Download The Crusades – a History with Pictures

The Crusades – a History with Pictures
Jerusalem has been a special city for three religions- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. For
Jews, it was the city where King David ruled and where the great Temple had stood. For
Christians, it was the city where Jesus had lived, preached, and been crucified. For followers
of Islam (Muslims) it was where their leader, Mohammed, ascended into heaven for his "night
flights with Allah". The city was full of people from all three religions who lived there in
peace. Visitors came by the thousands from all over the western world to visit the holy places
in Jerusalem.
Suddenly, in 1071 AD, a group of Muslims ,called Seljuk Turks, stopped allowing
Christian visitors to come into Jerusalem at all .
Many Christians complained to the church in Rome.
Twenty four years later, on
November 27, 1095, Pope
Urban II spoke to a
Christian audience in
Clermont, France urging
his listeners to free the
Holy Land (Jerusalem,
Israel, and the areas around
them) from the Muslim
Turks. His words were
strong and powerful : "
Jerusalem is now held
captive by the enemies of
Christ, those who do not
know God, the heathen
(non Christians).
Jerusalem wants to be free
and begs you to come help!
Who will take up this work,
who will right these
wrongs, who will recover
this territory, if you won't
?"
After Pope Urban's speech a visiting monk reported that the
crowd shouted out "God wills it! God wills it!" They began
preparing for war, Holy war.
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This was actually the first of eight wars that Europeans fought
to free the Holy Land from Muslims. These wars, called the
Crusades, were fought in the period between 1096 and 1270.
Four of the eight crusades involved Europeans in major
warfare.
Click here to see the CRUSADES MAP
Those who fought were called the crusaders, because they
promised to, "Take up the cross" (which means that they would
go to war wearing a cross on their armor or shield as warriors
for Christ).
The Christians' Motives
Pope Urban had two reasons for
sending western Europeans to war.
The first was that Christians in the
Byzantine Empire needed extra
protection against the Muslim Seljuk
Turks. But the more important reason
for beginning the crusades was to free
the Holy Land from the Muslim
infidels ( people who did not believe
in Christianity), who were preventing
Christians from visiting the holy land.
Historians believe that
30,000 crusaders left Western
Europe to fight in the first
crusade. About 4,000 of those
were knights, who were happy
to try out their fighting skills.
The rest of the crusaders were
foot soldiers, archers (soldiers
with bows and arrows), and
cooks. Women and priests also
traveled with the men in the
army.
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Peasants had several good reasons
for going on the crusade. One reason
was that the church promised
immediate salvation in heaven to
anyone killed while helping to
recover the Holy Land for Christians.
A second reason was that a peasant
would not have to pay his rent to his
lord while on a crusade. Third, the
crusades also offered peasants an
adventure.
The March to Jerusalem
Traveling by foot and on horseback, the crusaders first went to the important city of
Constantinople
(the capital of the Byzantine Empire) .
The Byzantine emperor's daughter saw the thousands of crusaders who arrived in her city and
wrote that they were " full of enthusiasm and they filled every highway…like streams from all
directions, joining a river, they flowed forward at us in full force."
From Constantinople the crusaders marched to
Nicaea, the Muslim Seljuk Turk capitol,conquering it in
June 1097. Then they went eastward across Turkey. In
1098, they established the first of their crusader states.
The Crusader States
Crusader states were small areas of land that were
ruled like their countries in Europe. The crusaders chose
Kings of these states, though these kings had no more
power than a lord.
The crusades continued towards the Holy Land. In July 1099, the crusaders reached
Jerusalem.
After a long and difficult seige,
the crusaders entered the city and
slaughtered its Muslim and
Jewish inhabitants and made the
city the capital of another
crusader state.
Now the crusaders controlled a narrow strip of land about 500 miles long but only about 50
miles wide. This left them open to continued attacks from Muslim forces along the outer strip
. They built huge castles on the eastern border to better defend against these attacks. Knights
lived in these castles.
The Christians had regained the Holy Land. Visitors coming to worship at the holy places
(called pilgrims) could come again to Jerusalem.
Many crusaders stayed in Israel (called
Palestine) as well as in the nearby land of Syria,
enjoying their power as well as the climate, the
tasty foods and spices, and the artistic culture and
learning . Many crusaders married eastern women
and raised families . There was a great deal to
appreciate about this eastern part of their world.
