The First Crusade helped to diversify and change the historical development of Christianity and other various sub-groups. The power of Christianity in Western Europe was growing along with its population. The newly rehabilitated and orgainised Church began to gain great power. A new Europe was being born with the Catholic Church as a force in every area of life.
In Christian beliefs Jesus Christ was to return in the year 1000A.D. Knowing this, the people of Europe expected the return of Christ and feared the 'Wrath of God'. Clergy members were often consulted to figure out what would be a suitable penance to free Christians from their. 'The Church itself still frequently imposed pilgrimages as a penance' .
A pilgrimage to the Holy Land was not an easy task to say the least. The road to Jerusalem was rough. On the way to Jerusalem, pilgrims were often murdered by thieves.
They were powerless and often did not return. They came back with tales that planted the seeds for a Crusade. 'The pilgrims that returned from the Holy City of Jerusalem recounted tales, often grossly exaggerated, of the horrible pollution of the sacred places at the hands of the Turks' .
Other stories of the destruction of the Church of the Holy burial chamber, the burial place of Jesus, by the Turks surfaced in the early eleventh century, which saddened the Christians. The news of the destruction of the burial chamber was mourned in every Christian country. The nations looked to Rome for a answer to this most somber of Problems.
In 1095, at the Council of Clermont in southern France, 'Urban II challenged Christians to take up their weapons against the infidels and participate in a holy war and recapture the 'Holy Land' . Pope Urban II addressed the French...