Effects of Crusades on the Catholic Church
The Crusades helped to increase the wealth and power of the Church and the Pope. Consequently the noticeable part which the Popes took in the establishment naturally encouraged their influence and power, by putting the armies and resources of Christians, and familiarizing the people to look to them as guides and leaders. As to the wealth of the monasteries and churches, this was magnified enormously by the sale to them, often for small fraction of their actual value, of the establishment of those preparing for the crusade, or by the out and out gift of the lands of such in return for prayers and pious benedictions.
Thousands of the crusaders, returning destroyed in spirit and in health, seeked for an asylum in cloistral retreats, and endowed the establishments that they entered with all their worldly goods
Besides all this, the stream of the ordinary gifts of alligance was swollen by the extraordinary eagerness of religious enthusiasm which characterized the period into enormous proportions. In all these ways, the power of the Pope and the money of the Church were extremely amplafied.
Thousands of the crusaders, returning destroyed in spirit and in health, seeked for an asylum in cloistral retreats, and endowed the establishments that they entered with all their worldly goods
Besides all this, the stream of the ordinary gifts of alligance was swollen by the extraordinary eagerness of religious enthusiasm which characterized the period into enormous proportions. In all these ways, the power of the Pope and the money of the Church were extremely amplafied.