Crusades

This article is about the religious wars waged by Western Christians to seize the Holy Land from Muslim control between the 11th and 13th centuries. For the theoretical, sociological, institutional, military, and financial dimensions of crusading, see Crusading movement.

For other uses, see Crusades (disambiguation).

The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at seizing Jerusalem and its surrounding territories from Muslim rule. Beginning with the First Crusade, which culminated in the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, these expeditions spanned centuries and became a central aspect of European political, religious, and military history.

14th-century miniature of the Battle of Dorylaeum (1147), a Second Crusade battle, from the Estoire d'Eracles

In 1095, after a Byzantine request for aid, Pope Urban II proclaimed the first expedition at the Council of Clermont. He encouraged military support for Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos and called for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Across all social strata in Western Europe, there was an enthusiastic response. Participants came from all over Europe and had a variety of motivations. These included religious salvation, satisfying feudal obligations, opportunities for renown, and economic or political advantage. Later expeditions were conducted by generally more organised armies, sometimes led by a king. All were granted papal indulgences. Initial successes established four Crusader states: the County of Edessa; the Principality of Antioch; the Kingdom of Jerusalem; and the County of Tripoli. A European presence remained in the region in some form until the fall of Acre in 1291. After this, no further large military campaigns were organised.

Other church-sanctioned campaigns include crusades against Christians not obeying papal rulings and heretics, those against the Ottoman Empire, and ones for political reasons. The struggle against the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula–the Reconquista–ended in 1492 with the Fall of Granada. From 1147, the Northern Crusades were fought against pagan tribes in Northern Europe. Crusades against Christians began with the Albigensian Crusade in the 13th century and continued through the Hussite Wars in the early 15th century. Crusades against the Ottomans began in the late 14th century and include the Crusade of Varna. Popular crusades, including the Children's Crusade of 1212, were generated by the masses and were unsanctioned by the Church.

Terminology

Crosses carved by pilgrims into the wall of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The Crusades were military campaigns undertaken by Western Christians to reclaim the Holy Land, or Palestine, from Muslim control between the 11th and 13th centuries.^[1][2] Launched by the papacy with promises of spiritual reward, they were occasionally accompanied by unauthorised movements—driven by popular zeal—commonly referred to as popular crusades. In scholarly usage, the term is frequently applied more broadly to include papally authorised conflicts in other regions, conducted within the wider framework of the crusading movement.^[3][4][5]

Terminology evolved gradually, primarily reflecting the close association between the Crusades and Christian pilgrimage. Early usage favoured terms denoting mobility—iter ('journey'), via ('road'), expeditio ('expedition')—typically accompanied by references to the intended destination, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or Jerusalem.^[6] Other early expressions invoked the cross (crux), and by around 1250, canon lawyers were distinguishing between campaigns in the Holy Land—crux transmarina ('the cross overseas')—and those within Europe—crux cismarina ('the cross this side of the sea'). Participants, who traditionally sewed a cross onto their garments, came to be known as crucesignati ('those signed with the cross').^{[note 1][8]}

Vernacular terminology reflected the ritual of "taking the cross".^[8] The earliest attested form, crozada, appeared in Spain in 1212. Nevertheless, linguistic variations persisted well into the early modern era. In the 14th century, the theorist Philippe de Mézières characterised the campaigns as "the hunt of God ... to capture the rich prize," while the 17th-century historian Thomas Fuller referred to them as "holy wars".^[6] The Middle English croiserie, derived from Old French, emerged in the 13th–14th centuries, later supplanted by forms such as croisade and crusado, both influenced by Spanish through French. The modern term crusade was established by 1706.^[9] The medievalist Thomas Asbridge notes that the term's conventional use by historians imposes "a somewhat misleading aura of coherence and conformity" on the earliest crusading efforts.^[10] The Crusader states of Syria and Palestine were known as the "Outremer" from the French outre-mer, or "the land beyond the sea".^[11]

Background

Sites linked to Jesus's ministry became popular pilgrimage destinations in Roman Palestine. Christian emperors built churches at these locations, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, marking Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection.^[12] In 395, the Roman Empire split into eastern and western halves. The Western Roman Empire had fragmented into smaller kingdoms by 476.^[13] Though the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire survived, it lost vast territories to the rising Islamic Caliphate in the 7th century.^[14][15] Islamic expansion was motivated by jihad, or holy war.^[16] Jerusalem fell to Caliph Umar in 638,^[17] and Muslim forces conquered much of the Iberian Peninsula after 711.^[16] Christians under Muslim rule were dhimmi—legally protected but socially subordinate.^[18][19] Islam's ideological unity fractured over disputes about leadership. The Shi'a believed authority belonged to the descendants of Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, Ali, while the Sunni majority rejected the Alids' hereditary claim.^[20] By the mid-10th century, three rival caliphates had emerged: the Umayyads in al-Andalus (Muslim Spain), the Shi'ite Fatimids in Egypt, and the Abbasids in the Middle East.^[21][22]

To Muslim observers, the remote and less developed Western Europe was merely a source of slaves and raw materials.^[23] However, between c. 950 and c. 1070, drought and cold spells across North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia led to famine and migration. Interfaith tensions escalated, culminating in the temporary destruction of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009.^[24] From the 1040s, nomadic Turkomans disrupted the Middle East. In 1055, their leader Tughril I of the Seljuk clan assumed authority within the Abbasid Caliphate with Caliph Al-Qa'im's consent.^[25][26] Tughril's nephew Alp Arslan crushed the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, opening Anatolia to Turkoman settlement.^[27][28] The Seljuk Empire emerged as a loose federation of provinces ruled by Seljuk princes, Turkoman warlords and Arab emirs. As Byzantine control collapsed, Armenian and Greek strongmen took over frontier cities and fortresses.^[29]

Detail of an 11th-century mural depicting a scene of the Last Judgement in the Abbey of Sant'Angelo in Formis, Italy

From the mid-9th century, central authority in Western Europe weakened, and local lords gained power, commanding heavily armoured knights and holding castles.^[30][31] Their territorial disputes made warfare a regular feature across regions.^[32] To protect Church property and unarmed groups, Church leaders launched the Peace of God movement, threatening offenders with excommunication.^[33][34] As sins permeated daily life, Christians feared damnation. Sinners were expected to confess and undertake priestly prescribed penance.^[35] Thousands made the penitential journey to Jerusalem, though attacks on pilgrims became increasingly frequent.^[36] From c. 1000, the Medieval Warm Period favoured Western Europe, spurring economic and population growth.^[37][38] Within a century, Italian merchants supplanted their Muslim and Jewish rivals as the leading force in Mediterranean trade.^[39] In 1031, al-Andalus fragmented into taifas—smaller kingdoms—that could not resist the Reconquista—the expansion of the northern Christian states—prompting intervention by the radical Almoravids from the Maghreb. In southern Italy, Norman warriors from northern France founded principalities and completed the conquest of Muslim Sicily by 1091.^[40]

In the mid-11th century, clerics promoting the "liberty of the Church" rose to power in Rome, banning simony and clerical marriage. The popes, as successors to Saint Peter in Rome, claimed supremacy over Christendom, but Eastern Christian leaders rejected this.^[41][42] Combined with long-standing liturgical and theological differences, this led to mutual excommunications in 1054 and ultimately the division between the Catholic West and Orthodox East.^[43][44] Reformist clerics' rejection of lay control triggered the Investiture Controversy with secular powers.^[45] Popes had already courted allies by offering spiritual rewards,^[46] and the Controversy revived interest in the theology of just war, first articulated by Augustine in the 5th century. Theologians, under Pope Gregory VII's auspices, concluded that dying in a just war equated to martyrdom. Still, the idea of penitential warfare drew sharp criticism from anti-papal figures like Sigebert of Gembloux.^[47]

First Crusade

Main article: First Crusade

By the late 11th century, the development of Christian just war theory, increasing aristocratic piety, and the popularity of penitential journeys to the Holy Land paved the way for armed pilgrimages. Meanwhile, Church reforms strengthened papal authority, enabling it to channel anxiety over sin and hopes of remission into a papally orchestrated war.^[48] In 1074, Gregory VII was the first pope to plan a campaign against the Turkomans, though it was never launched.^[49] In March 1095, his successor, Urban II, received envoys from Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who requested military aid at the Council of Piacenza.^[50]

By this time, the Seljuk Empire had descended into civil war following the deaths of Vizier Nizam al-Mulk and Sultan Malik-Shah I in 1092. Malik-Shah's brother Tutush I contested the succession of Malik-Shah's son Berkyaruq. Although Tutush was killed in battle in 1095, his sons Ridwan and Duqaq, seized control of the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Damascus, respectively, while Tutush's former mamluk (slave soldier), Yaghi-Siyan, maintained his rule over Antioch.^[51] In Anatolia, the breakaway Seljuk prince Kilij Arslan I founded the independent Sultanate of Rum, while an autonomous Turkoman clan, the Danishmendids, seized control of the north.^[50][52]

Meanwhile, Fatimid Egypt faced its own succession crisis after the deaths of Caliph al-Mustansir and his vizier al-Jamali. Al-Jamali's son and successor al-Afdal Shahanshah installed al-Mustansir's youngest son al-Musta'li as caliph bypassing the eldest son Nizar. Although Nizar was murdered, his supporters rejected al-Musta'li's legitimacy and established a new branch of radical Shi'a Islam—the Nizaris, also known as the Assassins.^[53]

Council of Clermont and its aftermath

Main article: Council of Clermont

In July 1095, Urban began a tour of France, visiting parishes and negotiating with local elites. He concluded it with the Council of Clermont, where on 27 November he called for an anti-Turkoman military campaign.^[54] His speech survives in four versions, three by eyewitnesses: Robert of Rheims, Baldric of Dol, and Fulcher of Chartres. Most accounts depict him urging support for eastern Christians, calling for arms in defence of the faith, promising spiritual rewards, and condemning sin—especially the knights' violence.^[55] The nature of these rewards is ambiguous: some sources mention the lifting of penance, others full remission of sin.^[56][57]

