Pope Urban II, otherwise known as Odo of Châtillon or Otho de Lagery, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 12 March 1088 to his death. He is best known for convening the Council of Clermont which ignited the series of Christian military expeditions known as the Crusades.
The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the Middle Ages. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic rule. While Jerusalem had been under Muslim rule for hundreds of years, by the 11th century the Seljuk takeover of the region threatened local Christian populations, pilgrimages from the West, and the Byzantine Empire itself. The earliest initiative for the First Crusade began in 1095 when Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos requested military support from the Council of Piacenza in the empire's conflict with the Seljuk-led Turks. This was followed later in the year by the Council of Clermont, during which Pope Urban II supported the Byzantine request for military assistance and also urged faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
The Ninety-five Theses or Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences is a list of propositions for an academic disputation written in 1517 by Martin Luther, then a professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg, Germany. The Theses is retrospectively considered to have launched the Protestant Reformation and the birth of Protestantism, despite various proto-Protestant groups having existed previously. It detailed Luther's opposition to what he saw as the Roman Catholic Church's abuse and corruption by Catholic clergy, who were selling plenary indulgences, which were certificates supposed to reduce the temporal punishment in purgatory for sins committed by the purchasers or their loved ones.
In the teaching of the Catholic Church, an indulgence is "a way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for (forgiven) sins". The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes an indulgence as "a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions…"
The Seventh Crusade (1248–1254) was the first of the two Crusades led by Louis IX of France. Also known as the Crusade of Louis IX to the Holy Land, it aimed to reclaim the Holy Land by attacking Egypt, the main seat of Muslim power in the Near East. The Crusade was conducted in response to setbacks in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, beginning with the loss of the Holy City in 1244, and was preached by Innocent IV in conjunction with a crusade against emperor Frederick II, Baltic rebellions and Mongol incursions. After initial success, the crusade ended in defeat, with most of the army – including the king – captured by the Muslims.
The crusading movement encompasses the framework of ideologies and institutions that described, regulated, and promoted the Crusades. The crusades were religious wars that the Christian Latin church initiated, supported, and sometimes directed during the Middle Ages. The members of the church defined this movement in legal and theological terms that were based on the concepts of holy war and pilgrimage. In theological terms, the movement merged ideas of Old Testament wars, that were believed to have been instigated and assisted by God, with New Testament ideas of forming personal relationships with Christ. The institution of crusading began with the encouragement of the church reformers who had undertaken what is commonly known as the Gregorian Reform in the 11th century. It declined after the 16th century Protestant Reformation.
During its long history, the Catholic Church has been subject to criticism regarding various beliefs and practices. Within the church, this often involves opposition or support for practices associated with traditionalist Catholicism. In the past, different interpretations of scripture and various other critiques contributed to schisms such as the schism with the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Protestant Reformation. This article however, discusses criticisms of the 20th and 21st century. The Catholic Church has also been criticized for some of its historical actions, such as the church's promotion of the Crusades, and at various times by nationalist groups who feared the influence of Catholicism in undermining their regime. Furthermore, the Catholic Church has been criticized for not practicing ordination of women to the priesthood, its handling of incidents of sexual abuse, and various inter-faith interactions.
The Rhineland massacres, also known as the German Crusade of 1096 or Gzerot Tatnó, were a series of mass murders of Jews perpetrated by mobs of French and German Christians of the People's Crusade in the year 1096,. These massacres are often seen as the first in a sequence of antisemitic events in Europe which culminated in the Holocaust.
Criticism of Christianity has a long history which stretches back to the initial formation of the religion in the Roman Empire. Critics have challenged Christian beliefs and teachings as well as Christian actions, from the Crusades to modern terrorism. The arguments against Christianity include the suppositions that it is a faith of violence, corruption, superstition, polytheism, homophobia, bigotry, pontification, abuses of women's rights and sectarianism.
The history of the Jews and the Crusades is part of the history of antisemitism toward Jews in the Middle Ages. The call for the First Crusade intensified the persecutions of the Jews, and they continued to be targets of Crusaders' violence and hatred throughout the Crusades.
Frisian involvement in the Crusades is attested from the very beginning of the First Crusade, but their presence is only felt substantially during the Fifth Crusade. They participated in almost all the major Crusades and the Reconquista. The Frisians are almost always referred to collectively by contemporary chroniclers of the Crusades and few names of individual Frisian crusaders can be found in the historical record. They generally composed a naval force in conjunction with other larger bodies of crusaders.
Guillem AugierNovella was a troubadour from Vienne in the Dauphinois who lived most of his adulthood in Lombardy and was active as a minstrel in the early or mid thirteenth century. According to his late thirteenth-century vida, "he composed good descartz and sirventes in the manner of jongleurs, in which he praised some and blamed others."
Guillem or Guilhem Figueira or Figera was a Languedocian jongleur and troubadour from Toulouse active at the court of the Emperor Frederick II in the 1230s. He was a close associate of both Aimery de Pégulhan and Guillem Augier Novella.
Tomier and Palaizi were two knights and troubadours from Tarascon, possibly brothers, and frequent comrades and co-composers.
Peirol or Peiròl was an Auvergnat troubadour who wrote mostly cansos of courtly love in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Thirty-four surviving poems written in Occitan have been attributed to him; of these, seventeen have surviving melodies. He is sometimes called Peirol d'Auvergne or Peiròl d'Auvèrnha, and erroneously Pierol.
Ricaut Bonomel was a Knight Templar and troubadour in the Holy Land around the time of the Eighth Crusade. He was an outspoken critic of Charles I of Naples and his attempts to secure a throne in Italy, and of the Papal policy which diverted funds intended for the Holy Land to other purposes. He was also a vocal critic of the European clergy who did not preach crusading.
The Barons' Crusade (1239–1241), also called the Crusade of 1239, was a crusade to the Holy Land that, in territorial terms, was the most successful crusade since the First Crusade. Called by Pope Gregory IX, the Barons' Crusade broadly embodied the highest point of papal endeavor "to make crusading a universal Christian undertaking." Gregory IX called for a crusade in France, England, and Hungary with different degrees of success. Although the crusaders did not achieve any glorious military victories, they used diplomacy to successfully play the two warring factions of the Ayyubid dynasty against one another for even more concessions than Frederick II had gained during the more well-known Sixth Crusade. For a few years, the Barons' Crusade returned the Kingdom of Jerusalem to its largest size since 1187.
The War of the Keys (1228–1230) was the first military conflict between Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, and the Papacy. Fighting took place in central and southern Italy. The Papacy made strong gains at first, securing the Papal States and invading the Kingdom of Sicily, while Frederick was away on the Sixth Crusade. Upon his return, he defeated the papal forces, forcing Pope Gregory IX to begin peace talks. After drawn-out negotiations, the treaty of San Germano terminated the conflict with no territorial changes.
Bruder Wernher was an Austrian poet who wrote Middle High German Sprüche, social or political songs, as opposed to love songs.
In the history of the Catholic Church, a crusade indulgence was any indulgence—remission from the penalties imposed by penance—granted to a person who participated in an ecclesiastically sanctioned crusade. It had its origins in the Council of Clermont that closed on 27 November 1095. According to Lambert of Arras, who was present, the council decreed that, "Whoever for devotion alone, not to gain honour or money, goes to Jerusalem to liberate the Church of God can substitute this journey for all penance." This marked the start of the First Crusade. Later popes and councils often invoked "the same remission as instituted by Pope Urban at the council at Clermont." The connection to the liberation of Jerusalem was later weakened and the same or similar indulgence offered to participants in the Northern Crusades and the Albigensian Crusade.