What were the crusades?

They started in 1096 A.D. and continued on and off for several hundred years. The christians began them when thy recaptured the holy land from the muslims and that is jerusalem where jesus was born. The first crusade would bring prestiege and power to the catholic church so that is why the pope started it. He also thought it would help reduce the conflicts taking place in Europe by sending the knights to capture the holy land.

The second crusade was because the crusade states in jerusulem were being attacked constatly by the muslims and need more resources and reinforcments. The crusades to me didn't seem very christian like, I mean to me i don't se christians as people who go and kill people just so they could have the riches of that land not the land itself. The muslims were slefish to because all they wanted that land back for was to reunite their territory so they didn't have other people living in the empire. The third crusade was because the christians wanted the land back they had lost in the second one. They had three leaders and they were all generals. One of the leaders died in jerusulim(which probably a good place to die because it was the "holy" land sooo he). The other two were to stuburn and they didn't get along at all so one of them went back and the other captured the holy land back from the muslims.