Urban's appeal strongly resonated.^[58] According to Robert of Rheims, the crowd cried Deus vult! ('God wills it!'), expressing their fervour.^[59][60] The ritual of "taking the cross" was introduced on the spot as a symbol of crusading vow. Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy was the first to take the cross, and was appointed papal legate the next day.^[61] Urban continued his tour, holding further councils. He set 15 August—the Feast of the Assumption—as the campaign's start date, two weeks after the harvest began.^[62] His message spread mainly through the French clergy present at Clermont, leaving much of Western Europe unaware of the crusade before its departure.^[63] He also urged four Catalan counts not to join, granting them equal spiritual rewards for fighting the Almoravids.^[64]

People's Crusade

Main article: People's Crusade

Miniature of Peter the Hermit leading the People's Crusade (from a 14th-century manuscript of the Abreujamen de las estorias)

Urban intended to restrict participation to trained warriors, but popular enthusiasm proved uncontrollable.^[65] The charismatic preacher Peter the Hermit travelled through French regions, like Champagne and Lorraine, Urban had avoided,^[66] reportedly bearing a heavenly letter urging the expulsion of "pagans" from the Holy Land.^[67] He gathered thousands, primarily peasants and poor townspeople, alongside some nobles such as Walter Sans Avoir.^[66] In Germany, other preachers, including Folkmar and Gottschalk, assembled similarly heterogeneous groups.^[68]

Several contingents departed prematurely, before the harvest.^[69] Walter and Peter each led forces of 10,000–15,000 from March 1096.^[70] Peter continued preaching en route and, in his pursuit of provisions, threatened Jewish communities. Although King Coloman of Hungary granted market access to the crusaders, Peter's now 20,000-strong contingent plundered the Hungarian border town of Zemun before entering the Byzantine Empire in June.^[71] There, regional Byzantine forces responded to continued looting with regular raids that inflicted severe losses.^[71] Meanwhile, the combined forces of Folkmar and Gottschalk—numbering over 15,000—were nearly annihilated by Coloman's army at Hungary's western frontier in July.^[72][73]

In a separate wave, the Swabian count Emich led brutal attacks against Jewish communities in the Rhineland. First, on 3 May 1096, his followers assaulted the community of Speyer, killing those who resisted forced conversion. Despite efforts by local bishops to offer protection, anti-Jewish violence spread until Emich's forces were dispersed by Hungarian troops near Moson c. 15 July.^[74]

Walter's contingent arrived in the Byzantine capital, Constantinople on 20 July, followed by Peter's on 1 August.^[70] Emperor Alexios, concerned by their lack of discipline, transported them across the Bosporus to Anatolia. Their raids near Nicaea—the capital of Rum—provoked a counterattack by Kilij Arslan, who virtually destroyed them at Civetot on 21 October. Peter was among the few to survive.^[75]

Princes' Crusade

Map of the Princes' Crusade (1096–1099)

No crowned ruler joined the First Crusade, largely because of tensions with the Church.^[76] The first major noble to depart was Hugh of Vermandois, brother of King Philip I of France. Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, set off in August 1096 with his vassals and German lords. Bohemond of Taranto, an Italo-Norman veteran of anti-Byzantine campaigns, departed in late October, while Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Count of Toulouse and the wealthiest participant, led the largest force.^[77][78] Other key figures included Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy; his brother-in-law, Stephen of Blois; and Robert II, Count of Flanders.^[79] As the historian Thomas Madden observed, their armies were "a curious mix of rich and poor, saints and sinners", driven by both spiritual and material aims.^[80] A knight's participation often cost four years' income, funded by loans or donations; those lacking means joined noble retinues.^[81]

At Constantinople, tensions with the Byzantines led to skirmishes. Emperor Alexios demanded oaths from the crusader leaders to return former Byzantine lands before allowing their passage into Anatolia.^[82] Estimates place the total crusading force between 60,000 and 100,000, including 30,000 non-combatants and up to 7,000 knights.^[83][84] Exploiting Kilij Arslan’s preoccupation with a border conflict against the Danishmendids, the crusaders and their Byzantine allies compelled Nicaea’s garrison to surrender to Alexios in June 1097. By month's end, the crusaders set out toward Antioch, previously a Byzantine provincial capital in Syria. Kilij Arslan attempted to stop them at Dorylaeum but his lightly armoured cavalry was repelled.^[85]

After a gruelling journey, c. 40,000 crusaders reached Antioch in late October.^[84] The siege lasted several months due to limited resources on both sides.^[86][87] During this time, Baldwin of Boulogne—Godfrey's brother—departed for the east with 100 knights. With local Armenian support, he captured key fortresses and took Edessa, establishing the first Crusader state in March 1098.^[88][89] Meanwhile, the Seljuk general Kerbogha assembled a 40,000-strong relief force in Iraq. However, by the time he reached Antioch in early June, the city had already fallen, thanks to Bohemond's arrangement with a guard commander. The crusaders massacred the city's Muslim population and some of the native Christians.^[90][91] Despite suffering heavy losses from starvation, disease, and desertion, the crusaders—motivated by the mystic Peter Bartholomew—inflicted a decisive defeat on Kerbogha's army.^[92]

The march on Jerusalem was halted due to intense summer heat and a plague that claimed Adhemar of Le Puy's life. In the Byzantines' absence, Bohemond persuaded the other leaders to recognise his rule over Antioch despite Raymond's opposition. The crusade only resumed under pressure from the common soldiers in November.^[93] After massacring the defenders of Ma'arra, the crusaders were granted safe passage by local Muslim rulers. They reached Jerusalem, then held by a Fatimid governor, on 7 June 1099. The siege stalled until Genoese craftsmen arrived with supplies. Their siege towers enabled the crusaders to conquer the city on 15 July. Over the next two days, they slaughtered the population and looted the city. Godfrey was elected Jerusalem's first Western ruler, while Arnulf of Chocques, a Norman priest, was named the first Latin patriarch.^[94][83] Meanwhile, al-Afdal mobilised c. 20,000 Egyptian troops to retake the city. On 12 August, the crusaders—roughly 9,000 infantry and 1,200 knights—launched a surprise attack at Ascalon, decisively defeating his army. With their vow fulfilled, most crusaders returned home, leaving Godfrey with just 300 knights and 2,000 foot soldiers.^[95]

Conquest and consolidation

The historian Malcolm Barber notes that the Crusader states' creation "committed western Europeans to crusading for the foreseeable future".^[96] In the century after the First Crusade, the resurgence of Muslim unity shaped Middle Eastern history.^[97] During the first half of this period, the Franks sought Western military aid only four times; between 1149 and 1186, they made at least sixteen such appeals.^[98]

Aftermath of the First Crusade

Baldwin of Boulogne is crowned as the first king of Jerusalem (a miniature from the late 13th-century Histoire d'Outremer).

The Italian merchant republics had agreed to send naval forces for the crusade but required time to prepare their fleets.^[99] The Pisan fleet—120 ships—arrived under Archbishop Daimbert in September 1099. As papal legate, Daimbert deposed Arnulf and became patriarch, installed on Christmas Day when Godfrey and Bohemond did homage to him. Meanwhile, Tancred, Bohemond's nephew, had completed the conquest of Galilee.^[100]

Vitale I Michiel, Doge of Venice, arrived with over 200 ships. As Godfrey died unexpectedly on 18 July 1100,^[101][102] the Venetians aided Tancred in taking Haifa.^[103] Daimbert aimed to make Jerusalem an ecclesiastical lordship with Bohemond's support, but Godfrey's followers invited Baldwin to claim his brother's inheritance. Daimbert was thwarted when Bohemond was captured by the Danishmendid Gazi Gümüshtigin c. 15 August. Before leaving for Jerusalem, Baldwin invested his cousin, Baldwin of Bourcq, with Edessa. He then seized Jerusalem and persuaded Daimbert to crown him king on Christmas Day. Within nine months, he captured Arsuf and Caesarea with Genoese support,^[104][105] and repelled an Egyptian invasion with a surprise attack, despite superior enemy numbers at the First Battle of Ramla.^[106]

Crusade of 1101

Main article: Crusade of 1101

Shortly after the capture of Antioch, crusader leaders wrote to senior European clerics, urging them to rally oath-breakers. In December 1100, Urban's successor Paschal II called for a new crusade. Nicknamed the "Crusade of the Faint-Hearted", it included deserters like Stephen of Blois and Hugh of Vermandois. The first contingent, led by Anselm, Archbishop of Milan, and Albert of Biandrate, left Lombardy in September 1100.^[107][108] The Lombards reportedly aimed to conquer Baghdad or Egypt,^[109] and attacked the imperial Blachernae Palace in Constantinople before being ferried to Anatolia in early 1101.^[110]

They were soon joined by French and German forces under powerful nobles and prelates, including William IX of Aquitaine, William II of Nevers, Welf I of Bavaria, the widowed Marchioness Ida of Austria, and Archbishop Thiemo of Salzburg. Reaching Constantinople in June, they met Raymond of Saint-Gilles. Ignoring the veteran Raymond's and Stephen's warnings, the Lombards resolved to free Bohemond. Joined by other crusaders, they advanced into eastern Anatolia, capturing Ankara before being crushed at Mersivan in August by the united forces of Kilij Arslan, Gazi Gümüshtigin, and Ridwan. William of Nevers's army, heading south after Ankara, was almost destroyed at Heraclea. A third army, mainly Germans, was also routed there. Among the losses was Ida, whose disappearance inspired tales she became mother to the Turkoman ruler Zengi.^[111][112]

The 1101 Crusade's failure shattered the image of crusader invincibility, showing their inability to conquer substantial territory. Westerners primarily held Byzantines responsible for the collapse.^[109] Few crusaders survived the massacres. William of Aquitaine, Welf, and Stephen regrouped at Antioch, later aiding Raymond and his Genoese allies in taking Tortosa. Some, including Stephen, reached the Holy Land, where he fell fighting Fatimid forces at the Second Battle of Ramla on 17 May 1102.^[113] On that occasion, the Egyptians caught the overconfident crusaders by surprise, but the survivors redeemed themselves at the Battle of Jaffa ten days later.^[114]

Bohemond's crusade

Bohemond I of Antioch marries Constance, the daughter of King Philip I during his visit to France.

