The Crusades were a series of religious wars fought by the Latin church in the medieval period. The best-known crusades were groups in the eastern Mediterranean aimed at recovering the Holy Land from Muslim rule. At the time of the First Crusades the word Crusade did not exist, becoming the primary word described only around 1760. In 1095, Pope Urban II called for the First Crusades in a sermon at the Council of Clermont. He advocated military support for the Byzantine Empire and its emperor, Alexios I. He needed some reinforcements for his war with the Turks who were migrating west and settling in Anatolia. One of Urban's goals was to grant pilgrims access to the Muslim-controlled holy sites of the eastern Mediterranean, but scholars disagreed that this was Urban's or the people who heard his call. Urban's ideas were to unite the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity, which has been divided by the Eastern-Western split due to opposing sections in the Mediterranean since 1054, and to establish himself as head of the United Church. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayThe Crusades succeed in founding the first four Crusader states in the eastern Mediterranean: the country of Edessa, the principality of Antioch, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the country of Tripoli, The happy responses to Urban's preaching by all members of the upper, middle, and lower classes of Western Europe set a precedent for other crusades. The volunteers became crusaders by making a public vow and all received indulgences from the Church. They were determined to remove all other religions on the face of the planet and establish Christianity as the only major religion from then until the end of time and they did this with brute force and murderous acts, they believed that God would send soldiers to the heaven if they went out and killed anyone who did not submit to their beliefs or had a faith other than Christianity and sacrificed themselves to the great almighty God. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper now from our expert writers. Get a Custom Essay Most of them killed mainly Islamic people with whom they had been at war for two centuries. The Crusaders killed 1.7 million people because they did not believe in God. The Crusaders sought to gain glory and honor or fulfill feudal obligations. It took two centuries of attempts to reconquer the Holy Lands and the Crusaders failed to reconquer the Holy Lands, but there were six major crusades and numerous less major crusades after the First Crusade. After the fall of the last Catholic outposts in 1291 there were no more crusades, but the mass toll that the crusades left behind was more lasting in northern and western Europe. The Wendi Crusades and the Archbishop of Bremen brought all of the northeastern Baltic and the tribes of Mecklenburg and Lusatia under Catholic control