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2 • Europe on the Brink of Change 21
In 1095, however, European Christians decided not only to retake the holy city from the Muslim rulers but also
to conquer what they called the Holy Lands, an area that extended from modern-day Turkey in the north along
the Mediterranean coast to the Sinai Peninsula and that was also held by Muslims. The Crusades had begun.
Religious zeal motivated the knights who participated in the four Crusades. Adventure, the chance to win land
and a title, and the Church’s promise of wholesale forgiveness of sins also motivated many. The Crusaders,
mostly French knights, retook Jerusalem in June 1099 amid horri_c slaughter. A French writer who
accompanied them recorded this eyewitness account: “On the top of Solomon’s Temple, to which they had
climbed in `eeing, many were shot to death with arrows and cast down headlong from the roof. Within this
Temple, about ten thousand were beheaded. If you had been there, your feet would have been stained up to the
ankles with the blood of the slain. What more shall I tell? Not one of them was allowed to live. They did not
spare the women and children.” A Muslim eyewitness also described how the conquerors stripped the temple
of its wealth and looted private homes.
In 1187, under the legendary leader Saladin, Muslim forces took back the city. Reaction from Europe was swift
as King Richard I of England, the Lionheart, joined others to mount yet another action. The battle for the Holy
Lands did not conclude until the Crusaders lost their Mediterranean stronghold at Acre (in present-day Israel)
in 1291 and the last of the Christians left the area a few years later.
The Crusades had lasting effects, both positive and negative. On the negative side, the wide-scale persecution
of Jews began. Christians classed them with the in_del Muslims and labeled them “the killers of Christ.” In the
coming centuries, kings either expelled Jews from their kingdoms or forced them to pay heavy tributes for the
privilege of remaining. Muslim-Christian hatred also festered, and intolerance grew.
On the positive side, maritime trade between East and West expanded. As Crusaders experienced the feel of
silk, the taste of spices, and the utility of porcelain, desire for these products created new markets for
merchants. In particular, the Adriatic port city of Venice prospered enormously from trade with Islamic
merchants. Merchants’ ships brought Europeans valuable goods, traveling between the port cities of western
Europe and the East from the tenth century on, along routes collectively labeled the Silk Road. From the days
of the early adventurer Marco Polo, Venetian sailors had traveled to ports on the Black Sea and established
their own colonies along the Mediterranean Coast. However, transporting goods along the old Silk Road was
costly, slow, and unpro_table. Muslim middlemen collected taxes as the goods changed hands. Robbers waited
to ambush the treasure-laden caravans. A direct water route to the East, cutting out the land portion of the trip,
had to be found. As well as seeking a water passage to the wealthy cities in the East, sailors wanted to _nd a
route to the exotic and wealthy Spice Islands in modern-day Indonesia, whose location was kept secret by
Muslim rulers. Longtime rivals of Venice, the merchants of Genoa and Florence also looked west.
THE IBERIAN PENINSULA
Although Norse explorers such as Leif Ericson, the son of Eric the Red who _rst settled Greenland, had reached
Canada roughly _ve hundred years prior to Christopher Columbus’s voyage, it was explorers sailing for
Portugal and Spain who traversed the Atlantic throughout the _fteenth century and ushered in an
unprecedented age of exploration and permanent contact with North America.
Located on the extreme western edge of Europe, Portugal, with its port city of Lisbon, soon became the center
for merchants desiring to undercut the Venetians’ hold on trade. With a population of about one million and
supported by its ruler Prince Henry, whom historians call “the Navigator,” this independent kingdom fostered
exploration of and trade with western Africa. Skilled shipbuilders and navigators who took advantage of maps
from all over Europe, Portuguese sailors used triangular sails and built lighter vessels called caravels that
could sail down the African coast.
Just to the east of Portugal, King Ferdinand of Aragon married Queen Isabella of Castile in 1469, uniting two of
the most powerful independent kingdoms on the Iberian peninsula and laying the foundation for the modern
nation of Spain. Isabella, motivated by strong religious zeal, was instrumental in beginning the Inquisition in
