Crusades

The best known of these military expeditions are those to the Holy Land between 1095 and 1291 that had the objective of reconquering Jerusalem and its surrounding area from Muslim rule after the region had been conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate centuries earlier.

[20] The First Crusade was an unexpected event for contemporary chroniclers, but historical analysis demonstrates it had its roots in earlier developments with both clerics and laity recognising Jerusalem's role in Christianity as worthy of penitential pilgrimage.

Aristocrats from France, western Germany, the Low Countries, Languedoc and Italy led independent contingents in loose, fluid arrangements based on bonds of lordship, family, ethnicity and language.

Sultan Kilij Arslan left the city to resolve a territorial dispute, enabling its capture after the siege of Nicaea and a Byzantine naval assault in the high point of Latin and Greek co-operation.

Al-Afdal Shahanshah and the Muslim world mistook the crusaders for the latest in a long line of Byzantine mercenaries, not religiously motivated warriors intent on conquest and settlement.

[54][55] In the same month, Muhammad I Tapar, sultan of the Seljuk Empire, sent an army to recover Syria, but a Frankish defensive force arrived at Edessa, ending the short siege of the city.

[54][55] Next year, Tancred's extortion from Antioch's Muslim neighbours provoked the inconclusive battle of Shaizar between the Franks and an Abbasid army led by the governor of Mosul, Mawdud.

[66] At the same time, the advent of Imad ad-Din Zengi saw the Crusaders threatened by a Muslim ruler who would introduce jihad to the conflict, joining the powerful Syrian emirates in a combined effort against the Franks.

[87] The disastrous performance of this campaign in the Holy Land damaged the standing of the papacy, soured relations between the Christians of the kingdom and the West for many years, and encouraged the Muslims of Syria to even greater efforts to defeat the Franks.

In June 1179, the Crusaders were defeated at the Battle of Marj Ayyub, and in August the unfinished castle at Jacob's Ford fell to Saladin, with the slaughter of half its Templar garrison.

[115] On 2 September 1192 Richard and Saladin entered into the Treaty of Jaffa, providing that Jerusalem would remain under Muslim control, while allowing unarmed Christian pilgrims and traders to freely visit the city.

This sack was not unusual considering the violent military standards of the time, but contemporaries such as Innocent III and Ali ibn al-Athir saw it as an atrocity against centuries of classical and Christian civilisation.

[120] The Fifth Crusade (1217–1221) was a campaign by Western Europeans to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering Egypt, ruled by the sultan al-Adil, brother of Saladin.

They offered the sultan a withdrawal from Damietta and an eight-year truce in exchange for allowing the Crusader army to pass, the release of all prisoners, and the return of the relic of the True Cross.

[140] After the Fifth Crusade, the Ayyubid sultan al-Kamil became involved in civil war in Syria and, having unsuccessfully tried negotiations with the West beginning in 1219, again tried this approach,[141] offering return of much of the Holy Land in exchange for military support.

Two letters from the Christian side tell differing stories,[149] with Frederick touting the great success of the endeavor and the Latin patriarch painting a darker picture of the emperor and his accomplishments.

[157] Contrary to Theobald's instructions and the advice of the military orders, a group decided to move against the enemy without further delay, but they were surprised by the Muslims who inflicted a devastating defeat on the Franks.

With Rome under siege by Frederick, the pope also issued his Ad Apostolicae Dignitatis Apicem, formally renewing the sentence of excommunication on the emperor, and declared him deposed from the imperial throne and that of Naples.

[165] The recruiting effort under cardinal Odo of Châteauroux was difficult, and the Crusade finally began on 12 August 1248 when Louis IX left Paris under the insignia of a pilgrim, the Oriflamme.

[185] The years 1272–1302 include numerous conflicts throughout the Levant as well as the Mediterranean and Western European regions, and many crusades were proposed to free the Holy Land from Mamluk control.

[187] The military expeditions undertaken by European Christians in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries to recover the Holy Land from Muslims provided a template for warfare in other areas that also interested the Latin Church.

[194] In 1147, Pope Eugene III extended Calixtus's idea by authorising a crusade on the German north-eastern frontier against the pagan Wends from what was primarily economic conflict.

[200] This set a precedent that was followed in 1212 with pressure exerted on the city of Milan for tolerating Catharism,[201] in 1234 against the Stedinger peasants of north-western Germany, in 1234 and 1241 Hungarian crusades against Bosnian heretics.

[205] Political crusading continued against Venice over Ferrara; Louis IV, King of Germany when he marched to Rome for his imperial coronation; and the free companies of mercenaries.

