The Christian Crusades
Christians had always travelled to Jerusalem, the Jewish city where Jesus died and rose from the dead and the Church had its beginnings. After the forces of Islam captured Jerusalem in 638, Christians were still able to visit the city. But by the eleventh century, the situation had changed. Just as the number of pilgrims to Jerusalem reached a new peak, the Seljuk Turks took over control of Jerusalem and stopped all pilgrimages.
The popes responded by calling on the forces of Western Europe to win back Jerusalem from Islam. The series of campaigns that resulted came to be termed the Crusades – after the cross of cloth that the crusaders wore as their badge. However, the people of the time knew them simply as pilgrimages or journeys.