Bohemond secured his release by ransom, exploiting Danishmendid–Seljuk conflict. He supported Baldwin II of Edessa in an attack on Harran, but in May 1104 Jikirmish, atabeg (governor) of Mosul, defeated them. Baldwin was captured, and Bohemond made Tancred governor of Edessa.^[115][116] Jikirmish's victory allowed Ridwan to retake border fortresses, while the Byzantines expelled Antiochene garrisons from Cilicia.^[117]

Seeking support in the West, Bohemond left Tancred in charge of Antioch in autumn 1104. Pope Paschal named Bishop Bruno of Segni as papal legate to promote an Iter Hierosolymitanum ('Crusade for Jerusalem') in France. Though highly regarded, Bohemond drew only lesser nobles like Hugh of Le Puiset and Robert of Vieux-Pont to take the cross. He then chose to invade the Byzantine Empire from Italy, calling the Byzantines heretics in a letter to Pope Paschal. In October 1107, he besieged the fortress of Dyrrachium, but Alexios had reinforced its defences, allied with Venetians, and, with Turkoman mercenaries, blockaded Bohemond's army. Bohemond had to withdraw and accept Byzantine suzerainty over Antioch and Edessa in the 1108 Treaty of Devol, but he never returned to Antioch, and Tancred did not implement the treaty.^[118][119]

Coastal towns

King Baldwin expanded his realm to secure defence and attract knights with land or rewards. Naval support for seizing coastal cities came mainly from Pisans, Genoese, and Venetians, rewarded with trade privileges. He captured Acre in 1104, then Beirut and Sidon in 1110.^[120] Sigurd I of Norway, the first crowned monarch to lead an armed pilgrimage, aided in the capture of Sidon. His expedition later inspired popular narratives, some recorded by Snorri Sturluson.^[121] Baldwin's gains were eased by the death of Duqaq, sparking a Damascene power struggle that elevated his atabeg, Toghtekin. In 1105, Toghtekin joined the Egyptian invasion of Jerusalem, but Baldwin repelled them at the Third Battle of Ramla. Around this time, Damascene scholar Ali ibn Tahir al-Sulami completed his Book of Struggle, urging Muslim unity in jihad against the Franks.^[122][123]

Raymond of Saint Gilles attacked the city of Tripoli but died in 1105 before its capture. His death provoked a succession dispute between his son Bertrand and cousin William Jordan.^[124] This and tensions between Tancred and Baldwin of Edessa were settled by King Baldwin at the Council of Tripoli. Soon after, united Frankish forces, aided by the Genoese, seized the city on 12 July 1109. William Jordan was assassinated, leaving Bertrand sole ruler of Tripoli.^[125][126]

Tripoli's fall shocked the Muslim world, prompting Sultan Muhammad to order Mawdud, atabeg of Mosul, to invade. Between 1110 and 1113, Mawdud launched three campaigns but failed, hampered by the desertion of Muslim allies. In 1115, his successor Aqsunqur failed to take Edessa. That year, Toghtekin sheltered his kinsman Ilghazi, fallen from the Sultan's favour, leading Muhammad to dispatch an army against him. In response, Toghtekin allied with Roger of Salerno, Tancred's successor in Antioch, who defeated the Seljuks near Aleppo on 14 September 1115.^[127][128]

Venetian Crusade

Main article: Venetian Crusade

Battle of the Field of Blood (a miniature from the 1337 manuscript of William of Tyre's Historia)

King Baldwin I died of illness during a campaign against Egypt on 2 April 1118. Baldwin of Bourcq succeeded him, ceding Edessa to his kinsman Joscelin I of Courtenay.^[129] Ridwan's death in 1113 sparked a succession crisis, enabling Roger to exact tribute from Aleppo. The Aleppans sought Ilghazi's aid, and with Toghtekin's reinforcements he invaded Antiochene territory, inflicting a crushing defeat on Roger's army at Ager Sanguinis ('Field of Blood') on 28 June 1119. Roger was killed, and nearly 700 knights and 3,000 infantry were slain or captured. Antioch was saved by King Baldwin II, who became regent for the underage, absent Bohemond II, son of Bohemond I.^[130][131]

Alongside the military disaster, famine ravaged the Levant. In this climate, Jerusalem's secular and ecclesiastical leaders met at Nablus, issuing decrees banning various sexual activities, such as sodomy and relations with Muslims^[132] Patriarch Warmund of Picquigny endorsed a knightly confraternity led by the Frenchman Hugues de Payens, who had vowed poverty, chastity, and obedience, also pledging to protect pilgrims. This marked the birth of the military orders, a new type of religious institution. Baldwin housed them in the former Al-Aqsa Mosque, identified by the Franks as Solomon's Temple, giving them the name Knights Templar.^[133][134]

Baldwin sent envoys to the West for aid. In response, Pope Paschal urged the Venetian doge Domenico Michiel to lead a naval campaign to the Holy Land.^[135][136] As regent, Baldwin prioritised Antioch's defence, though it was unpopular in his kingdom. After Ilghazi's death, his nephew Balak succeeded him in Aleppo. Balak captured Joscelin in an ambush, and prompted Baldwin to rush to Edessa, where he was captured in April 1123.^[137][138] In his absence, Patriarch Warmund finalised a treaty with the Venetians for Tyre's conquest, granting them commercial privileges. Tyre fell on 7 July 1124.^[132] Baldwin was ransomed and returned to his kingdom in April 1125.^[139]

Damascus Crusade

Main article: Crusade of 1129

In 1124, Aleppo and Mosul fell under Aqsunqur's rule. The next year, he was defeated by the Crusader states' combined forces at Azaz, yet regained significant territory from the Franks before his assassination in 1126.^[140] The same year, Bohemond II assumed power in Antioch, but his conflict with Joscelin of Edessa prevented him from exploiting unrest in Aleppo.^[141]

After two failed campaigns against Damascene lands, Baldwin prepared a major offensive, sending envoys to Europe to recruit troops and arrange the marriage of his eldest daughter, Melisende, his heir in the absence of a son. Her betrothal to Fulk V of Anjou came with the promise of joint succession.^{[142][143][141]} In May 1128, Toghtekin died. His son, Buri, succeeded him but soon faced pressure from two sides when Zengi seized Aleppo in 1128, reuniting it with Mosul.^[142]

Fulk arrived in May 1129 and married Melisende. Though lacking papal sanction as a crusade, the anti-Damascene expedition drew nearly 60,000 warriors. The Franks invaded in November, but a sortie from Damascus routed their foragers. Hearing of the setback, the main Frankish force withdrew hastily, likely also spurred by a violent storm.^[144][145]

Internal conflicts

The Crusader states in 1135

In February 1130, Bohemond II was killed in a skirmish. His widow, Alice—daughter of Baldwin II—sought power with Zengi's support, but Baldwin assumed the regency for her daughter by Bohemond, Constance. When Baldwin died on 21 August 1131, Fulk and Melisende succeeded him in Jerusalem. Fulk also secured the regency in Antioch by defeating Alice's allies, Pons of Tripoli and Joscelin II of Edessa.^[146] Muslim pressure on Frankish lands intensified. Zengi plundered Antioch and Edessa, while Buri's successor, Ismail, attacked Jerusalemite and Tripolitan fortresses. Pons was killed in a Damascene raid.^[147]

In 1136, Fulk married Constance to the French noble Raymond of Poitiers.^[148] A year later, Raymond did homage to Emperor John II Komnenos, hoping for his support, but Byzantine assaults on Aleppo and Shaizar failed.^[149] Zengi took Homs, yet his assault on Damascus failed due to an alliance between its new ruler Unur and Fulk.^[150] Fulk died in a hunting accident on 10 November 1143. Melisende, widowed, resisted sharing power with their son, Baldwin III.^[151][152] During his reign, the Knights Hospitaller, formerly a nursing confraternity, rose as a military order, receiving Beth Gibelin from him in 1136 and Krak des Chevaliers from Pons's son Raymond II of Tripoli in 1142.^[153]

Second Crusade

Main article: Second Crusade

See also: Wendish Crusade

In the early 1140s, Zengi fought for dominance against Muslim rivals, especially the Artuqids in Iraq. The Artuqid prince, Kara Arslan, sought help from Joscelin II of Edessa, offering land in exchange. Joscelin accepted the offer, provoking Zengi to attack Edessa. The city fell on 26 December 1144; much of its Frankish population was killed or enslaved.^[154][155] Zengi was assassinated in 1146, but when Joscelin briefly regained Edessa, Zengi’s son Nur al-Din forced him out, and the Turkomans massacred many fleeing native Christians.^[156][157] Nur al-Din destroyed the fortifications, rendering Edessa's recapture futile,^[158] and secured a marriage alliance with Unur.^[159]

News of Edessa's fall reached Pope Eugenius III through Bishop Hugh of Jabala and Armenian clergy. He responded with the papal bull Quantum praedecessores ('How greatly our predecessors') on 1 December 1145,^[160] granting remission of confessed sins, protection of property and suspension of debts to those who took the cross—establishing the pattern of later crusade bulls.^[161][162] Louis VII of France, troubled by guilt over a massacre in a church by his troops, declared his intention to lead a crusade at Christmas 1145. At an assembly in Vézelay in 1146, the Cistercian abbot Bernard of Clairvaux persuaded many nobles, including descendants of the First Crusaders, to join.^[163][164]

Bernard embarked on an extensive tour to preach the crusade in northern France and Germany. In the Rhineland, incitements by the unruly Cistercian monk Radulf triggered anti-Semitic pogroms, which ceased only when Bernard secured his recall to his monastery. In a Christmas sermon invoking the Last Judgement, Bernard persuaded Conrad III of Germany to take the cross at Speyer.^[165][166] When Saxon lords resisted ending their war against the pagan Wends in favour of a Levantine crusade, Eugenius, on Bernard's advice, issued the bull Divina dispensatione ('By divine dispensation') in April 1147, granting crusade indulgences to participants in the campaign—later seen as the first of the Northern Crusades. The Pope also named Iberia as a potential crusading target.^[167][168] Years later, the priest Helmold of Bosau described the Second Crusade as fought in three theatres of war—the Holy Land, the Baltic and Iberia—and condemned the Wendish campaign for distorting proselytism. Despite leadership by prominent nobles, including the Saxon duke Henry the Lion, the crusaders failed to defeat the Wendish prince Niklot.^[169]

