Download The Crusades (1096 to 1271)

The Crusades (1096 to 1271)
The Muslim presence in the Holy Land began with the initial Arab conquest of
Palestine in the 7th century. This did not interfere much with pilgrimage to
Christian holy sites or the security of monasteries and Christian communities in
the Holy Land. Therefore, Europeans were not concerned with the political and
religious affairs in such distant places.
Western attitudes towards the mid-east changed in the year 1009, when the
Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the Church of the Holy Sepulcher
destroyed. In 1039 his successor permitted the Byzantine Empire to rebuild it.
Pilgrimages were allowed into the Holy Lands before and after the Sepulchre
were rebuilt, but for a time pilgrims were captured and some of the clergy were
killed. The Muslim conquerors eventually realized that the wealth of Jerusalem
came from the pilgrims; with this realization the persecution of pilgrims stopped.
However, the damage was already done, and the violence of the Seljuk Turks
became part of the concern that spread the passion for the Crusades.
In November, 1096, Pope Urban II, stood in a field outside of the French city of
Clermont and called all in Christendom to arms in a solemn quest to recapture
the "holy land" where Christ was born and walked.
The First Crusade (1096 to 1099)
Pope Urban II exhorted the second and third sons of each noble family (sons
who were left landless from the practice of primogeniture) "to wrest that land from
the wicked race and subject it to yourselves.” The Pope stated that any man
who vowed to join the crusade would receive instant absolution and remission
from all sins. His last words were: "Deus lo volt!" meaning "God wills it!” The
whole audience of nobles took up the chant which became the battle cry of what
would be known as "The First Crusade".
With his call, Pope Urban II achieved enthusiastic support throughout all of
Europe. Nobles in France, Italy and England responded, financing the crusade
and dispatching some of their best Knights to the effort. A year after the call, in
1096, ten thousand Knights began arriving by ship in Constantinople. The
Emperor of Byzantium, anxious to have this Roman Catholic fighting force out of
his lands, provided them food and transport to Asia Minor as soon as possible,
suggesting they capture the Muslim city of Nicea in modern day Turkey which
was held by Seljuk Turks. Nicea fell after a five month siege the following May.
At this point, the Crusader army split in two. The larger group headed south to
the heavily fortified city of Antioch, whose walls stretched one mile wide and
three miles long. After placing the city under siege for eight months, they finally
succeeded. After two days of killing, every Muslim in the city, men, women and
children was dead. An Italian, Prince Bohamond declared himself the new
Prince of Antioch, establishing the first of four Christian Kingdoms in the Holy
Land. He and his army stayed behind, allowing the French and English
Crusaders to continue southward along the coast.
The smaller group of Crusaders that split off at Nicea and not going to Antioch
was led by Baldwin (a younger brother of the Duke of Lower Lorraine). It went
eastward towards Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq). At this time, these lands
were held by Armenian Christians, who were under constant threat from the
neighboring Seljuk Turks (commonly called the Saracens). Baldwin quickly
captured two Turkish castles. Subsequently, the Kingdom of Edessa became the
second of the four Christian Kingdoms in the Holy Land. Although Jerusalem
was only a 10-day march away, Baldwin stayed in Edessa to solidify his new
Principality.
Absent Prince Bohamond and Prince Baldwin, the remaining Crusaders
continued. On the evening of June 7th 1099 the two Crusader armies joined
again and soon were within sight of the walls of Jerusalem. At this point, only
1,200 Knights and 10,000 foot soldiers remained.
Within three weeks, they had breached the walls and proceeded to disembowel
the population. Their reason for doing this was twofold: first, when they had
arrived three weeks earlier, they had promised death to any person who stayed
in the city and did not surrender to them immediately. Secondly, they had heard
a rumor, quite unfounded, that Muslims hid their gold by swallowing it.
The Jewish inhabitants of the city crowded into their Temple so as not to be
mistaken for Muslims. Regrettably, the Crusaders were not being selective, so
they burnt down the Temple and all the people in it. Forgetting that the Old
Testament was also shared by those people who were in the Temple, one Knight
(Raymond of Aguilers) quoted from Psalm 118 that afternoon, "This is the day
the Lord hath made... be glad and rejoice!"
The Christians in the city were thrown out by the Muslims when the siege started,
thinking that, during a time of siege, it was more prudent to have the Christian
Crusaders feed the Jerusalem Christians, rather than having them consume the
Muslims' food.
