¶ … Song of Roland essentially functions as folklore, which lionizes and creates legends of the works and characters of Charlemagne the Great and his men. The author of this epic poem is unknown, as is the exact date in which it was written. It is commonly believed to have been written in the 12th century. The poem's central action utilizes elements of the history of Charlemagne and his Muslim enemies quite loosely. It takes certain historical events and effectively distorts them for the author's own purpose, which is linked to the encouragement of the spread of Christianity. However, many of the major events depicted within this work actually took place. How and why they did, as well as the intimacy of details that poem supplies by effectively flushing out those particulars, is largely fictional and merely helps to spread the legend of Charlemagne, his men, and the perceived greatness of Christianity. The particular date in which this epic poem was conceived is highly significant to its content. The beginning of the 12 century marks an important date in conventional European Christianity, because it marks the launching point of the Crusades. The Crusades were decades-long struggles of Europeans to overtake areas of Europe and other territory deemed the Holy Land from the grips of Muslims. Crusaders -- warriors, barbarians, and a select few actual religious believers -- really used this movement as an excuse to...
In this respect, this epic poem functions as a means of propaganda for the Crusades. It easily polarizes good and evil -- everything that Charlemagne or any Christian does within this poem (except for maybe the treacherous actions of Ganelon) are deemed wonderful works of God, while actions on the part of Muslims are ultimately utterly unspeakably evil. The significance, then, was to present the defeat at Roncesvals and other aspects of this poem as both motivation and justification for the Crusades.
The Battle of Hattin, as it has come to be known, was a very decisive event in the history of the Crusades. After destroying the Christian army, Saladin and his Muslim brothers quickly conquered almost every Frankish city and on October 2, 1187, the Holy City of Jerusalem fell which signaled the beginning of the Third Crusade, "a reaction to the fall of the Holy City of Jerusalem to the
The Second Crusade, 1147-1149, was led by Louis 7th of France and the Holy Roman Emperor and proved to be a failure (Crusades 1 pp). The purpose of the Third Crusade, 1189-1192, was to reclaim Jerusalem, which had been lost in 1187 to Saladin, the Islamic army's greatest general (Crusades 1 pp). This effort was undermined by the personal rivalry between Philip II of France and Richard I of England
One thing not even Madden can excuse is that cultural and social exchanges between Christians did not lead to compassion towards members of other faiths, particularly Jews. In fact, the crusading impulse invariably, more so with every successive crusade, brought examples of the persecution of Jews in the region. The first crusade almost immediately spawned mass killings of Jews down the Rhine en route to Jerusalem, supposedly because Jews' wealth
Crusades The First Crusade took place from 1096 -- 1099. The First Crusade was a great surprise to both the Christians and the Muslims, the two opposing parties of the Crusades. The victory of the First Crusade went to the Christians. The Crusades were a series of nine wars waged during the Middle Ages between Christians and Muslims. The wars were waged between the 11th and 13th centuries specifically. In 1071, the
Crusades An overview of the book, specifically its focus on the bloody aftermath of the Fourth Crusade to take Jerusalem, as chronicled and assembled by Regine Pernoud in pages 201-216 of his text The text The Crusades by Regine Pernoud presents, in its overview of the events, two contemporary chronicled versions of the pivotal events that took place in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade to take Jerusalem by the Christian world.
He successfully asked the Christian countrymen to volunteer as penance. (4) in a period of flux the faith of the church became a unifying force, where one was greatly needed and men of arms swore allegence to the church and followed many calls for piece within France and other nations, especially freedom from violence against the poor and the faithful. (5) Riley-Smith also makes clear that the conditions of Islam
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