The crusaders set out for the Holy Land in May and June 1147.^[170] A distinctive feature of the Second Crusade was the presence of women: Louis VII was accompanied by his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the ladies of her household, while regulations for the crusader fleet assembling at Dartmouth also indicate the presence of wives.^[171] The fleet of more than 150 ships carried some 10,000 crusaders from across northwestern Europe. They aided Afonso I of Portugal in capturing Lisbon in October 1147 and Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona in seizing Tortosa in December 1148, though only remnants reached the Levant.^[172][173]

Siege of Damascus (1148) (a miniature from a 13th-14th–century manuscript of William of Tyre's Historia)

The German army, accompanied by many unarmed pilgrims, retraced the route of the First Crusade through Hungary and the Balkans. Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, fearing a German attack on Constantinople, made peace with Sultan Mesud I.^[174] Meanwhile, Roger II of Sicily invaded the Balkans, intensifying Byzantine suspicions of a coordinated western action. After skirmishes with imperial forces, the Germans crossed into Anatolia without waiting for the French.^[175] On 25 October 1147 Mesud's forces crushed them at Dorylaeum. Many crusaders were killed, but the heavily wounded Conrad fled to Byzantine territory.^[176] The French army reached Constantinople in October 1147.^[177][178] Clashes with Byzantines were frequent, and Bishop Godefroy of Langres urged Louis to seize the city, but he pressed on into Anatolia. The crusaders endured shortages, desertions and constant raids while wintering at Ephesus. At Antalya, Louis and many of his knights embarked on Byzantine ships for Syria; most of those left behind perished, deserted, or were enslaved.^[179][180]

Louis reached Antioch on 19 March 1148.^[181] Raymond of Poitiers urged him to attack Aleppo and Shaizar, but Louis insisted on continuing to Jerusalem, despite Eleanor—Raymond's niece—intervening for her uncle. By the time Louis reached Acre, Conrad who had come from Constantinople by sea was already there.^[182] Soon after, Alfonso Jordan, Count of Toulouse and son of Raymond of Saint-Gilles, died suddenly, sparking rumours that Queen Melisende poisoned him. At a council, the crusader leaders resolved to attack Damascus. The siege began on 24 July 1148. Although Conrad at first repelled Damascene forces, the defenders harassed the crusaders with constant raids. Nur al-Din sent reinforcements from Aleppo and Mosul. Though they did not approach Damascus, the crusaders abandoned the siege only after a few days. A subsequent decision to attack Ascalon—the last Fatimid port in Palestine—collapsed, and the crusaders withdrew from the Holy Land.^[183] The expedition's failure gravely weakened crusading fervour across Europe. Conrad blamed the leadership of Jerusalem, while others, including Bernard of Clairvaux, held the Byzantines responsible.^[184]

Nūr-ad-Din and the rise of Saladin

In the first major encounter after the Second Crusade, Nūr-ad-Din's forces then destroyed the Crusader army at the Battle of Inab on 29 June 1149. Raymond of Poitiers, as prince of Antioch, came to the aid of the besieged city. Raymond was killed and his head was presented to Nūr-ad-Din, who forwarded it to the caliph al-Muqtafi in Baghdad.^[185] In 1150, Nūr-ad-Din defeated Joscelin II of Edessa for a final time, resulting in Joscelin being publicly blinded, dying in prison in Aleppo in 1159. Later that year, at the Battle of Aintab, he tried but failed to prevent Baldwin III's evacuation of the residents of Turbessel.^[186] The unconquered portions of the County of Edessa would nevertheless fall to the Zengids within a few years. In 1152, Raymond II of Tripoli became the first Frankish victim of the Assassins.^[187] Later that year, Nūr-ad-Din captured and burned Tortosa, briefly occupying the town before it was taken by the Knights Templar as a military headquarters.^[188]

Nūr-ad-Din's victory at the Battle of Inab, 1149. Illustration from the Passages d'outremer, c. 1490.

After the Siege of Ascalon ended on 22 August 1153 with a Crusader victory, Damascus was taken by Nūr-ad-Din the next year, uniting all of Syria under Zengid rule. In 1156, Baldwin III was forced into a treaty with Nūr-ad-Din, and later entered into an alliance with the Byzantine Empire. On 18 May 1157, Nūr-ad-Din began a siege on the Knights Hospitaller contingent at Banias, with the Grand Master Bertrand de Blanquefort captured. Baldwin III was able to break the siege, only to be ambushed at Jacob's Ford in June. Reinforcements from Antioch and Tripoli were able to relieve the besieged Crusaders, but they were defeated again that month at the Battle of Lake Huleh. In July 1158, the Crusaders were victorious at the Battle of Butaiha. Bertrand's captivity lasted until 1159, when emperor Manuel I negotiated an alliance with Nūr-ad-Din against the Seljuks.^[189]

Baldwin III died on 10 February 1163, and Amalric of Jerusalem was crowned as king of Jerusalem eight days later.^[190] Later that year, he defeated the Zengids at the Battle of al-Buqaia. Amalric then undertook a series of four invasions of Egypt from 1163 to 1169, taking advantage of weaknesses of the Fatimids.^[191] Nūr-ad-Din's intervention in the first invasion allowed his general Shirkuh, accompanied by his nephew Saladin, to enter Egypt.^[192] Shawar, the deposed vizier to the Fatimid caliph al-Adid, allied with Amalric I, attacking Shirkuh at the second Siege of Bilbeis beginning in August 1164, following Amalric's unsuccessful first siege in September 1163.^[193] This action left the Holy Land lacking in defenses, and Nūr-ad-Din defeated a Crusader force at the Battle of Harim in August 1164, capturing most of the Franks' leaders.^[194]

After the sacking of Bilbeis, the Crusader-Fatimid force was to meet Shirkuh's army in the indecisive Battle of al-Babein on 18 March 1167. In 1169, both Shawar and Shirkuh died, and al-Adid appointed Saladin as vizier. Saladin, with reinforcements from Nūr-ad-Din, defeated a massive Crusader-Byzantine force at the Siege of Damietta in late October.^[195] This gained Saladin the attention of the Assassins, with attempts on his life in January 1175 and again on 22 May 1176.^[196]

Baldwin IV of Jerusalem^[197] became king on 5 July 1174 at the age of 13.^[198] As a leper he was not expected to live long, and served with a number of regents, and served as co-ruler with his nephew Baldwin V of Jerusalem beginning in 1183. Baldwin IV, Raynald of Châtillon and the Knights Templar defeated Saladin at the celebrated Battle of Montgisard on 25 November 1177. 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. However, the kingdom repelled his attacks at the Battle of Belvoir Castle in 1182 and later in the Siege of Kerak of 1183.^[199]

Recovery

Fall of Jerusalem

Baldwin V became sole king upon the death of his uncle in 1185 under the regency of Raymond III of Tripoli. Raymond negotiated a truce with Saladin which went awry when the king died in the summer of 1186.^[200] His mother Sibylla of Jerusalem and her husband Guy of Lusignan were crowned as queen and king of Jerusalem in the summer of 1186, shortly thereafter. They immediately had to deal with the threat posed by Saladin.^[201]

Despite his defeat at the Battle of al-Fule in the fall of 1183, Saladin increased his attacks against the Franks, leading to their defeat at the Battle of Cresson on 1 May 1187. Guy of Lusignan responded by raising the largest army that Jerusalem had ever put into the field. Saladin lured this force into inhospitable terrain without water supplies and routed them at the Battle of Hattin on 4 July 1187. One of the major commanders was Raymond III of Tripoli who saw his force slaughtered, with some knights deserting to the enemy, and narrowly escaping, only to be regarded as a traitor and coward.^[202] Guy of Lusignan was one of the few captives of Saladin's after the battle, along with Raynald of Châtillon and Humphrey IV of Toron. Raynald was beheaded, settling an old score. Guy and Humphrey were imprisoned in Damascus and later released in 1188.^[203]

As a result of his victory, much of Palestine quickly fell to Saladin. The siege of Jerusalem began on 20 September 1187 and the Holy City was surrendered to Saladin by Balian of Ibelin on 2 October. According to some, on 19 October 1187, Urban III died upon of hearing of the defeat.^[204] Jerusalem was once again in Muslim hands. Many in the kingdom fled to Tyre, and Saladin's subsequent attack at the siege of Tyre beginning in November 1187 was unsuccessful. The siege of Belvoir Castle began the next month and the Hospitaller stronghold finally fell a year later. The sieges of Laodicea and Sahyun Castle in July 1188 and the sieges of al-Shughur and Bourzey Castle in August 1188 further solidified Saladin's gains. The siege of Safed in late 1188 then completed Saladin's conquest of the Holy Land.^[198]

The Near East, c. 1190, at the inception of the Third Crusade

Third Crusade

Main article: Third Crusade

The years following the founding of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were met with multiple disasters. The Second Crusade did not achieve its goals, and left the Muslim East in a stronger position with the rise of Saladin. A united Egypt–Syria led to the loss of Jerusalem itself, and Western Europe had no choice but to launch the Third Crusade, this time led by the kings of Europe.^[205]

The news of the disastrous defeat at the battle of Hattin and subsequent fall of Jerusalem gradually reached Western Europe. Urban III died shortly after hearing the news, and his successor Gregory VIII issued the bull Audita tremendi on 29 October 1187 describing the events in the East and urging all Christians to take up arms and go to the aid of those in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, calling for a new crusade to the Holy Land – the Third Crusade – to be led by Frederick Barbarossa and Richard I of England.^[206]

Richard the Lionheart on his way to Jerusalem, James William Glass (1850)

