Looking for effects, not just battles
The fighting in the East was far away from most Europeans. Its effects, though, reached villages, monasteries and royal courts. This article follows those effects as they happened in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: how expeditions were paid for, how families coped, how the church used crusading to extend its reach, and what contact with other cultures did and did not change. The lasting memory of the movement is covered separately.
Paying for an expedition
A crusade was expensive. A knight needed a horse, armor, servants and supplies for a journey that could last years. Many raised money by selling or mortgaging land, often to a monastery or to a lender. Monasteries sometimes gained property this way, and some families seem to have lost it for a generation or more. Historians debate how widespread this was, because the surviving charters mostly record the transactions that ended up in church archives.
Kings faced the same problem on a bigger scale. In 1188 the kings of France and England agreed on a special levy for the coming Third Crusade, often called the Saladin tithe, which was charged on income and movable goods. Whatever its short-term results, a tax granted for a stated religious cause set a precedent. Rulers learned that subjects might accept a levy if the justification was strong enough, and this became part of the longer growth of royal administration.
Church taxation and authority
The papacy was a leader of the movement from the start, and over time it also began to tax its own clergy to pay for crusades. Collecting a share of church income for a papal purpose, rather than a local one, helped to build the machinery of the medieval church. Preaching campaigns, legates and fund collection all brought the church’s reach into everyday life. Critics complained that the money was sometimes misused, and that crusading indulgences could look like a cash trade. The papal leadership of the effort also raised the prestige of the pope, although how far it increased papal power in the long run is still discussed.
Families and the knightly class
Going on crusade meant leaving a household. Wives sometimes ran estates in the absence of husbands, and widows and heirs had to deal with the consequences of deaths abroad. Some families gained a reputation from a crusading ancestor, which could be useful in an age that valued lineage. Chroniclers and family legends sometimes exaggerated this, and individual stories need checking against other sources.
The military orders were a new type of institution for the knightly class: groups of men who took monastic vows while still fighting. The Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller received gifts of land across Europe and ran estates that fed the war effort in the East. They could be useful to kings as bankers and administrators, and they were sometimes resented for their privileges.
Trade and the Italian cities
Ships were needed to carry people and supplies, and the Italian maritime cities took the business. Merchants from Venice and Genoa, among others, gained trading rights and quarters in eastern ports, often in return for naval support. This strengthened links with Eastern markets for goods such as silk and spices. Trade between Europe and the Levant had existed before the crusades, so the movement is better seen as an accelerator than as the starting point.
Contact with Muslim and Byzantine worlds
Crusaders met people whose customs, food, medicine and building techniques were different. Some settlers adopted local dress and learned Arabic, and Western visitors saw cities larger than many in Europe. The Byzantine Empire, a Christian state, was an uneasy partner at best, and mutual suspicion grew over time. Contact also hardened attitudes. Stories of treachery and difference fed a sense of religious boundaries on both sides. Learning mostly flowed to Europe through other channels, such as Spain and Sicily, rather than through the crusader states.
What to be careful about
It is tempting to credit the crusades with almost every change in the period, from new foods to castle design. Many changes had other causes, such as population growth, and the evidence for a direct link is often thin. A sound reading is that crusading mattered most where it can be tied to specific records, such as taxes, land transactions and papal letters, and that its wider effects were mixed and varied from region to region.