Is there anyone who can give me a clear concise explanation on the causes of the First Crusades.

Nope, and if they say they can, they're lying. The causes of the First Crusade are obscure, manifold, and confusing. History is complex and defies simple answers.

What role did the Papacy have in the First Crusades? Was it militarily? Monetarily?

Pretty much just inspirational and at the beginning organizational, promoting the idea of the crusade and giving it its titular leader, Bishop Adhemar of le Puy.

Why do so many people blame the Church for the Crusades?

Because the institutional church is directly responsible for creating, propagating, and utilizing both the Crusades themselves and the idea of crusading in general.

The concept of blame, however, is an interesting one. It involves seeing the crusades as a particular evil, something which I think says more about the people making the statement than it does about the Crusades.

A good book:

• Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades: A Short History. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

I originally believed the Byzantine Empire called for a crusades against the invading Muslims but after reading more it seems the Pope was calling for a reformation in the East. I'm confused.

Yeah, the Crusades are an incredibly confusing topic and scholars definitely have a variety of opinions on what cause them.

What historians usually agree on is that the Emperor in Constantinople asked Pope Urban II for assistance as the Seljuk Turks had conquered most of Anatolia and it was feared they would make Europe their next target via Constantinople. I'm currently studying under a Crusades historian and he mentioned that the Emperor was expecting a well armed group of Latin knights, what he got however was completely different.

Urban traveled to attend the Council of Clermont where on the last day he gather up all the church leaders that had come and many of the regional land lords and nobles. Once gathered, he gave what was by all accounts a compassionate and moving speech urging those in attendance to take the crusading vow and travel to the Holy Land.

Quoting from the Council of Clermont:

Let those... who are accustomed to wage private wars wastefully even against Believers, go forth against the Infidels in a battle worth to be undertaken now and to be finished in victory. Now let those, who formerly existed as plunderers, be soldiers of Christ.

It goes on like that for awhile, here's a English translation . Its quite clear that Urban intended to go beyond simply responding to the Emperor's call for aid, instead it appears he meant for something grander to happen. For Urban, and many Christians the main issue was safe passage to Jerusalem. The Fatimid's of Egypt had allowed for the peaceful pilgrimage to Jerusalem for many, but since the invasion of the Seljuk Turks into the Levant, here is a map, Christians were no longer safe. Frequently Turkish raiding parties would harass and kill Christians on their pilgrimage.

It is important to note that Medievals did not called the Crusades the crusades, in fact the word they used was "pilgrim" and that concept was not foreign to Christians by the late eleventh century. In fact pilgrimage was a common penance issued at confession, to a local church, a saintly site, or even Jerusalem. When Urban refers to "those who wage private wars" he may be speaking about the landed class of knights, whose lifestyle and work was based on combat and death. My professor refers likes to refer to the Crusades as a release valve that effectively gives a rout of absolution to those who spend their whole lives sinning and killing.

I cannot stress enough that the crusades were understood by Medievals as a holy pilgrimage above everything else. If you preformed your vows of making it to Jerusalem or died along the way you were granted a special indulgence from the Church.

What role did the Papacy have in the First Crusades? Was it militarily? Monetarily?

I hope I've demonstrated that the Papacy was the prime influence for the Crusading movement, in fact one of the things that separates the Crusades from simple Holy Wars is the fact that they are called by the Pope. However, The Church did not directly provide men, but it seems likely that many Church officials helped fund the journey, for most of those who went on the First Crusade funded the journey themselves, from the peasants to the nobles.

After the Council of Clermont, as many as 60,000 people took up the vow of pilgrimage, stitched red crosses to their outfits and marched through eastern Europe, through Constantinople and then fought their way through the middle of Anatolia to Antioch and then finally on to Jerusalem, which they conquered in 1099.

I figured as much. This stemmed from a discussion with my roommate about the utilization of force by governments and religious entities. I argued that government institutes by force whilst the Catholic Church is instituted by faith and volunteerism. She concluded that the Papacy does force and her example was the Crusades.

I would stress that the First Crusade was almost entirely an popular event, most individuals who participated were volunteers and in my opinion felt a genuine religious conviction to participate and receive absolution of their sins.

Any additional questions?

• Jordan, William Chester. Europe in the High Middle Ages. Penguin, 2001.

• Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades: A Short History. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

• Discovering The Western Past Volume 1: to 1789. 6th ed. Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 2008.

I've done a little reading on the development of the crusading idea and I've been partial to Erdmann's classic text, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade (1935; English version, 1977). While I don't think the book would clearly answer all your questions, it does shed light on the Papacy's role and why people were eager to participate, which sort of addresses "the blame" question. Essentially, Erdmann argued that church teachings were slowly corrupted over several hundred years, that it eventually got to the point that violence could be sanctioned by church leaders if given the proper spin.

The aforementioned Riley-Smith challenged Erdmann's thesis in The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading but I found it rather unsatisfying. His main argument was to show that the First Crusade was not purely driven by ideology and that the crusader's experiences on the war path helped cement the crusading idea for future crusades. I think Riley-Smith is technically correct, but he completely dismisses the centuries of ideological preparation that Erdmann covered in his book. The two books really should not be read in opposition to each other.