Frederick took the cross in March 1188.^[207] Frederick sent an ultimatum to Saladin, demanding the return of Palestine and challenging him to battle and in May 1189, Frederick's host departed for Byzantium. In March 1190, Frederick embarked to Asia Minor. The armies coming from western Europe pushed on through Anatolia, defeating the Turks and reaching as far as Cilician Armenia. On 10 June 1190, Frederick drowned near Silifke Castle. His death caused several thousand German soldiers to leave the force and return home. The remaining German army moved under the command of the English and French forces that arrived shortly thereafter.^[208]

Richard the Lionheart had already taken the cross as the Count of Poitou in 1187. His father Henry II of England and Philip II of France had done so on 21 January 1188 after receiving news of the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin.^[209][210] Richard I and Philip II of France agreed to go on the Crusade in January 1188. Arriving in the Holy Land, Richard led his support to the stalemated siege of Acre. The Muslim defenders surrendered on 12 July 1191. Richard remained in sole command of the Crusader force after the departure of Philip II on 31 July 1191. On 20 August 1191, Richard had more than 2000 prisoners beheaded at the massacre of Ayyadieh. Saladin subsequently ordered the execution of his Christian prisoners in retaliation.^[211]

Richard moved south, defeating Saladin's forces at the battle of Arsuf on 7 September 1191. Three days later, Richard took Jaffa, held by Saladin since 1187, and advanced inland towards Jerusalem.^[212] On 12 December 1191 Saladin disbanded the greater part of his army. Learning this, Richard pushed his army forward, to within 12 miles from Jerusalem before retreating back to the coast. The Crusaders made another advance on Jerusalem, coming within sight of the city in June before being forced to retreat again. Hugh III of Burgundy, leader of the Franks, was adamant that a direct attack on Jerusalem should be made. This split the Crusader army into two factions, and neither was strong enough to achieve its objective. Without a united command the army had little choice but to retreat back to the coast.^[205]

On 27 July 1192, Saladin's army began the battle of Jaffa, capturing the city. Richard's forces stormed Jaffa from the sea and the Muslims were driven from the city. Attempts to retake Jaffa failed and Saladin was forced to retreat.^[213] 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 treaty ended the Third Crusade.^[214]

Crusade of 1197

Main article: Crusade of 1197

Three years later, Henry VI launched the Crusade of 1197. While his forces were en route to the Holy Land, Henry VI died in Messina on 28 September 1197. The nobles that remained captured the Levant coast between Tyre and Tripoli before returning to Germany. The Crusade ended on 1 July 1198 after capturing Sidon and Beirut.^[215]

Fourth Crusade

Main articles: Fourth Crusade and Sack of Constantinople

Conquest of the Orthodox city of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 (BNF Arsenal MS 5090, 15th century)

Latin Empire and Byzantine states in 1205. Green marks Venetian acquisitions; pink the Byzantine states; purple the Latin Empire and its vassals

In 1198, the recently elected Pope Innocent III announced a new crusade, organised by three Frenchmen: Theobald of Champagne; Louis of Blois; and Baldwin of Flanders. After Theobald's premature death, the Italian Boniface of Montferrat replaced him as the new commander of the campaign. They contracted with the Republic of Venice for the transportation of 30,000 crusaders at a cost of 85,000 marks. However, many chose other embarkation ports and only around 15,000 arrived in Venice. The Doge of Venice Enrico Dandolo proposed that Venice would be compensated with the profits of future conquests beginning with the seizure of the Christian city of Zara. Pope Innocent III's role was ambivalent. He only condemned the attack when the siege started. He withdrew his legate to disassociate from the attack but seemed to have accepted it as inevitable. Historians question whether for him, the papal desire to salvage the crusade may have outweighed the moral consideration of shedding Christian blood.^[216] The crusade was joined by King Philip of Swabia, who intended to use the Crusade to install his exiled brother-in-law, Alexios IV Angelos, as Emperor. This required the overthrow of Alexios III Angelos, the uncle of Alexios IV. Alexios IV offered the crusade 10,000 troops, 200,000 marks and the reunion of the Greek Church with Rome if they toppled his uncle Emperor Alexios III.^[217] When the crusade entered Constantinople, Alexios III fled and was replaced by his nephew. The Greek resistance prompted Alexios IV to seek continued support from the crusade until he could fulfil his commitments. This ended with his murder in a violent anti-Latin revolt. The crusaders were without seaworthy ships, supplies or food. Their only escape route was through the city, taking by force what Alexios had promised and the new anti-westerner Byzantine ruler – Alexios V Doukas – denied them. The Sack of Constantinople involved three days of pillaging churches and killing much of the Greek Orthodox Christian populace. 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.^[218]

Fifth Crusade

Main article: Fifth Crusade

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. In 1213, Innocent III called for another Crusade at the Fourth Lateran Council, and in the papal bull Quia maior.^[219] Innocent died in 1216 and was succeeded by Honorius III who immediately called on Andrew II of Hungary and Frederick II of Germany to lead a Crusade.^[220] Frederick had taken the cross in 1215, but hung back, with his crown still in contention, and Honorius delayed the expedition.^[221]

Crusaders attack the tower of Damietta during the siege of Damietta in a painting by Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen.

Andrew II left for Acre in August 1217, joining John of Brienne, king of Jerusalem. The initial plan of a two-prong attack in Syria and in Egypt was abandoned and instead the objective became limited operations in Syria. After accomplishing little, the ailing Andrew returned to Hungary early in 1218. As it became clear that Frederick II was not coming to the east, the remaining commanders began the planning to attack the Egyptian port of Damietta.^[222]

The fortifications of Damietta included the Burj al-Silsilah – the chain tower – with massive chains that could stretch across the Nile. The siege of Damietta began in June 1218 with a successful assault on the tower. The loss of the tower was a great shock to the Ayyubids, and the sultan al-Adil died soon thereafter.^[223] He was succeeded as sultan by his son al-Kamil. Further offensive action by the Crusaders would have to wait until the arrival of additional forces, including legate Pelagius with a contingent of Romans.^[224] A group from England arrived shortly thereafter.^[225]

By February 1219, the Crusaders now had Damietta surrounded, and al-Kamil opened negotiations with the Crusaders, asking for envoys to come to his camp. He offered to surrender the kingdom of Jerusalem, less the fortresses of al-Karak and Krak de Montréal, guarding the road to Egypt, in exchange for the evacuation of Egypt. John of Brienne and the other secular leaders were in favor of the offer, as the original objective of the Crusade was the recovery of Jerusalem. But Pelagius and the leaders of the Templars and Hospitallers refused.^[226] Later, Francis of Assisi arrived to negotiate unsuccessfully with the sultan.^[227]

In November 1219, the Crusaders entered Damietta and found it abandoned, al-Kamil having moved his army south. In the captured city, Pelagius was unable to prod the Crusaders from their inactivity, and many returned home, their vow fulfilled. Al-Kamil took advantage of this lull to reinforce his new camp at Mansurah, renewing his peace offering to the Crusaders, which was again refused. Frederick II sent troops and word that he would soon follow, but they were under orders not to begin offensive operations until he had arrived.^[228]

In July 1221, Pelagius began to advance to the south. John of Brienne argued against the move, but was powerless to stop it. Already deemed a traitor for opposing the plans and threatened with excommunication, John joined the force under the command of the legate. In the ensuing Battle of Mansurah in late August, al-Kamil had the sluices along the right bank of the Nile opened, flooding the area and rendering battle impossible.^[229] Pelagius had no choice but to surrender.^[230]

The Crusaders still had some leverage as Damietta was well-garrisoned. 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. Prior to the formal surrender of Damietta, the two sides would maintain hostages, among them John of Brienne and Hermann of Salza for the Franks side and a son of al-Kamil for Egypt.^[231] The masters of the military orders were dispatched to Damietta, where the forces were resistant to giving up, with the news of the surrender, which happened on 8 September 1221. The Fifth Crusade was over, a dismal failure, unable to even gain the return of the piece of the True Cross.^[232]

Sixth Crusade

Main article: Sixth Crusade

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 Sixth Crusade (1228–1229) was a military expedition to recapture the city of Jerusalem. It began seven years after the failure of the Fifth Crusade and involved very little actual fighting. The diplomatic maneuvering of Frederick II^[233] resulted in the Kingdom of Jerusalem regaining some control over Jerusalem for much of the ensuing fifteen years. The Sixth Crusade is also known as the Crusade of Frederick II.^[234]

Of all the European sovereigns, only Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor, was in a position to regain Jerusalem. Frederick was, like many of the 13th-century rulers, a serial crucesignatus,^[235] having taken the cross multiple times since 1215.^[236] After much wrangling, an onerous agreement between the emperor and Pope Honorius III was signed on 25 July 1225 at San Germano. Frederick promised to depart on the Crusade by August 1227 and remain for two years. During this period, he was to maintain and support forces in Syria and deposit escrow funds at Rome in gold. These funds would be returned to the emperor once he arrived at Acre. If he did not arrive, the money would be employed for the needs of the Holy Land.^[237] Frederick II would go on the Crusade as king of Jerusalem. He married John of Brienne's daughter Isabella II by proxy in August 1225 and they were formally married on 9 November 1227. Frederick claimed the kingship of Jerusalem despite John having been given assurances that he would remain as king. Frederick took the crown in December 1225. Frederick's first royal decree was to grant new privileges on the Teutonic Knights, placing them on equal footing as the Templars and Hospitallers.^[238]

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,^[239] offering return of much of the Holy Land in exchange for military support.^[240] Becoming pope in 1227, Gregory IX was determined to proceed with the Crusade.^[241] The first contingents of Crusaders then sailed in August 1227, joining with forces of the kingdom and fortifying the coastal towns. The emperor was delayed while his ships were refitted. He sailed on 8 September 1227, but before they reached their first stop, Frederick was struck with the plague and disembarked to secure medical attention. Resolved to keep his oath, he sent his fleet on to Acre. He sent his emissaries to inform Gregory IX of the situation, but the pope did not care about Frederick's illness, just that he had not lived up to his agreement. Frederick was excommunicated on 29 September 1227, branded a wanton violator of his sacred oath taken many times.^[234]

