For hundreds of years, wars have played a determining role in history and have decided the rise and fall of civilizations.
For hundreds of years, wars have played a determining role in history and have decided the rise and fall of civilizations. The Crusades had tremendous consequences for all those involved and claimed the lives of some 3 million people. Besides the obvious death, destruction, and hardships the wars caused, they also had significant political and social effects. The Byzantine Empire ceased to be, the popes became the de facto leaders of the Christian Church, the Italian maritime states cornered the Mediterranean market in East-West trade, the Balkans were Christianized, and the Iberian peninsula saw the Moors pushed back to North Africa. The idea of crusading was stretched even further to provide a religious justification for the conquest of the New World in the 15th and 16th centuries. The sheer cost of the crusades saw the royal houses of Europe grow in power as that of the barons and nobles correspondingly declined. People traveled a little more, especially on pilgrimages, and they