When Crusading armies came back to Christendom, what knowledge did they bring from the Middle East?

by Turnipocalypse

In school, I've seen all these documentaries explaining that Crusaders brought back certain things from their campaigns in the Middle East, but they never talked in-depth about what they brought back, only stating that it would help Europe's growth technology wise. How true is this statement, and if they did bring back things, what specifically did they bring back that would help them? (e.g. manuscripts? siege weaponry? forging methods? etc.)

dandan_noodles

They didn't just crusade in the Levant, and a lot of what they gathered was philosophically important, rather than technologically; there was quite a lot of warring in Iberia as well, and in 1085, Christians captured the city of Toledo with the contents of its famous library intact. A flurry of translation followed, led by Gerard of Cremona, who translated Ptolemy's Mathematical Synthesis, called the Almagest in Arabic, a work of astronomy that gave advanced geometrical models for calculating planetary positions. Also important were works of classical antiquity, especially those of The Philosopher (Aristotle), as annotated by The Commenter, Ibn Rusd; these caused quite a stir in the Paris university community, since they were both considered authoritative, but contradicted theological orthodoxy (generally in saying that God would be bound by logical laws, and that the universe is uncreated).