From East to West

From East to West this occupation. This dispute persisted. Finally, the Christian rulers planned to recapture Syria and Palestine through military intervention. The Crusades were a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims, started primarily to secure control of holy sites. In all, eight major Crusade expeditions occurred between 1096 and 1291 AD. During these two hundred years, about nine bloody battles took place between the two groups, but they failed miserably to recapture the holy land despite the Christian Empire’s united efforts. This defeat brought them the realisation that it was not possible to defeat the Muslims through military warfare. Therefore, the Christian nations re-planned their strategy. They called it ‘spiritual crusade’ which actually meant ‘intellectual crusade’. Now the Christian nations turned their attention to the development of science. The writings of Greek and Muslim philosophers were widely translated into Latin. Educational and scientific activities continued on a large scale in Europe. To this spiritual crusade, Oxford University was established in the United Kingdom in 1096 as followed by another institution of excellence, the Cambridge University in 1209 and so on. This spiritual crusade ushered in a great, far-reaching revolution in Europe, known as the Renaissance,