Every historian in someway knows of The Crusades, the series of Holy Wars fought throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The connotations related to The Crusades are always mostly negative. Usually, one thinks of murder, chaos, and ravenous hordes of European Knights. With this being said, what were the original goals of those Holy Wars? A very short answer:
Conquer the Holy Land
Expel the Saracens
Establish the Kingdom of God
Those threes goals were more or less achieved in the First Crusade. But as history would have it, the Kingdom of Jerusalem did not last very long. Several more crusades proceeded the First, and each one those original goals became clouded and augmented.
b) Approach and Research Question
To explain more directly what this proposal is actually about, I hope to answer a research question through the use of marking up primary source materials for various key words. In particular, I hope to mark up texts about the capture of Jerusalem in the 1st and 4th Crusades, which I will link in the next section.
As far as my research question, I hope to ask: How can one draw conclusions on the goals of the 1st and 4th Crusade through the use of highlighting keywords relating to Christianity and God?
The research question of course could use some fine tuning, but it's mostly complete. Anyways, I hope to be able to show that the First Crusade was more centered on God and the establishment of his Kingdom on Earth, while the Fourth Crusade's goal is centered less on God, and possibly more related to the financial aspect of owning territory in rich Moslem lands.
c) Text
The text(s) I will be using are public domain source materials based on writings from the time of the First and Fourth Crusades. While they are ultimately short, if necessary, I or anyone can find further sources from the respective crusades. Here are the links and titles:
a) Introduction and Background
Every historian in someway knows of The Crusades, the series of Holy Wars fought throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The connotations related to The Crusades are always mostly negative. Usually, one thinks of murder, chaos, and ravenous hordes of European Knights. With this being said, what were the original goals of those Holy Wars? A very short answer:
Those threes goals were more or less achieved in the First Crusade. But as history would have it, the Kingdom of Jerusalem did not last very long. Several more crusades proceeded the First, and each one those original goals became clouded and augmented.
b) Approach and Research Question
To explain more directly what this proposal is actually about, I hope to answer a research question through the use of marking up primary source materials for various key words. In particular, I hope to mark up texts about the capture of Jerusalem in the 1st and 4th Crusades, which I will link in the next section.
As far as my research question, I hope to ask: How can one draw conclusions on the goals of the 1st and 4th Crusade through the use of highlighting keywords relating to Christianity and God?
The research question of course could use some fine tuning, but it's mostly complete. Anyways, I hope to be able to show that the First Crusade was more centered on God and the establishment of his Kingdom on Earth, while the Fourth Crusade's goal is centered less on God, and possibly more related to the financial aspect of owning territory in rich Moslem lands.
c) Text
The text(s) I will be using are public domain source materials based on writings from the time of the First and Fourth Crusades. While they are ultimately short, if necessary, I or anyone can find further sources from the respective crusades. Here are the links and titles: