During the time periods 800 to 1300 around ninety percent of people who were living in Europe during the middle ages were in poverty, lots of them were peasant farmers who would do a lot to make their lives better or to have a change in them. They would wear clothes that would hopefully last a lifetime for them, and never bathe more than once a month which included the people who were more fortunate. They would usually never live past the age forty because of diseases or starvation. An English poet William Langland describes the types of living conditions they had, “As prisoners in cells, or poor folks in hovels, Charged with children and over charged by landlords. What they may spare in spinning they spend on rental, On milk, or on a meal to make porridge. To still the sobbing of the children at mealtime. Also they themselves suffer much hunger. They have woe in winter time…” William describes how they didn’t have time or the resources to get what they wanted for comfort, but rather on what they needed to survive. When Pope Urban II called for a crusade to help the Byzantines and to free the city of Jerusalem, many people looked at this as an opportunity. Because of the living conditions that many of the people had a big amount of people joined to get away from the famine and disease. Others left to get away from their tiresome, monotonous lives. However the biggest reason why people joined was to help the pope and to defend their Christian religion. Many people started to join the Crusade army, which a great amount were peasants, around a little fewer than half could even be considered armed soldiers. A good portion of the army did not have military training at all. However even under the…
