in the history of the progress of civilization. And it had made great impact on the the western society.
1.Effects of the Crusades on the Catholic Church
The Crusades contributed to increase the wealth of the Church and the power of the Papacy. Thus the prominent part which the Popes took in the enterprises naturally fostered their authority and influence, by placing in their hands, the armies and resources of Christendom, and accustoming the people to look to them as guides and leaders. As to the wealth of the churches and monasteries, this was augmented enormously by the sale to them, often for a mere fraction of their actual value, of the estates of those preparing for the expeditions, or by the out and out gift of the lands of such in return for prayers and pious benedictions. Thousands of the crusaders, returning broken in spirits and in health, sought an asylum in cloistral retreats, and endowed the establishments that they entered with all their worldly goods. Besides all this, the stream of the ordinary gifts of piety was swollen by the extraordinary fervor of religious enthusiasm which characterized the period into enormous proportions. In all these ways, the power of the Papacy and the wealth of the Church were vastly augmented.
2.Effects of the Crusades on Commerce
One of the most important effects of the crusades was on commerce. They created a constant demand for the transportation of men and supplies, encouraged ship-building, and extended the market for eastern wares in Europe. The products of Damascus, Mosul, Alexandria, Cairo, and other great cities were carried across the Mediterranean to the Italian seaports, whence they found their way into all European lands. The elegance of the Orient, with its silks, tapestries, precious stones, perfumes, spices, pearls, and ivory, was so enchanting that an enthusiastic crusader called it “the vestibule of Paradise.” Among the effects of the Holy Wars upon the material development of Europe must be mentioned the spur they gave to commercial enterprise, especially to the trade and commerce of the Italian cities. During this period, Venice, Pisa, and Genoa acquired great wealth and reputation through the fostering of their trade by the needs of the crusaders, and the opening up of the East. The Mediterranean was whitened with the sails of their transport ships, which were constantly plying between the various ports of Europe and the towns of the Syrian coast. In addition to the effects of the crusades on material development various arts, manufactures, and inventions before unknown in Europe, were introduced from Asia. This enrichment of the civilization of the West with the “spoils of the East” can be seen in the artefacts displayed in modern European museums. 
3.Political and Social Effects of the Crusades
As to the political effects of the Crusades, they helped to break down the power of the feudal aristocracy, and to give prominence to the kings and the people. Many of the nobles who set out on the expeditions never returned, and their estates, through failure of heirs, escheated to the Crown; while many more wasted their fortunes in meeting the expenses of their undertaking. At the same time, the cities also gained many political advantages at the expense of the crusading barons and princes. Ready money in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was largely in the hands of the burgher class, and in return for the contributions and loans they made to their overlords, or suzerains, they received charters conferring special and valuable privileges. And the other political effects of the Crusades was that in checking the advance of the Turks the fall of Constantinople was postponed for three centuries or more. This gave the early Christian civilization of Germany time to acquire sufficient strength to roll back the returning tide of Mohammedan invasion when it broke upon Europe in the fifteenth century.  The Social effects of the Crusades upon the social life of the Western nations were marked and important. The Crusades afforded an opportunity for romantic adventure. The Crusades were therefore one of the principal fostering influences of Chivalry. Contact with the culture of the East provided a general refining influence. The Crusades had an enormous influence on the European Middle Ages. At times, much of the continent was united under a powerful Papacy, but by the 14th century, the development of centralized bureaucracies (the foundation of the modern nation-state) was well on its way in France, England, Burgundy, Portugal, Castile, and Aragon partly because of the dominance of the church at the beginning of the crusading era. Although Europe had been exposed to Islamic culture for centuries through contacts in Iberian Peninsula and Sicily, much knowledge in areas such as science, medicine, and architecture was transferred from the Islamic to the western world during the crusade era. The military experiences of the crusades also had their effects in Europe; for example, European castles became massive stone structures as they were in the east, rather than smaller wooden buildings as they had typically been in the past. In addition, the Crusades are seen as having opened up European culture to the world, especially Asia:

III. Popular reputation of the Crusades in Western Europe
In Western Europe, the Crusades have traditionally been regarded by laypeople as heroic adventures, though the mass enthusiasm of common people was largely expended in the First Crusade, from which so few of their class returned. Today, the “Saracen” adversary is crystallized in the lone figure of Saladin; his adversary Richard the Lionheart is, in the English-speaking world, the archetypical crusader king, while Frederick Barbarossa and Louis IX fill the same symbolic niche in German and French culture. Even in contemporary areas, the crusades and their leaders were romanticized in popular literature; the Chanson d’Antioche was a chanson de geste dealing with the First Crusade, and the Song of Roland, dealing with the era of the similarly romanticized Charlemagne, was directly influenced by the experience of the crusades, going so far as to replace Charlemagne’s historic Basque opponents with Muslims. A popular theme for troubadours was the knight winning the love of his lady by going on crusade in the east. In the 14th century, Godfrey of Bouillon was united with the Trojan War and the adventures of Alexander the Great against a backdrop for military and courtly heroics of the Nine Worthies who stood as popular secular culture heroes into the 16th century, when more critical literary tastes ran instead to Torquato Tasso and Rinaldo and Armida, Roger and Angelica. Later, the rise of a more authentic sense of history among literate people brought the Crusades into a new focus for the Romantic generation in the romances of Sir Walter Scott in the early 19th century. Crusading imagery could be found even in the Crimean War, in which the United Kingdom and France were allied with the Muslim Ottoman Empire, and in World War I, especially Allenby’s capture of Jerusalem in 1917.

IV. Conclusion
Until recently, the crusades were remembered favourably in western Europe (countries which were, at the time of the Crusades, Roman Catholic countries), and in countries largely settled by Western Europeans, including the United States. Nonetheless, there have been many vocal critics of the Crusades in Western Europe since the Renaissance, and in recent years, critical views of the crusades have come to dominate most assessments.[ Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Atlas of the Crusades New York: Facts on File, 1990.] Defenders of the Crusades now present their viewpoint as that of an embattled minority as against a standard view in which the Crusades are regarded as bloody and unjustified acts of aggression. More comprehensive treatments seek to take account of both the brutality of the Crusades and the sincere religious motivation behind them, of “religious devotion and godly savagery”. A crucial recent development is the recognition, variously interpreted, of the parallel between crusades and the Islamic concept of jihad. Secular critics of the crusades see both jihad and crusade as providing a religious justification for war and intolerance. Supporters present the crusades as defensive responses to Islamic jihad and, in some cases, advocate a renewal of the crusades a view that may be linked, by both critics and supporters, to current US policy in the Middle East.

References：
1.The Gospel in All Lands By Methodist Episcopal Church Missionary Society, Missionary Society, Methodist Episcopal Church, pg. 262
2.Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Atlas of the Crusades New York: Facts on File, 1990.
3.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page