Very significant changes happened in this century, beginning with the turn of the millennium. It also marked the transition from the so-called High Middle Ages to the Low Middle Ages.

In the passage to the year one thousand, there was a great problem in the behavior of the people, because, when they had the sensation that this mark was approaching, there arose an intense fear that they were walking toward the end of the world. There was an outbreak of panic and collective hysteria, registered by history in this narrow window of time of the turn of the millennium. Many people went to the streets screaming that the world would end, that the Apocalypse was arriving and that Jesus would be returning. Others were influenced and began to act in the same way. A total frenzy!

As the years were passing, this outbreak was disappearing and dissipating from history. In 1033, when was completed the age that Jesus would have reached in life, many remained sure that He would not return anymore. There are scholars that affirm that this process of collective hysteria was directly related to the panic provoked by the turn of the millennium.

Another important change was the arising of the boroughs. Before, the life was much more agricultural; the people lived in rural areas and lived mainly from that which they produced. The cities, properly said, still were little developed. They began, then, to arise the first embryos of the modern society. Professional specializations appeared, such as the artisans; the commerce gained prominence; the idea of currency was strengthened; and there came to exist an economy still deeply feudal, but marked by the growth of the businesses.

There were changes also in the field of philosophy, with the resumption of the Aristotelian and Platonic thought. It was in this century that the Bait al-Hikma (House of Wisdom) really stood out and reached its apex.

Various personalities passed through the House of Wisdom and became celebrated, such as Avicenna, already mentioned in the previous century. He was the greatest thinker of his time, a polymath that dominated practically all the areas of knowledge, being the principal intellectual exponent of the period.

When Avicenna died, in the middle of the century, Al-Biruni, another great polymath, stood out among the scholars linked to the Islamic intellectual tradition. Al-Biruni also possessed comprehensive knowledge and traveled through various regions of the world in search of learning and information about different peoples and cultures. They were two of the greatest exponents of the Islamic world, holders of extraordinary knowledge.

In 1054 occurred the Schism of the East, a definitive division in the Church. One of the reasons was that the pope desired that all the Christian world, both eastern and western — this already quite fragmented —, remained under the authority of a single man. However, the eastern part defended that the primacy be shared among five patriarchs, seated in Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. The western part did not agree, sustaining that only Rome should exercise authority over all. There were various justifications for this rupture, but perhaps the principal of them has been of political nature.

The Roman Empire of the West already did not possess anymore an emperor that sustained politically the authority of the pope, while the Empire of the East still counted with this structure. Even so, Rome did not yield. The divisions deepened and numerous divergences arose.

In the year of 1054, pope Leo IX sent one of his envoys to Constantinople. There arose, then, some questions of religious nature in debate, mainly two points. The first of them was the filioque creed (“son”, in Latin). The western part began to diverge from the eastern part because of the thesis of the Holy Spirit, that had arisen in the year 325, in the Council of Nicaea, when was established the idea of the consubstantiation: God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are a single person. God became man upon becoming Jesus. The discussion turned to a dilemma: when Jesus died, who would be God? He would remain in the Holy Spirit. This was the form found by Catholics and, further ahead, Protestants to reconcile the idea that God remains among us in the figure of the Holy Spirit.

Then, for the western part, the Holy Spirit was the presence of God or of Jesus, that would be the same person. Already for the eastern part, the Holy Spirit was only a manifestation of the presence of God. For them, God and Jesus are the same person, but, after the resurrection of Jesus, who manifests himself is the Holy Spirit of God.

The westerners used the unleavened bread (without ferment), while the easterners used the leavened bread, for they understood that it was not necessary to follow to the letter this Jewish custom. The easterners also used beards; the westerners, not. In the Western Empire one spoke Latin, and in the Eastern Empire, Greek.

