“The Muslims have conquered Jerusalem”. In 1095 pope Urban II shocked all of Western Europe with these words. He wanted the Christians to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims. All over France were the warring words of the Christians “god wills it”.

All in all there were six crusades in a period of 176 years. They started in 1095 and ended in 1271. The German, French and Italians were the European Christians that went on crusades. In fact the word “crusade” literally means war of the cross. In a crusade there were pilgrims who were going to pray in Jerusalem, groomers that cleaned the horses, wives and children of the knights, and two kinds of knights: a mounted knight who rod on a horse and a foot soldier that walked on foot. In the first crusade most of the Christian casualties were from hunger, dehydration, and disease, and when they finally got to Jerusalem they slaughtered anyone they could find. To the proud knights of the crusades dying was worth the forgiveness of their sins (which urban II had promised them), and they would kill anyone in the way of their victory. However not all knights had holy intent. Some of them went on the crusades to get rich or to steal a new home for themselves from the people they were fighting. When the Europeans were attacked in a crusade they used huge siege weapons. The ballista was the simplest weapon. It was an over sized crossbow which could shoot arrows a distance of 350- 450 yards which was quit the technological achievement of the time. The mangonel was a medium range catapult. The trebuchet was the most powerful siege weapon. It was a catapult that could throw projectiles long range. A battering ram was a log cut from a heavy tree. The battering ram got its name because the Romans said it looked like a ram. It was then tied onto a penthouse to protect the knight from arrows and it took twelve men to swing it. All these siege weapons were used to get into Jerusalem by the knights of the crusades.