Originally Posted by Odin88

Hey you ignorant, self-hating piece of shit why don't you actually stick to what you know (what is that again?).

Most of the crusaders (particularly with regards to the first crusades) where already very wealthy individuals who owned plenty of land within Europe.

The crusades weren't the cause of paranoid Christian fanatics, they where the result of fact. From the time of Mohammed's death Muslims quickly took control (from Christians) of Palestine, Syria and Egypt (once the most heavily Christian areas in the world). In the eight century Muslims had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century they conquered what is known as Turkey today (which was heavily Christian before than). The old Roman Empire was than reduced to little more than Greece, and by the Othordox Christians than reached out asking for Catholics in the West to come aid them in the East (at the time Christians where basically treated as slaves in Islamic countries).

In 1095 Pope Urban II called upon the knights of the Christendom to push back the Islamic conquests and aid their Christian brothers in the East, and that is what lead to the crusades as we know it. At the end of the Crusades (after many years of battle) muslims (unlike shown in the Kingdom of Heaven bullshit movie) where preparing to invade Europe, and where it not for the death of one leader, and poor management by another it is almost undeniable that it would of went ahead. The only thing that stopped it from eventuating was the rising economic strength of Europe. Without the Crusades, Christianity might well have followed Zoroastrianism, a rival to Islam that was driven to non-existance.