From the Confines of Jerusalem and the City of Constantinople a Horrible Tale Has Gone

CRUSADES

Document A: Crusades
"Urban II: Call to Crusade (1095)." World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras. ABC-CLIO, 2015. Web. 15 June 2015.

From the confines of Jerusalem and the city of Constantinople a horrible tale has gone forth and very frequently has been brought to our ears, namely, that a race from the kingdom of the Persians, an accursed race, a race utterly alienated from God, a generation forsooth which has not directed its heart and has not entrusted its spirit to God, has invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire; it has led away a part of the captives into its own country, and a part it has destroyed by cruel tortures; it has either entirely destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of its own religion. They destroy the altars, after having defiled them with their uncleanness. . . .

Whoever, therefore, shall determine upon this holy pilgrimage and shall make his vow to God to that effect and shall offer himself to Him as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, shall wear the sign of the cross of the Lord on his forehead or on his breast. When, truly, having fulfilled his vow, he wishes to return, let him place the cross on his back between his shoulders. Such, indeed, by the twofold action will fulfill the precept of the Lord, as He commands in the Gospel, 'He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.'"

Summary of the Document A: ______

Document B: Crusades
The Islamic leader Saladin’s speech urging his people to retake Jerusalem, 1187

“If God blesses us by enabling us to drive His enemies out of Jerusalem, how fortunate and happy we would be! For Jerusalem has been controlled by the enemy for ninety-one years, during which time God has received nothing from us here in the way of adoration. At the same time, the zeal {devotion} of the Muslim rulers to deliver it languished {weakened}. Time passed, and so did many indifferent generations, while the Franks succeeded in rooting themselves strongly there. Now God has reserved the merit of its recovery for one house, the house of the sons of Ayyub [Saladin’s family], in order to unite all hearts in appreciation of its members.”

Summary of the Document B: ______

SILK ROAD

Document C: Silk Road
Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa, The Travels of Marco Polo, Volumes 1 and 2. Trans. Henry Yule. Ed. Henri Cordier. A Project Gutenberg EBook. Release Date 1 January 2004. EBook-No. 10636.

Now you must know that from this city of Cambaluc proceed many roads and highways leading to a variety of provinces, one to one province, another to another.... [and] every twenty-five miles of the journey [there is] a station which they call Yamb, or, as we should say, the ‘Horse-Post-House.’ And at each of those stations... there is a large and handsome building... in which they find all the rooms furnished with fine beds and all other necessary articles.... At some of these stations, moreover, there shall be posted some four hundred horses standing ready.... at others there shall be two hundred, according to the requirements, and to what the Emperor has established in each case.... Even...through a roadless tract where neither house nor hostel exists, still there the station-houses have been established just the same....But they are provided with horses and all the other necessaries just like those we have described, so that the Emperor’s messengers, come they from what region they may, find everything ready for them.... And in this way the Emperor, who has an immense number of these runners, receives dispatches with news from places ten days’ journey off in one day and night; or, if need be, news from a hundred days off in ten days and nights; and that is no small matter!

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Document D: Silk Road
Excerpt From The Rihla Of Ibn Battuta

When the new moon of the month Shawwal [that precedes Ramadan, the season of fasting, in the Muslim calendar] appeared in the same year [1st September 1326], the Hijaz caravan left Damascus and I set off along with it. At Bosra the caravans usually halt for four days so that any who have been detained at Damascus by business affairs may make up on them. . . . The caravan stopped for four days at a place called ath-Thaniya outside Karak, where preparations were made for entering the desert. Thence we journeyed to Ma`an, which is the last town in Syria, and from 'Aqabat as -Sawan entered the desert, of which the saying goes: "He who enters it is lost, and he who leaves it is born." . . . The Syrian pilgrims have a custom that, on reaching the camp at Tabuk, they take their weapons, unsheathe their swords, and charge upon the camp, striking the palms with their swords and saying "Thus did the Prophet of God enter it." The great caravan halts at Tabuk for four days to rest and to water the camels and lay in water for the terrible desert between Tabuk and al-'Ula. The custom of the water-carriers is to camp beside the spring, and they have tanks made of buffalo hides, like great cisterns, from which they water the camels and fill the waterskins. Each amir or person of rank has a special tank for the needs of his own camels and personnel; the other people make private agreements with the watercarriers to water their camels and fill their waterskins for a fixed sum of money.

Summary of the Document D: ______

PLAGUE

Document E: The Bubonic Plague
"Guy de Chauliac: on the Black Death at Avignon (1348)." World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras. ABC-CLIO, 2015. Web. 15 June 2015.

It [the plague] was of two kinds; the first lasted two months, with constant fever and blood-spitting, and of this people died in three days.
The second lasted for the under the arm or in the groin, and the disease ran its course in five days. The contagion was so great (especially when there was blood-spitting) that not only by remaining (with the sick), but even by looking (at them) people seemed to take it; so much so, that many died without any to serve them, and were buried without priests to pray over their graves.
A father did not visit his son, nor the son his father. Charity was dead. The mortality was so great that it left hardly a fourth part of the population. Even the doctors did not dare to visit the sick from fear of infection, and when they did visit them they attempted nothing to heal them, and thus almost all those who were taken ill died, except towards the end of the epidemic, when some few recovered. In this, together with constant fever, there were external carbuncles, or buboes.

Summary of the Document E: ______

Document F: The Bubonic Plague Ibn al-Wardi, “An Essay on the Report of the Pestilence” 1974

The Plague frightened and killed. It began in the land of darkness. Oh, what a visitor! It has been current for fifteen years. China was not preserved from it nor could the strongest fortress hinder it. The plague afflicted the Indians in India. It weighed upon the Sind. It seized with its hand and ensnared even the land of the Uzbeks. The plague increased and spread further. It attacked the Persians . . . and gnawed away at the Crimea. The plague destroyed mankind in Cairo. Its eye was cast upon Egypt, and behold, the people were wide awake. It stilled all movement in Alexandria. The plague did its work like a silkworm.

Oh Alexandria. This plague is like a lion which extends its arm to you. Have patience with the fate of the plague, which leaves of seventy men only seven.

Summary of the Document F: ______

Finally, review all of the documents, their summaries, and the positive and negative interactions, address the following writing prompt:

Looking at the interactions between East and West during the Middle Ages, do you feel the interactions were mostly positive or negative? Your response should be one well-developed paragraph (7-9 sentences) and should provide at least three pieces of evidence to back up your opinion. You may include any information provided in these documents, as well as from your previous notebook entries. Please highlight your pieces of evidence.

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