Another motive of the discord was the simony, the sale of ecclesiastical positions. Rich families of Rome bought positions in the Church and elected popes. For the easterners this was not admissible, reason by which they rejected such practice. Another divergence was the iconoclasm. The westerners worshiped characters that marked the history and built images of their figures, passing, then, to venerate them. For the easterners, one worshiped only God. The maximum tolerated was the representation of the saints in the form of mosaics, paintings or icons.

In the Roman Catholic Church (West) there exists the original sin, with emphasis in the thesis of the inherited guilt. When someone is baptized, he frees himself from the sin committed by Adam, for this one had attempted against the orders of God, being expelled from paradise. Thus, the Catholics would inherit this sin and would need to be baptized to free themselves from it. In the adolescence, it would be necessary the reaffirmation of this baptism by means of another sacrament, the confirmation. Already for the orthodox Catholics (those of the East), the original sin is consequence of the distancing of the man in relation to God. One does not inherit something from Adam; in truth, one inherits the consequences of his separation from God. Even the vestments are different between the two traditions: those of the Roman Catholics are more simple; those of the Orthodox, more sumptuous.

The Bible also presents differences for both. The Christians constituted their Old Testament from the twenty-four books of the Torah, or Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), unfolding them and resulting in thirty-nine books. However, when occurred this division between Catholics and Orthodox, to the Bible of the Orthodox were added some books and one more psalm.

In the 3rd century B.C., there were also the deuterocanonical books, when arose the Septuagint (version of the Bible translated by the seventy sages of Alexandria). It was produced a Greek version of the Hebrew Torah, with various alterations, and this would have been the first modification suffered by the text. The second would have been the addition of other books...

There arose in this century pope Gregory VII, who was a true watershed, for he tried to moralize the Church and end with the mixture between the religious power and the secular power, proposing the conclaves. The pope would pass to be chosen in meetings of the members of the Church; he would not be indicated anymore by third parties, as happened previously. It was decided, then, that the cardinals would define who would sit on the throne of Peter (the first pope). The cardinals gather themselves in a room, “pass the key”, and the door only is opened when the new leader of the Church is chosen (Conclave).

This pope Gregory VII established another rule, the combat to the Nicolaism: the pope and all the priests below him could not maintain sexual relations; it was the celibacy of right within the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church. This pope came to put more order inside the Church, whose ideals were quite distorted. He was also one of the first to establish the papal supremacy: all should follow his directives. However, if the pope incurs in error, we err all...

This reform was very important in this century. We also had the presence of another pope, Benedict IX, who occupied the papacy for three times. In his first pontificate, he was extremely young, having between twelve and twenty years of age.

It was necessary that something be done to provide a more secure guidance to the Church, in that period, aiming at its improvement. In this century began the Crusades, one of the greatest mistakes of the history of Christianity.

With the territorial advance of Islam, began to arise certain discomfort among the Christian nations, and there was a hardening of the relations. It was perceived that, on the side of the Muslims, there was a greater tendency to confrontation. They were in more favorable position: they possessed the Bait al-Hikma (House of Wisdom), while the Christians little had, not even enough wisdom, for they persecuted their own researchers and thinkers...

There was, then, a movement inside Islam questioning this partnership and this relation of subservience to the Roman question, for, in the previous centuries, there had existed a process of mutual respect between Christians and Muslims. On the Roman side, the movement was similar. Islam advanced territorially, and this was an indisputable fact. The Islamic doctrine was converting many people, another fact. Jerusalem had already been taken more than three centuries ago. It is important to remember that, during the period of leadership of Charlemagne and of the caliph Harun al-Rashid, there was much respect and friendship between both. It was a time of peace.

“It cannot be affirmed that the Crusades began because the Muslims had taken Jerusalem, for already had passed three centuries since then. In the background, it was about a political question: the conquest of the land in which Jesus lived.”

In this moment of history, a new empire consolidated itself: the Holy Roman Empire. Differently from that commanded by Charlemagne, this one gained force and wanted to confront Islam. There happened, then, the first of the Crusades.