Frederick made his last effort to be reconciled with Gregory. It had no effect and Frederick sailed from Brindisi in June 1228. After a stop at Cyprus, Frederick II arrived in Acre on 7 September 1228 and was received warmly by the military orders, despite his excommunication. Frederick's army was not large, mostly German, Sicilian and English.^[242] Of the troops he had sent in 1227 had mostly returned home. He could neither afford nor mount a lengthening campaign in the Holy Land given the ongoing War of the Keys with Rome. The Sixth Crusade would be one of negotiation.^[243]

After resolving the internecine struggles in Syria, al-Kamil's position was stronger than it was a year before when he made his original offer to Frederick. For unknown reasons, the two sides came to an agreement. The resultant Treaty of Jaffa was concluded on 18 February 1229, with al-Kamil surrendering Jerusalem, with the exception of some Muslim holy sites, and agreeing to a ten-year truce.^[244] Frederick entered Jerusalem on 17 March 1229 and received the formal surrender of the city by al-Kamil's agent and the next day, crowned himself.^[245] On 1 May 1229, Frederick departed from Acre and arrived in Sicily a month before the pope knew that he had left the Holy Land. Frederick obtained from the pope relief from his excommunication on 28 August 1230 at the Treaty of Ceprano.^[246]

The results of the Sixth Crusade were not universally acclaimed. Two letters from the Christian side tell differing stories,^[247] with Frederick touting the great success of the endeavor and the Latin patriarch painting a darker picture of the emperor and his accomplishments. On the Muslim side, al-Kamil himself was pleased with the accord, but others regarded the treaty as a disastrous event.^[248] In the end, the Sixth Crusade successfully returned Jerusalem to Christian rule and had set a precedent, in having achieved success on crusade without papal involvement.^[234]

The Crusades of 1239–1241

Main article: Barons' Crusade

The Crusades of 1239–1241, also known as the Barons' Crusade, were a series of crusades to the Holy Land that, in territorial terms, were the most successful since the First Crusade.^[249] The major expeditions were led separately by Theobald I of Navarre and Richard of Cornwall.^[250] These crusades are sometimes discussed along with that of Baldwin of Courtenay to Constantinople.^[251]

The defeat of the Crusaders at Gaza, depicted in the Chronica majora of Matthew Paris, 13th century

In 1229, Frederick II and the Ayyubid sultan al-Kamil, had agreed to a ten-year truce. Nevertheless, Gregory IX, who had condemned this truce from the beginning, issued the papal bull Rachel suum videns in 1234 calling for a new crusade once the truce expired. A number of English and French nobles took the cross, but the crusade's departure was delayed because Frederick, whose lands the crusaders had planned to cross, opposed any crusading activity before the expiration of this truce. Frederick was again excommunicated in 1239, causing most crusaders to avoid his territories on their way to the Holy Land.^[252]

The French expedition was led by Theobald I of Navarre and Hugh of Burgundy, joined by Amaury de Montfort and Peter of Dreux.^[253] On 1 September 1239, Theobald arrived in Acre, and was soon drawn into the Ayyubid civil war, which had been raging since the death of al-Kamil in 1238.^[254] At the end of September, al-Kamil's brother as-Salih Ismail seized Damascus from his nephew, as-Salih Ayyub, and recognised al-Adil II as sultan of Egypt. Theobald decided to fortify Ascalon to protect the southern border of the kingdom and to move against Damascus later. While the Crusaders were marching from Acre to Jaffa, Egyptian troops moved to secure the border in what became the Battle at Gaza.^[255] 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. The masters of the military orders then convinced Theobald to retreat to Acre rather than pursue the Egyptians and their Frankish prisoners. A month after the battle at Gaza, an-Nasir Dā'ūd, emir of Kerak, seized Jerusalem, virtually unguarded. The internal strife among the Ayyubids allowed Theobald to negotiate the return of Jerusalem. In September 1240, Theobald departed for Europe, while Hugh of Burgundy remained to help fortify Ascalon.^[256]

On 8 October 1240, the English expedition arrived, led by Richard of Cornwall.^[257] The force marched to Jaffa, where they completed the negotiations for a truce with Ayyubid leaders begun by Theobald just a few months prior. Richard consented, the new agreement was ratified by Ayyub by 8 February 1241, and prisoners from both sides were released on 13 April. Meanwhile, Richard's forces helped to work on Ascalon's fortifications, which were completed by mid-March 1241. Richard entrusted the new fortress to an imperial representative, and departed for England on 3 May 1241.^[258]

In July 1239, Baldwin of Courtenay, the young heir to the Latin Empire, travelled to Constantinople with a small army. In the winter of 1239, Baldwin finally returned to Constantinople, where he was crowned emperor around Easter of 1240, after which he launched his crusade. Baldwin then besieged and captured Tzurulum, a Nicaean stronghold seventy-five miles west of Constantinople.^[259]

Although the Barons' Crusade returned the kingdom to its largest size since 1187, the gains would be dramatically reversed a few years later. On 15 July 1244, the city was reduced to ruins during the siege of Jerusalem and its Christians massacred by the Khwarazmian army. A few months later, the Battle of La Forbie permanently crippled Christian military power in the Holy Land. The sack of the city and the massacre which accompanied it encouraged Louis IX of France to organise the Seventh Crusade.^[260]

The Seventh Crusade

Main article: Seventh Crusade

Louis IX during the Seventh Crusade

The Seventh Crusade (1248–1254) was the first of the two Crusades led by Louis IX of France. Also known as the Crusade of Louis IX to the Holy Land, its objective was to reclaim the Holy Land by attacking Egypt, the main seat of Muslim power in the Middle East, then under as-Salih Ayyub, son of al-Kamil. The Crusade was conducted in response to setbacks in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, beginning with the loss of the Holy City in 1244, and was preached by Innocent IV in conjunction with a crusade against emperor Frederick II, the Prussian crusades and Mongol incursions.^[261]

At the end of 1244, Louis was stricken with a severe malarial infection and he vowed that if he recovered he would set out for a Crusade. His life was spared, and as soon as his health permitted him, he took the cross and immediately began preparations.^[262] The next year, the pope presided over First Council of Lyon, directing a new Crusade under the command of Louis. 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.^[263]

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.^[264] With him were queen Margaret of Provence and two of Louis' brothers, Charles I of Anjou and Robert I of Artois. Their youngest brother Alphonse of Poitiers departed the next year. They were followed by Hugh IV of Burgundy, Peter Maulcerc, Hugh XI of Lusignan, royal companion and chronicler Jean de Joinville, and an English detachment under William Longespée, grandson of Henry II of England.^[265]

The first stop was Cyprus, arriving in September 1248 where they experienced a long wait for the forces to assemble. Many of the men were lost en route or to disease.^[266] The Franks were soon met by those from Acre including the masters of the Orders Jean de Ronay and Guillaume de Sonnac. The two eldest sons of John of Brienne, Alsonso of Brienne and Louis of Brienne, would also join as would John of Ibelin, nephew to the Old Lord of Beirut.^[267] William of Villehardouin also arrived with ships and Frankish soldiers from the Morea. It was agreed that Egypt was the objective and many remembered how the sultan's father had been willing to exchange Jerusalem itself for Damietta in the Fifth Crusade. Louis was not willing to negotiate with the infidel Muslims, but he did unsuccessfully seek a Franco-Mongol alliance, reflecting what the pope had sought in 1245.^[268]

As-Salih Ayyub was conducting a campaign in Damascus when the Franks invaded as he had expected the Crusaders to land in Syria. Hurrying his forces back to Cairo, he turned to his vizier Fakhr ad-Din ibn as-Shaikh to command the army that fortified Damietta in anticipation of the invasion. On 5 June 1249 the Crusader fleet began the landing and subsequent siege of Damietta. After a short battle, the Egyptian commander decided to evacuate the city.^[269] Remarkably, Damietta had been seized with only one Crusader casualty.^[270] The city became a Frankish city and Louis waited until the Nile floods abated before advancing, remembering the lessons of the Fifth Crusade. The loss of Damietta was a shock to the Muslim world, and as-Salih Ayyub offered to trade Damietta for Jerusalem as his father had thirty years before. The offer was rejected. By the end of October 1249 the Nile had receded and reinforcements had arrived. It was time to advance, and the Frankish army set out towards Mansurah.^[271]

The sultan died in November 1249, his widow Shajar al-Durr concealing the news of her husband's death. She forged a document which appointed his son al-Muazzam Turanshah, then in Syria, as heir and Fakhr ad-Din as viceroy.^[272] But the Crusade continued, and by December 1249, Louis was encamped on the river banks opposite to Mansurah.^[270] For six weeks, the armies of the West and Egypt faced each other on opposite sides of the canal, leading to the Battle of Mansurah that would end on 11 February 1250 with an Egyptian defeat. Louis had his victory, but a cost of the loss of much of his force and their commanders. Among the survivors were the Templar master Guillaume de Sonnac, losing an eye, Humbert V de Beaujeu, constable of France, John II of Soissons, and the duke of Brittany, Peter Maulcerc. Counted with the dead were the king's brother Robert I of Artois, William Longespée and most of his English followers, Peter of Courtenay, and Raoul II of Coucy. But the victory would be short-lived.^[273] On 11 February 1250, the Egyptians attacked again. Templar master Guillaume de Sonnac and acting Hospitaller master Jean de Ronay were killed. Alphonse of Poitiers, guarding the camp, was encircled and was rescued by the camp followers. At nightfall, the Muslims gave up the assault.^[274]

Louis IX being taken prisoner at the Battle of Fariskur (Gustave Doré)

On 28 February 1250, Turanshah arrived from Damascus and began an Egyptian offensive, intercepting the boats that brought food from Damietta. The Franks were quickly beset by famine and disease.^[275] The Battle of Fariskur fought on 6 April 1250 would be the decisive defeat of Louis' army. Louis knew that the army must be extricated to Damietta and they departed on the morning of 5 April, with the king in the rear and the Egyptians in pursuit. The next day, the Muslims surrounded the army and attacked in full force. On 6 April, Louis' surrender was negotiated directly with the sultan by Philip of Montfort. The king and his entourage were taken in chains to Mansurah and the whole of the army was rounded up and led into captivity.^[274]