[224] Modern historiography rejects the 19th-century consensus that Westerners learnt the basis of military architecture from the Near East, as Europe had already experienced rapid development in defensive technology before the First Crusade.

Direct contact with Arab fortifications originally constructed by the Byzantines did influence developments in the east, but the lack of documentary evidence means that it remains difficult to differentiate between the importance of this design culture and the constraints of situation.

It became increasingly common for European merchants to venture farther east, and business was conducted fairly despite religious differences, and continued even in times of political and military tensions.

[232] Historical parallelism and the tradition of drawing inspiration from the Middle Ages have become keystones of political Islam encouraging ideas of a modern jihad and a centuries-long struggle against Christian states, while secular Arab nationalism highlights the role of western imperialism.

[234] Right-wing circles in the western world have drawn opposing parallels, considering Christianity to be under an Islamic religious and demographic threat that is analogous to the situation at the time of the crusades.

Early in the 19th century, the monumental Histoire des Croisades was published by the French historian Joseph François Michaud, a major new narrative based on original sources.

Medieval illustration of a battle during the Second Crusade
14th-century miniature of the Battle of Dorylaeum (1147) , a Second Crusade battle, from the Estoire d'Eracles
The Siege of Damascus (1148) as depicted in the Passages d'outremer , c. 1490
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. In 1071, Jerusalem was conquered by the Seljuk Turks.
14th-century miniature of Peter the Hermit leading the People's Crusade
Miniature of Peter the Hermit leading the People's Crusade ( Abreujamen de las estorias , MS Egerton 1500, Avignon, 14th century)
Southeastern Europe, Asia Minor and Syria before the First Crusade
map of the Crusader States (1135)
The Crusader states in 1135
The Battle of Ager Sanguinis known as the Battle of the Field of Blood, medieval miniature
Routes of the Second Crusade
Nūr-ad-Din's victory at the Battle of Inab , 1149. Illustration from the Passages d'outremer , c. 1490 .
The Near East, c. 1190 , at the inception of the Third Crusade
Richard the Lionheart on his way to Jerusalem, James William Glass (1850)
Image of siege of Constantinople
Conquest of the Orthodox city of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 (BNF Arsenal MS 5090, 15th century)
Multi-coloured map of Latin and Byzantine Empires
Latin Empire and Byzantine states in 1205. Green marks Venetian acquisitions; pink the Byzantine states; purple the Latin Empire and its vassals
Crusaders attack the tower of Damietta during the siege of Damietta in a painting by Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen .
Manuscript illumination of five men outside a fortress
Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (left) meets al-Kamil (right), illumination from Giovanni Villani 's Nuova Cronica ( Vatican Library ms. Chigiano L VIII 296, 14th century).
The defeat of the Crusaders at Gaza, depicted in the Chronica majora of Matthew Paris , 13th century
Louis IX during the Seventh Crusade
Louis IX being taken prisoner at the Battle of Fariskur ( Gustave Doré )
The Siege of Acre depicted in Matthieu de Clermont défend Ptolémaïs en 1291 , by Dominique Papety at Salles des Croisades in Versailles
Map of the branches of the Teutonic Order in Europe c. 1300 . Shaded area is sovereign territory.
Two illuminations: the pope admonishing a group of people and mounted knights attacking unarmed people with swords
Miniatures showing Pope Innocent III excommunicating, and the crusaders massacring, Cathars (BL Royal 16 G VI, fol. 374v, 14th century)
13th-century miniature of King Baldwin II granting the Al Aqsa Mosque to Hugues de Payens
13th-century miniature of Baldwin II of Jerusalem granting the captured Al Aqsa Mosque to Hugues de Payns
Photograph of 12th-century Hospitaller castle of Krak des Chevaliers in Syria showing concentric rings of defence, curtain walls and location sitting on a promontory.
12th-century Knights Hospitaller castle of Krak des Chevaliers in Syria, one of the first castles to use concentric fortification, i.e. concentric rings of defence that could all operate at the same time. It has two curtain walls and sits on a promontory.
The ivory front bookcover of the Melisende Psalter
Image of five knights paying homage to Saladin
Saladin and Guy de Lusignan after the Battle of Hattin in 1187 , by Said Tahsine (1904–1985)
A miniature painting from a medieval manuscript, showing a man sitting at a desk writing a book.
William of Tyre writing his history, from a 13th-century Old French translation, Bibliothèque Nationale , Paris, MS 2631, f.1r