Lastly, the Crusaders discovered that the Greek Orthodox priests had hidden a
portion of the actual wooden cross upon which Christ had died. Upon hearing
this, they tortured the priests until they were shown its hiding place behind a wall
in the Temple of the Holy Sepulcher.
To the Crusaders, the objective of the First Crusade was obtained. For the first
time in 600 years, Roman Catholic Christians controlled the lands upon which
Christ was born and walked. In addition, they found and possessed the most
holy object in Christendom, the True Cross.
39 year old Duke of Lower Lorraine, Godfrey de Bouillon was elected Governor
of the City. A few months later, Godfrey died of illness and his younger Brother,
Prince Baldwin of Edessa was declared by the Pope as the King of Jerusalem.
Baldwin gave out cities and lands to many of the other nobles and much of the
Crusading army drifted off with their nobles to the smaller cities to consolidate
their holdings and power. By 1118, many of the coastal cities were under
Christian control with each new-found Baron, Duke or Prince, all swearing
allegiance to the King of Jerusalem.
What really made the First Crusade so successful was not the size of the army of
European foot soldiers and Knights. 10,000 knights and 30,000 foot soldiers
were a powerful force, but the Muslims could have easily matched it. However,
the Crusader's benefited from the age old split in the Muslim population between
the Orthodox Sunni Muslims who were centered in Damascus and the Shiite
Muslims who were on both sides of them in Egypt and Persia. The Sunni
Muslims' preoccupation with the Shiites allowed the Christian armies to spread
out along the Mediterranean coast of from the edge of Egypt to Cecilia in modern
day Turkey.
By 1117, the four major Christian Kingdoms of the holy land had been
established. These were the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the
County of Tripoli and especially the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The name was often
used as an equivalent to Levant, Syria or Palestine, and incorporated areas that
are today also part of Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon.
The Second Crusade (1147 to 1148)
A new crusade was called for by various preachers, most notably by Bernard of
Clairvaux. French and South German armies, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who in
his preachings had encouraged the Second Crusade, was upset with the amount
of misdirected violence and slaughter of the Jewish population of the Rhineland.
The Muslims did not accept the new rule of the European Jerusalem Kings and
after a period of relative peace in which Christians and Muslims co-existed in the
Holy Land, Muslims conquered the Kingdom of Edessa. A second Crusade was
to be launched in 1147 to reinforce and protect the Christian Kingdoms and to
attempt to conquer Egypt.
The armies of the French King Louis VII and the Geman King Conrad III marched
toward Jerusalem but failed to accomplish any major successes, and indeed
endangered the survival of the Crusader states with a strategically foolish attack
on Damascus. Although successful in the lower Nile, the Crusaders never had
enough men or arms to capture Egypt. This failure to capture Egypt, either in the
Second Crusade or in later Crusades, would eventually doom the Christian
control of the Holy Land. By 1150, both armies had returned to their countries
without any success.
The Third Crusade (1187 to 1190)
Over the next 100 years, the Christians continued to use the animosity between
the Sunni and Shiite Muslims, playing one against the other as their main
defense. This worked successfully until 1183, when a new Shiite Muslim leader,
Saladin, Sultan of Egypt, managed to unite all the Muslims, including the Sunni
Muslims in Syria.
In a fateful battle on July 4th, 1187 on a plateau between two hills called the
Horns of Hattin, Saladin's armies defeated the major Christian force. After the
battle, over 300 Templar Knights and thousands of foot soldiers lay dead on the
battlefield. Saladin ransomed all of the surviving nobles, except the Knights
Templar and Hospitallers who were lined up and, at Saladin's command, had
their heads chopped off, one by one, in front of cheering Muslim officers. To
compound matters, Saladin also captured the “True Cross” that the Christians
would carry into battle with them and announced he would place it on the
threshold to his palace in Damascus so that every Muslim coming to visit the
Palace would have to wipe his feet on it. Later that year, Saladin successfully
recaptured Jerusalem.
After the fall of Jerusalem, in 1189 the King of England, Richard the Lionheart led
a Third Crusade in an unsuccessful attempt to recapture the Holy City and
recover the True Cross. The Crusader army headed south along the coast of the
Mediterranean Sea. They defeated the Muslims near Arsuf and were in sight of
Jerusalem. However, due to an inadequate food and water supply, the crusade
ended without the taking of Jerusalem. Richard left the following year after
establishing a truce with Saladin.