The Egyptians were unprepared for the large number of prisoners taken, comprising most of Louis' force. The infirm were executed immediately and several hundred were decapitated daily. Louis and his commanders were moved to Mansurah, and negotiations for their release commenced. The terms agreed to were harsh. Louis was to ransom himself by the surrender of Damietta and his army by the payment of a million bezants (later reduced to 800,000).^[276] Latin patriarch Robert of Nantes went under safe-conduct to complete the arrangements for the ransom. Arriving in Cairo, he found Turanshah dead, murdered in a coup instigated by his stepmother Shajar al-Durr. On 6 May, Geoffrey of Sergines handed Damietta over to the Moslem vanguard. Many wounded soldiers had been left behind at Damietta, and contrary to their promise, the Muslims massacred them all. In 1251, the Shepherds' Crusade, a popular crusade formed with the objective to free Louis, engulfed France.^[277] After his release, Louis went to Acre where he remained until 1254. This is regarded as the end of the Seventh Crusade.^[261]

The final crusades

Main articles: Eighth Crusade and Lord Edward's Crusade

After the defeat of the Crusaders in Egypt, Louis remained in Syria until 1254 to consolidate the crusader states.^[278] A brutal power struggle developed in Egypt between various Mamluk leaders and the remaining weak Ayyubid rulers. The threat presented by an invasion by the Mongols led to one of the competing Mamluk leaders, Qutuz, seizing the sultanate in 1259 and uniting with another faction led by Baibars to defeat the Mongols at Ain Jalut. The Mamluks then quickly gained control of Damascus and Aleppo before Qutuz was assassinated and Baibers assumed control.^[279]

Between 1265 and 1271, Baibars drove the Franks to a few small coastal outposts.^[280] Baibars had three key objectives: to prevent an alliance between the Latins and the Mongols, to cause dissension among the Mongols (particularly between the Golden Horde and the Persian Ilkhanate), and to maintain access to a supply of slave recruits from the Russian steppes. He supported Manfred of Sicily's failed resistance to the attack of Charles and the papacy. Dissension in the crusader states led to conflicts such as the War of Saint Sabas. Venice drove the Genoese from Acre to Tyre where they continued to trade with Egypt. Indeed, Baibars negotiated free passage for the Genoese with Michael VIII Palaiologos, Emperor of Nicaea, the newly restored ruler of Constantinople.^[281] In 1270 Charles turned his brother King Louis IX's crusade, known as the Eighth Crusade, to his own advantage by persuading him to attack Tunis. The crusader army was devastated by disease, and Louis himself died at Tunis on 25 August. The fleet returned to France. Prince Edward, the future king of England, and a small retinue arrived too late for the conflict but continued to the Holy Land in what is known as Lord Edward's Crusade.^[282] Edward survived an assassination attempt, negotiated a ten-year truce, and then returned to manage his affairs in England. This ended the last significant crusading effort in the eastern Mediterranean.^[283]

Decline and fall of the Crusader States

The Siege of Acre depicted in Matthieu de Clermont défend Ptolémaïs en 1291, by Dominique Papety at Salles des Croisades in Versailles

Main article: Fall of Outremer

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. These include ones of Gregory X, Charles I of Anjou and Nicholas IV, none of which came to fruition. The major players fighting the Muslims included the kings of England and France, the kingdoms of Cyprus and Sicily, the three Military Orders and Mongol Ilkhanate. The end of Western European presence in the Holy Land was sealed with the fall of Tripoli and their subsequent defeat at the siege of Acre in 1291. The Christian forces managed to survive until the final fall of Ruad in 1302.^[284]

The Holy Land would no longer be the focus of the West even though various crusades were proposed in the early years of the fourteenth century. The Knights Hospitaller would conquer Rhodes from Byzantium, making it the center of their activity for a hundred years. The Knights Templar, the elite fighting force in the kingdom, was disbanded. The Mongols converted to Islam, but disintegrated as a fighting force. The Mamluk sultanate would continue for another century. The Crusades to liberate Jerusalem and the Holy Land were over.^[285]

Other crusades

Map of the branches of the Teutonic Order in Europe c. 1300. Shaded area is sovereign territory.

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. These included the 12th to 15th century Reconquista, the conquest of Muslim Al-Andalus by Spanish Christian kingdoms; 12th to 15th century German Northern Crusades expansion into the pagan Baltic region; the suppression of non-conformity, particularly in Languedoc during what has become called the Albigensian Crusade and for the Papacy's temporal advantage in Italy and Germany that are now known as political crusades. In the 13th and 14th centuries there were also unsanctioned, but related popular uprisings to recover Jerusalem known variously as Shepherds' or Children's crusades.^[286]

Urban II equated the crusades for Jerusalem with the ongoing Catholic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula and crusades were preached in 1114 and 1118, but it was Pope Callixtus II who proposed dual fronts in Spain and the Middle East in 1122. In the spring of 1147, Eugene authorised the expansion of his mission into the Iberian peninsula, equating these campaigns against the Moors with the rest of the Second Crusade. The successful siege of Lisbon, from 1 July to 25 October 1147, was followed by the six-month siege of Tortosa, ending on 30 December 1148 with a defeat for the Moors.^[287] In the north, some Germans were reluctant to fight in the Holy Land while the pagan Wends were a more immediate problem. The resulting Wendish Crusade of 1147 was partially successful but failed to convert the pagans to Christianity.^[288] By the time of the Second Crusade the three Spanish kingdoms were powerful enough to conquer Islamic territory – Castile, Aragon, and Portugal.^[289] In 1212 the Spanish were victorious at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa with the support of foreign fighters responding to the preaching of Innocent III. Many of these deserted because of the Spanish tolerance of the defeated Muslims, for whom the Reconquista was a war of domination rather than extermination.^[290] In contrast the Christians formerly living under Muslim rule called Mozarabs had the Roman Rite relentlessly imposed on them and were absorbed into mainstream Catholicism.^[291] Al-Andalus, Islamic Spain, was completely suppressed in 1492 when the Emirate of Granada surrendered.^[292]

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.^[293][294] From the early 13th century, there was significant involvement of military orders, such as the Livonian Brothers of the Sword and the Order of Dobrzyń. The Teutonic Knights diverted efforts from the Holy Land, absorbed these orders and established the State of the Teutonic Order.^[295][296] This evolved the Duchy of Prussia and Duchy of Courland and Semigallia in 1525 and 1562, respectively.^[297]

Miniatures showing Pope Innocent III excommunicating, and the crusaders massacring, Cathars (BL Royal 16 G VI, fol. 374v, 14th century)

By the beginning of the 13th century papal reticence in applying crusades against the papacy's political opponents and those considered heretics had abated. Innocent III proclaimed a crusade against Catharism that failed to suppress the heresy itself but ruined the culture of the Languedoc.^[298] This set a precedent that was followed in 1212 with pressure exerted on the city of Milan for tolerating Catharism,^[299] in 1234 against the Stedinger peasants of north-western Germany, in 1234 and 1241 Hungarian crusades against Bosnian heretics.^[298] The historian Norman Housley notes the connection between heterodoxy and anti-papalism in Italy.^[300] Indulgence was offered to anti-heretical groups such as the Militia of Jesus Christ and the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary.^[301] Innocent III declared the first political crusade against Frederick II's regent, Markward von Annweiler, and when Frederick later threatened Rome in 1240, Gregory IX used crusading terminology to raise support against him. On Frederick II's death the focus moved to Sicily. In 1263, Pope Urban IV offered crusading indulgences to Charles of Anjou in return for Sicily's conquest. However, these wars had no clear objectives or limitations, making them unsuitable for crusading.^[302] The 1281 election of a French pope, Martin IV, brought the power of the papacy behind Charles. Charles's preparations for a crusade against Constantinople were foiled by the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, who instigated an uprising called the Sicilian Vespers. Instead, Peter III of Aragon was proclaimed king of Sicily, despite his excommunication and an unsuccessful Aragonese Crusade.^[303] 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.^[304]

The Latin states established were a fragile patchwork of petty realms threatened by Byzantine successor states – the Despotate of Epirus, the Empire of Nicaea and the Empire of Trebizond. Thessaloniki fell to Epirus in 1224, and Constantinople to Nicaea in 1261. Achaea and Athens survived under the French after the Treaty of Viterbo.^[305] The Venetians endured a long-standing conflict with the Ottoman Empire until the final possessions were lost in the Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War in the 18th century. This period of Greek history is known as the Frankokratia or Latinokratia ("Frankish or Latin rule") and designates a period when western European Catholics ruled Orthodox Byzantine Greeks.^[306]

The major crusades of the 14th century include: the Crusade against the Dulcinians; the Crusade of the Poor; the Anti-Catalan Crusade; the Shepherds' Crusade; the Smyrniote Crusades; the Crusade against Novgorod; the Savoyard Crusade; the Alexandrian Crusade; the Despenser's Crusade; the Mahdia, Tedelis, and Bona Crusades; and the Crusade of Nicopolis.