A Christian bishop, Fulcher of Chartres,
wrote: "Now we who were westerners have
become easterners. He who was Italian or
French has in this land become a Galilean
or Palestinian."
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MUSLIMS REGAIN THE HOLY LAND
But Christian crusaders could not hold on to their power. During the 1140s, about 40 years
after the first crusade, the Muslims began to overpower the crusader states.
The Christian church urged the people to start the battle again.
The Second Crusade, which lasted from
1147 to 1149, was unsuccessful. Instead of
fighting against the Muslims, the armies of
King Louis VII of France and King Conrad
III of Germany fought among themselves.
Then Muslims almost wiped out the
crusader army in Turkey. The small number
of men that did make it to the Holy Land
could not manage to live peacefully with the
Christian lords who had been there for many
years now. There was fear that the
newcomers would attempt to set up a new
government and leave them with nothing.
While the crusaders argued among
themselves, the Muslims continued to
recapture lands.
Saladin's Rise to Power
In the late 1100s, Saladin was the leader of the Muslim
forces. Saladin had been just a young Muslim schoolboy in
Damascus,Syria when the Christian knights attacked his city
during the Second Crusade. But Saladin, whose name means
"Honoring the faith," would become a powerful force in the
worldof Islam , the greatest leader against the Christian
crusaders.As a young man Saladin served in the army of
Syria, a country to the east of the crusader states. When the
Syrian army took control of Egypt, south of the Holy Land,
the caliph ( the governor of an Islamic country) gave Saladin
the job of running the government.Because he was a strong
leader, Saladin was able to unite the many small Islamic
groups surrounding the crusader states. He became the
supreme leader of both Egypt and Syria in 1171.
The Horns of Hattin
Saladin led the Muslims in an attack against Tiberias, the capital city of one of the crusader
states near the sea of Galilee. Knights of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the southernmost
crusader state, headed north to free Tiberias from Saladin. Christians and Muslims met in a
decisive battle in July 1187.
The crusader army of about 20,000 included 1,200 knights in full armor and chain mail. It
was exhausted from marching all day in the desert. So six miles from Tiberias the crusaders
camped in a small valley between two mountain peaks called the Horns of Hattin . During the
night several thousand of the Muslim cavalry (soldiers on horses) surrounded the crusaders.
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Just before dawn, the Muslims set fire to the dry grass on the hillside that surrounded the
valley, and wind blew the flames into the valley where the crusaders were camped. The
Muslims charged behind the flames, circling the crusaders.
After the fire died down, the Muslim army finished the work of destruction. Few of the
crusaders remained alive. Most of the crusader foot soldiers were sold into slavery. So many
crusaders were on sale in the slave market that eventually a crusader could be sold for the
price of a shoe.
Saladin had
completely
defeated the
crusaders.He
considered
them to be
infidels of
Islam. With
no one left to
stop him,
Saladin
retook
Jerusalem,
the Muslims'
holy city.
The Crusade of Kings
When news reached the pope in Europe that Jerusalem was again in Muslim hands, he is
said to have died of grief. His successor, Pope Gregory VIII, called for a Third Crusade,
which came to be called the Crusade of Kings.
Three kings came to fight : Emperor Frederick I of Germany, King Richard I of England,
and King Philip II of France. In 1189, these kings and their armies began preparations to
regain Jerusalem from Saladin and the Muslims.
From the beginning, this crusade
Richard, who would later be Philip, a skilled
went badly. The 70-year-old Fredrick nicknamed " The Lion
politician, was no
Heart,"
warrior,
drowned in 1190 while swimming
across a river in Turkey. Most of
Frederick's army was so discouraged
that they returned to Europe.
was a
military genius famous for
his great courage in battle.
But he had an unstable
character- generous one
moment and violent the next.
but he was an expert in
planning sieges ( how
to surround and attack
cities and castles).
In April 1191, Phillip began a siege of Acre, an
Richard arrived to help Phillip in June.
important city on the coast.
The following month, the Muslims
surrendered and Phillip headed back to
France.