In the year of 1095, pope Urban II, in the Council of Clermont, realized in a city of France, summoned the Christians to fight for the tomb of Jesus and to recover Jerusalem. He repeated a phrase in Latin: “Voluntas Dei” (will of God). It was necessary to fight to recover that which belonged to them, to make healthy Christianity. With this, there was arising a kind of fever in Europe. The Crusades were military expeditions that left from Europe toward the Middle East, to the Holy Land.

The First Crusade had beginning in 1096. Others followed the same destination. However, the Fifth Crusade departed toward Egypt, for there was the sultan. If they managed to overthrow him, they would have access to the Holy Land. The objective was not only to reconquer the tomb of Jesus; there were also political, religious and domination interests.

For Catholic historians, the Crusades were a kind of retaliation against everything that the Muslims had done to the Christians, who suffered all sort of violences, plunders and territorial losses, mainly when Jerusalem and the Iberian Peninsula were conquered. Thus, one of the justifications of Urban II was to recover these lands and to fight in the name of God. Already more impartial historians affirm that there was much violence from both sides.

In the book The Monotheists, its author, F. E. Peters, historian and specialist in religions, narrates the history of the three monotheistic peoples: Jews, Christians and Muslims. According to the author, after the First Crusade, the Christians, before the victory and of the total extermination of the enemy, entered in crisis and passed to question the own acts. Rome would have sent messages congratulating them for the victory and affirming that they should not feel guilty for the deaths caused, for they had not committed homicide, but a “malecide”, exterminating an evil and relieving, thus, the conscience of the crusaders...

“If we analyze under the prism of great part of the Catholics, the Crusades were necessary. If we analyze under the prism of the Muslims, the Crusades never ended. If we analyze under the prism of the historians, that try to realize an impartial evaluation, there were excesses from both sides.”

Thus, Christians and Muslims, that possess the same Abrahamic roots, descend from the same structure of thought of Abraham and originated from a same point, fought in the name of a single God...

There was also another crusade in this century, however not official. In the same year of 1096, in the middle of the enthusiasm awakened by pope Urban II, there arose a French hermit called Peter, the Hermit, that gathered various people to march to the East in order to liberate the tomb of Jesus and strengthen the faith. The pope had told them that they would receive indulgence even before departing, for they would not commit any sin, and that they kill whom they found along the path.

Peter, the Hermit, and all those that he managed to gather did not possess many resources. Practically nothing they had to follow forward. Then they began to kill Jews along the path and, wherever they passed, they looted, destroyed and decimated everything. It was a slaughter of Jews registered by history. However, when they arrived to the territory corresponding to the current Turkey, the Seljuk Turks killed them. It was another bloodbath. As they did with the Jews, they harvested among the Seljuk Turks... Law of action and reaction...

From there, the pope began to congregate nobles such as Godfrey of Bouillon, who became the first king of the Holy Land. He was deeply religious, for he refused the title of king, affirming that king only Jesus was and that he would be only the ruler. Another summoned was the Italian Tancred of Syracuse. Baldwin of Boulogne became the second king and ended up becoming leprous, but, even so, fought masked in the Crusades.

They managed, in 1099, to reach and retake Jerusalem. This was the first essentially victorious Crusade. They recovered the tomb of Jesus, empty. The enthusiasm of the Christians was so great that they began to kill Jews and Muslims, destroying everything around. The history tells that it was a bloodbath without precedents in Jerusalem. They say that the blood ran through the streets of the city.

The Muslims believed that the Christians would not kill the civilians, but only would fight to conquer Jerusalem. What occurred was the opposite, for not even the civilians escaped, including those who took refuge in the mosques. The crusaders entered and killed all, without exception. It was an extremely violent attitude that marked this first Christian victory against the Muslims.

It was a quite agitated century... And the Crusades would continue in the following centuries, as well as the violence that accompanied them...