The threat of the expanding Ottoman Empire prompted further crusades of the 15th century. In 1389, the Ottomans defeated the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo, won control of the Balkans from the Danube to the Gulf of Corinth, in 1396 defeated French crusaders and King Sigismund of Hungary at the Nicopolis, in 1444 destroyed a crusading Polish and Hungarian force at Varna, four years later again defeated the Hungarians at Kosovo and in 1453 captured Constantinople. The 16th century saw growing rapprochement. The Habsburgs, French, Spanish and Venetians and Ottomans all signed treaties. Francis I of France allied with all quarters, including from German Protestant princes and Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.^[307]

Anti-Christian crusading declined in the 15th century, the exceptions were the six failed crusades against the religiously radical Hussites in Bohemia and attacks on the Waldensians in Savoy.^[308] Crusading became a financial exercise; precedence was given to the commercial and political objectives. The military threat presented by the Ottoman Turks diminished, making anti-Ottoman crusading obsolete in 1699 with the final Holy League.^[309][310]

Military orders

Main article: Military orders

13th-century miniature of Baldwin II of Jerusalem granting the captured Al Aqsa Mosque to Hugues de Payns

The military orders were forms of a religious order first established early in the twelfth century with the function of defending Christians, as well as observing monastic vows. The Knights Hospitaller had a medical mission in Jerusalem since before the First Crusade, later becoming a formidable military force supporting the crusades in the Holy Land and Mediterranean. The Knights Templar were founded in 1119 by a band of knights who dedicated themselves to protecting pilgrims en route to Jerusalem.^[311] The Teutonic Knights were formed in 1190 to protect pilgrims in both the Holy Land and Baltic region.^[312]

The Hospitallers and the Templars became supranational organisations as papal support led to rich donations of land and revenue across Europe. This, in turn, led to a steady flow of new recruits and the wealth to maintain multiple fortifications in the crusader states. In time, they developed into autonomous powers in the region.^[313] After the fall of Acre the Hospitallers relocated to Cyprus, then ruled Rhodes until the island was taken by the Ottomans in 1522. While there was talk of merging the Templars and Hospitallers in 1305 by Clement V, ultimately the Templars were charged with heresy and disbanded. The Teutonic Knights supported the later Prussian campaigns into the fifteenth century.

Art and architecture

Main article: Art of the Crusades

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.

According to the historian Joshua Prawer no major European poet, theologian, scholar or historian settled in the crusader states. Some went on pilgrimage, and this is seen in new imagery and ideas in western poetry. Although they did not migrate east themselves, their output often encouraged others to journey there on pilgrimage.^[314]

Historians consider the crusader military architecture of the Middle East to demonstrate a synthesis of the European, Byzantine and Muslim traditions and to be the most original and impressive artistic achievement of the crusades. Castles were a tangible symbol of the dominance of a Latin Christian minority over a largely hostile majority population. They also acted as centres of administration.^[315] 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. The latter led to the inclusion of oriental design features such as large water reservoirs and the exclusion of occidental features such as moats.^[316]

The ivory front bookcover of the Melisende Psalter

Typically, crusader church design was in the French Romanesque style. This can be seen in the 12th-century rebuilding of the Holy Sepulchre. It retained some of the Byzantine details, but new arches and chapels were built to northern French, Aquitanian, and Provençal patterns. There is little trace of any surviving indigenous influence in sculpture, although in the Holy Sepulchre the column capitals of the south facade follow classical Syrian patterns.^[317]

In contrast to architecture and sculpture, it is in the area of visual culture that the assimilated nature of the society was demonstrated. Throughout the 12th and 13th centuries the influence of indigenous artists was demonstrated in the decoration of shrines, paintings and the production of illuminated manuscripts. Frankish practitioners borrowed methods from the Byzantines and indigenous artists and iconographical practice leading to a cultural synthesis, illustrated by the Church of the Nativity. Wall mosaics were unknown in the west but in widespread use in the crusader states. Whether this was by indigenous craftsmen or learnt by Frankish ones is unknown, but a distinctive original artistic style evolved.^[318]

Manuscripts were produced and illustrated in workshops housing Italian, French, English and local craftsmen leading to a cross-fertilisation of ideas and techniques. An example of this is the Melisende Psalter, created by several hands in a workshop attached to the Holy Sepulchre. This style could have both reflected and influenced the taste of patrons of the arts. But what is seen is an increase in stylised, Byzantine-influenced content. This extended to the production of icons, unknown at the time to the Franks, sometimes in a Frankish style and even of western saints. This is seen as the origin of Italian panel painting.^[319] While it is difficult to track illumination of manuscripts and castle design back to their origins, textual sources are simpler. The translations made in Antioch are notable, but they are considered of secondary importance to the works emanating from Muslim Spain and from the hybrid culture of Sicily.^[320]

Financing

Main article: Papal income tax

Crusade finance and taxation left a legacy of social, financial, and legal institutions. Property became available while coinage and precious materials circulated more readily within Europe. Crusading expeditions created immense demands for food supplies, weapons, and shipping that benefited merchants and artisans. Levies for crusades contributed to the development of centralised financial administrations and the growth of papal and royal taxation. This aided development of representative bodies whose consent was required for many forms of taxation.^[321]

The Crusades strengthened exchanges between Oriental and Occidental economic spheres. The transport of pilgrims and crusaders notably benefitted Italian maritime cities, such as the trio of Venice, Pisa, and Genoa. Having obtained commercial privileges in the fortified places of Syria, they became the favoured intermediaries for trade in goods such as silk, spices, as well as other raw alimentary goods and mineral products. Trade with the Muslim world was thus extended beyond existing limits. Merchants were further advantaged by technological improvements, and long-distance trade as a whole expanded.^[322] The increased volume of goods being traded through ports of the Latin Levant and the Muslim world made this the cornerstone of a wider Middle Eastern economy, as manifested in important cities along the trade routes, such as Aleppo, Damascus, and Acre. 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.^[321]

Legacy

See also: Crusading movement § Legacy

The Crusades created national mythologies, tales of heroism, and a few place names.^[323] 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.^[324] Modern Muslim thinkers, politicians and historians have drawn parallels between the crusades and political developments such as the establishment of Israel in 1948.^[325]

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. Crusader symbols and anti-Islamic rhetoric are presented as an appropriate response. These symbols and rhetoric are used to provide a religious justification and inspiration for a struggle against a religious enemy.^[326]

Historiography

Main article: Historiography of the Crusades

The historiography of the Crusades is concerned with their "history of the histories" during the Crusader period. The subject is a complex one, with overviews provided in Select Bibliography of the Crusades,^[327] Modern Historiography,^[328] and Crusades (Bibliography and Sources).^[329] The histories describing the Crusades are broadly of three types: (1) The primary sources of the Crusades,^[330] which include works written in the medieval period, generally by participants in the Crusade or written contemporaneously with the event, letters and documents in archives, and archaeological studies; (2) secondary sources, beginning with early consolidated works in the 16th century and continuing to modern times; and (3) tertiary sources, primarily encyclopedias, bibliographies and genealogies.^[327]

William of Tyre writing his history, from a 13th-century Old French translation, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, MS 2631, f.1r

Primary sources

The primary sources for the Crusades are generally presented in the individual articles on each Crusade and summarised in the list of sources for the Crusades.^[331] For the First Crusade, this includes the original Latin chronicles, including the Gesta Francorum, works by Albert of Aachen and Fulcher of Chartres, the Alexiad by Byzantine princess Anna Komnene, the Complete Work of History by Muslim historian Ali ibn al-Athir, and the Chronicle of Armenian historian Matthew of Edessa. Many of these and related texts are found in the collections Recueil des historiens des croisades (RHC) and Crusade Texts in Translation. The work of William of Tyre, Historia Rerum in Partibus Transmarinis Gestarum, and its continuations by later historians complete the foundational work of the traditional Crusade.^[332] Some of these works also provide insight into the later Crusades and Crusader states. Other works include:

• Eyewitness accounts of the Second Crusade by Odo of Deuil and Otto of Freising. The Arab view from Damascus is provided by ibn al-Qalanisi.
• Works on the Third Crusade such as Libellus de Expugnatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum expeditione, the Itinerarium Regis Ricardi, and the works of Crusaders Tageno and Roger of Howden, and the narratives of Richard of Devizes, Ralph de Diceto, Ralph of Coggeshall and Arnold of Lübeck. The Arabic works by al-Isfahani and al-Maqdisi as well as the biography of Saladin by Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad are also of interest.
• The Fourth Crusade is described in the Devastatio Constantinopolitana and works of Geoffrey of Villehardouin, in his chronicle De la Conquête de Constantinople, Robert de Clari and Gunther of Pairis. The view of Byzantium is provided by Niketas Choniates and the Arab perspective is given by Abū Shāma and Abu'l-Fida.
• The history of the Fifth and Sixth Crusades is well represented in the works of Jacques de Vitry, Oliver of Paderborn and Roger of Wendover, and the Arabic works of Badr al-Din al-Ayni.
• Key sources for the later Crusades include Gestes des Chiprois, Jean de Joinville's Life of Saint Louis, as well as works by Guillaume de Nangis, Matthew Paris, Fidentius of Padua and al-Makrizi.

After the fall of Acre, the crusades continued through the 16th century. Principal references on this subject are the Wisconsin Collaborative History of the Crusades^[333] and Norman Housley's The Later Crusades, 1274–1580: From Lyons to Alcazar.^[334] Complete bibliographies are also given in these works.^{[citation needed]}

Secondary sources

The secondary sources of the Crusades began in the 16th century, with one of the first uses of the term crusades by 17th century French historian Louis Maimbourg in his Histoire des Croisades pour la délivrance de la Terre Sainte.^[335][336] Other works of the 18th century include Voltaire's Histoire des Croisades,^[337] and Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, excerpted as The Crusades, A.D. 1095–1261.^[338] This edition also includes an essay on chivalry by Walter Scott, whose works helped popularize 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.^[339][340]

These histories have provided evolving views of the Crusades as discussed in detail in the Historiography writeup in Crusading movement. Modern works that serve as secondary source material are listed in the Bibliography section below and need no further discussion here.^[341]

Tertiary sources

Three such works are: Louis Bréhier's multiple works on the Crusades in the Catholic Encyclopedia;^[342] the works of Ernest Barker in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition), later expanded into a separate publication;^[343][344] and The Crusades: An Encyclopedia (2006), edited by historian Alan V. Murray.^[345]

See also

• A History of the Crusades: list of contributions
• Bibliography of the Crusades: modern works
• Chronologies of the Crusades
• Criticism of crusading
• Historians and histories of the Crusades
• History of Christianity
• History of the Knights Hospitaller in the Levant
• History of the Knights Templar
• Military history of the Crusader states
• Women in the Crusades

Notes

1. Although a comparable phrase—hominum multitude cruce signata est ('a multitude of men was signed with the cross')—appears in a late-11th-century papal letter, the earliest attested use of the term crucesignatus occurs in a chapter heading of the Chronicle of Monte Cassino from the mid-12th century.^[7]