Title: The Positive and Negative Effects of The Crusades
Headings: Positive and Negative Effects of The Crusades
Positive and Negative Effects of The Crusades
What were the Crusades?
How have the views of the Crusades changed?
What were the positive effects of the Crusades?
The spread of modern banking in Europe
The Crusades weakened Feudalism
The Transfer of Ideas
Expanded trade and urban prosperity
Rise of the merchant class
The negative effects of the Crusades
War and senseless violence
Opened the door for invasion
Rise in antisemitism
Modern justifications for violence
The Verdict
Alan Behrens

Content: The violence wasn’t even only against Muslims. Many Europeans used the Crusades as an excuse to carry out horrible massacres of their Jewish neighbors. Nothing the Crusader’s work was pointless. They managed to set up a few short-lived kingdoms, before being driven out in the 13th century. Opened the door for invasion
Though I want to point out that this is only a negative impact for Europeans, the Crusades ultimately sped up what it tried to stop – the expansion of Muslim powers into Eastern Europe. The initial purpose of the First Crusade was to drive back the Seljuk Turks but quickly devolved into an obsession with putting Jerusalem back under Christian control. Crusaders did not return conquered land. Instead, they set up competing satellite kingdoms that further weakened Byzantium. By the fourth Crusade, Byzantium and the Crusaders were at war, resulting in the sacking of Constantinople in 1204. Eventually, this led to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the Ottoman Empire’s conquest of a large chunk of Eastern Europe.