After staying in Acre for a few weeks, Richard became impatient when plans for peace with
Saladin were going slowly. Richard ordered the throats to be cut of all 2,700 Muslim
prisoners within the city's walls.
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Richard and Saladin
During the next year, Richard and Saladin
fought many battles. Richard regained some
territories but failed to regain Jerusalem. Each
leader made various peace proposals, and in
September 1192, the two leaders signed a fiveyear treaty. Under this treaty, the crusaders
could keep their cities along the coast from
Jaffa north, and pilgrims could once again
freely visit the holy land.
According to one writer, Richard sent word to
Saladin that he had agreed to a treaty so that he
could, "go back to his country (England),
collect more money and men and return and
take all of Jerusalem away from Saladin".
Saladin replied that he "thought Richard so
pleasant and upright", that if he must lose
Jerusalem, he would rather lose it to Richard's
mighty power than anyone else's.
The Fourth Crusade
In 1198, Pope Innocent III asked for a 4th crusade.
However,this crusade would prove to be disastrous to the Byzantine Empire.
In this fourth crusade, the crusaders decided to go to the Holy Land by sailing the
Mediterranean Sea rather than by
land.
But the crusaders needed money, a lot of money .
The ruler and the bankers in the city of Venice
made a deal to provide the crusaders with ships
and supplies in return for a share of the riches that
the crusaders found. The crusaders continued on to
Constantinople now in debt to the Venetian
bankers . There, in 1204, the ruler of Venice
persuaded the crusaders to attack Constantinople
and put a new Emperor in charge of the Byzantine
Empire. He also promised the crusaders they could
have all the treasures and riches they could find in
the city.
For three
terrible days, the
crusaders
burned libraries,
looted churches,
and stole many
valuable works
of art, jewels,
and gold.They
then shipped
their stolen
goods to Venice
to finish paying
off their debt.
Later historians
have referred to
this as
"the sack of
Constantinople."
In the selection
below, you can
read an
eyewitness
record .
"How shall I begin to tell of the deeds done by
these wicked men? They trampled the images
underfoot instead of adoring them. They threw the
relics of the martyrs into filth…. They broke into bits
the sacred altar of Santa Sophia, and distributed it
among the soldiers. When the sacred vessels and the
silver and gold ornaments were to be carried off,
they brought up mules and saddle horses inside the
church itself."
The spirit of the crusades had been
lost. Very few crusaders ever made it to
the Holy Land. The "enthusiasm " seen
in the first crusades had been replaced
by a hunger for wealth.
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THE CRUSADES AFFECT THE WEST
Since these holy wars did not achieve their purpose, they may be judged as having ended in
failure for several reasons . First, Jerusalem, considered the "center of the earth" for
Christians, remained in the Muslims' control. Second, Constantinople, the jewel of the
Byzantine Empire, was vandalized. Third, people lost respect for the crusaders because of the
abuses of innocent people by the knights of the Fourth Crusade.
Fourth, in Europe, the crusades proved to be a particular disaster for one group-the Jews.
Crusaders considered both Jews and Muslims to be infidels ( people who did not believe in
Christianity). So as the crusaders traveled across Europe towards Jerusalem, they took every
opportunity to persecute both the western and eastern Jews. They robbed them, killed them,
tortured them, and destroyed their businesses and their homes without mercy, simply because
they were Jews.
In a number of ways though, Western Europe did benefit from the crusades. Because the
Byzantines and the Muslims had carefully copied ancient writings, the crusaders were able
to bring these Roman and Greek writings back to Europe. This knowledge spread a new
interest in literature and art over Europe.
Since many of the crusaders brought back valuable goods like spices, gold, silver, silk and
religious art stolen from Muslim, Jewish, or even Christian cities, people began to desire
these things more and a rich trade developed to get them.
European cities such as Venice and Genoa in Italy became very wealthy and powerful
because of the increased trade in the Mediterranean with eastern countries.
The third major effect was improved technology. Crusaders learned how to make better
ships and more accurate maps. They began to use magnetic compasses to tell different
directions. These crusades would lead to even greater adventures. After fighting for nearly
200 years for control of the Holy Land, Europeans finally left the area to the Muslims.
Europeans in the 1400s would begin to explore other parts of the world- Africa, the Far East,
and the land that would be called America.