Department standards require that your initial post be at least 250 words long each week. You must respond to at least three of your classmates' initial posts (threads under your own post are not eligible for credit). Each of your peer responses must be at least 125 words long. Short posts will not be eligible for full credit. Your initial posts are due by 11:55 pm ET on Thursdaynight. Your peer responses are due by 11:55 pm ET on Sundaynight. Late work will be graded in accordance with department policy, as follows:

Please choose one of the following questions to answer in your initial post. When responding to your classmates, you must respond to at least one person who chose a different question than you did. If all of your posts address the same question, you will not receive credit for one of your peer responses.

1. The Fourth Lateran Council was initiated in order to introduce reform within the Catholic Church and to call for another Crusade. Europeans at the time (1215) were indifferent to many of the tenets, but others upset them greatly. Take a look at the textwritten up by the members of the Council. Choose one tenet that the average, European citizen would have most approved of and one that they would have disapproved of. Explain your choices. Remember to consider the tenets in their own historical context and not through the lens of modernity. Be sure to include the canon numbers in your post.

2. Some historians have called the Crusades "successful failures." Using what you learned from the textbook readings this week, explain how these historians could justify such an opinion. Do you agree with them? Why or why not?

3. The concept of Crusading changed a great deal from the time of the Council of Clermont (1095) that called together the First Crusade and the later Crusades of the early 13th century. How did these two sets of religiously-oriented military expeditions differ? Which set was most successful? Why?

4. Academics Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas both sought to answer the questions of their day by reconciling ancient, pagan knowledge with Christian doctrine. Peter Abelard endured a great deal of trouble, whereas Aquinas did not. Why has Aquinas gone down in history as an intellectual hero (even a saint), while Abelard has not?