Which of the following was of greater importance in explaining why people went on the 1 st Crusade?
(I) The Indulgence
(ii) Primogeniture
The indulgence was a key religious factor in explaining motivation for the 1 st Crusade. Indulgence was
forgiveness and a guaranteed place in heaven given in return for a penance, which was a harsh action to
show sorrow and ask for forgiveness. Those who went on the 1 st crusade were offered an indulgence by
Pope Urban so that all sins which were confessed would be forgiven so that people now had a guaranteed
place in heaven. This was very important to people during the 11 th century as religion controlled all aspects
of their lives and people often lived their lives in a way that would guarantee them a place in heaven.
Getting into heaven was crucial for people and a lot of churches displayed doom paintings which
represented people’s fears of hell. Therefore, the indulgence was a very important factor in explaining why
people went on the first crusade because religion controlled all aspects of people’s lives and applied to
everyone regardless of social class.
Moreover, another key factor in explaining why people went on the 1 st crusade was primogeniture, which
was a socio-economic push factor. Primogeniture was a fairly new practice in Europe during the 11 th
century and was becoming very common amongst the aristocracy. This was the idea that the eldest son
would inherit all of his father’s lands and wealth, leaving the youngest son with nothing. This led to the
youngest son having to find his own land to own. The first crusade offered a perfect opportunity for this as
Urban promised land in the Holy Land. This encouraged the younger sons to go on the first crusade to
conquer their own land. For example, Baldwin of Boulogne and Bohemond of Taranto were both the
youngest sons of rich aristocrats who went to the Holy Land to conquer their own land. However, this
factor is limited in importance. Unlike the indulgence, this factor only applies to the aristocracy which was
a small percentage of the people who went on the first crusade. Also, in the example of Baldwin of
Boulogne, he initially went on the crusade for religious reasons and it wasn’t until his wife passed away
that gaining land was important to him.
To conclude, whilst both primogeniture and the indulgence were key factors in explaining motivation for
the first crusade, in my opinion the indulgence is of greater importance. Whilst primogeniture was an
important factor to some extent as it encouraged the upper classes to go on the first crusade, its important
is limited as it does not apply to everyone and had also existed for a few years without a crusade.
Therefore, this was more of a pre-existing and background factor. On the other hand, the indulgence was
one of the most important reasons for people going on the first crusade in general. As previously
mentioned, unlike primogeniture, the promise of an indulgence applied to everyone as everyone during
this time period was highly religious and religion controlled almost every aspect of people’s lives whereas
socio-economic factors such as primogeniture only controlled a smaller aspect.
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