The Crusades In The Canterbury Tales

The Crusades were a series of wars that included the countries of Europe and the Western Anatolia. These countries fought in faith, and fought to spread their ideology to other countries. However, not only did they fight for what they believed in, they also fought for a part of land in Jerusalem that played in important role in their beliefs. With the wars coming and happening, also came new ideas in culture, arts and even literature. The idea of the Crusades can guide us to better understand the literature between the Dark through Middle ages, due to the Muslims and Christians fighting over the Holy Land for what they believed in. The Christians and Muslims all wanted control of the Holy Land due to its significant meaning in their religion. To the Christians, it was the land where their god, Christ, was “...crucified and rose from the dead” (“Crusade Facts”). This religious event shows how significant the land is to Europe and their religion. However to the Muslims, it was the land where their god, Muhammad, had
Geoffrey Chaucer emerged from the Crusades as an English writer, and wrote the famous, The Canterbury Tales. The book is considered one of his most acclaimed piece of works, being made up of various fictional stories and characters (“Geoffrey Chaucer”). However in one story, known as the The Knight, it portrays one of the Knights military past. The Knights past included him serving in, “....the Crusades, wars in which Europeans traveled by sea to non-Christian lands and attempted to convert whole cultures by the force of their swords” (“The Canterbury Tales”). This summarization of the story, is a direct reference to the Crusades which shows how the author, Geoffrey Chaucer, had an influence from the wars. This also gives readers a bit of a better understanding as to how Chaucer had created the background of the Knight, portraying him as some type of noble