On Richard's way home, his ship was wrecked and he ended up in Austria,
where his enemy, Duke Leopold, captured him. The Duke delivered Richard to
the German Emperor Henry VI, who held the King Richard for ransom. By 1197,
Henry felt ready for a crusade, but he died in the same year of malaria. Richard I
died during fighting in Europe and never returned to the Holy Land. The Third
Crusade is sometimes referred to as the Kings' Crusade.
The Fourth Crusade (1200 to 1204)
The Fourth Crusade was initiated in 1202 by Pope Innocent III, with the intention
of invading the Holy Land through Egypt. Because the Crusaders lacked the
funds to pay for the fleet and provisions that they had contracted from the
Venetians, they were enlisted to restore the Christian city of Zara to the
obedience of the Venetians. The Crusaders subsequently lacked provisions and
time on their vessel lease and the leaders decided to capture and loot
Constantinople. They installed a Byzantine exile the, Count of Flanders on the
throne as the new Emperor. This act effectively ended the Greek Byzantium
Empire and opened the door to the Turks, who within a few generations, would
capture the city and lead to over 400 years of rule in the Mediterranean by the
Ottoman Empire.
The Fifth Crusade (1217 to 1221)
By processions, prayers, and preaching, the Catholic Church attempted to launch
another crusade. In the first phase, a crusading force from Hungary and Austria
joined the forces of the exiled King of Jerusalem and the Prince of Antioch to
take back Jerusalem. In the second phase, crusader forces achieved a
remarkable feat in the capture of Damietta in Egypt in 1219, but under the urgent
insistence of the papal leadership, they then launched foolhardy attack on Cairo
in July of 1221. The crusaders were turned back after their dwindling supplies
led to a forced retreat. A nighttime attack by the ruler of Egypt, the powerful
Sultan Al-Kamil, resulted in a great number of Crusader losses and eventually in
the surrender of the army. Al-Kamil agreed to peace with Europe that lasted
eight years.
The Sixth Crusade (1228 to 1229)
Emperor Frederick II (King of Germany, King of Italy, King of Burgundy, Holy
Roman Emperor, King of Sicily, King of Cyprus and King of Jerusalem) had
repeatedly vowed a crusade but failed to live up to his words, for which he was
excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX in 1228. He nonetheless set sail from the
Venetian city, landed in Palestine, and through diplomacy he achieved
unexpected success: Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem were delivered to the
crusaders for a period of ten years. The treaty with the Muslims stipulated that
Jerusalem would be placed under Christian control, but the destroyed walls or
fortifications could not be rebuilt. The Crusaders claimed victory and returned to
Europe.
The Seventh Crusade (1248 to 1254)
In 1244, Jerusalem fell once more to the Muslims. Another Crusade was
launched in 1248, but met with disaster in a battle with the Egyptians, frustrating
efforts to retake Jerusalem.
The Crusaders were drawn into battle at La Forbie in Gaza. The Crusader army
and its Bedouin mercenaries were outnumbered by the forces of the Sultan of
Egypt and Syria and the Khwarezmian tribesmen. The Crusaders were
completely defeated within forty-eight hours. This battle is considered by many
historians to have been the death knell to the four major Christian Kingdoms of
the holy land. Although this provoked no widespread outrage in Europe as the
fall of Jerusalem in 1187 had done, Louis IX of France organized a crusade
against Egypt from 1248 to 1254, leaving from the newly constructed port of
Aigues-Mortes in southern France. It was a failure, and Louis spent much of the
crusade living at the court of the crusader kingdom in Acre.
The Eighth Crusade 1270
The eighth Crusade was organized by Louis IX in 1270, again sailing from
Aigues-Mortes, initially to come to the aid of the remnants of the crusader states
in Syria. However, the crusade was diverted to Tunis, where Louis spent only two
months before dying. For his efforts, Louis was later canonized (the city of St.
Louis, Missouri, USA is named for him).
The Eighth Crusade is sometimes counted as the Seventh, if the Fifth and Sixth
Crusades are counted as a single crusade. The Ninth Crusade is sometimes
also counted as part of the Eighth.
The Ninth Crusade (1271 to 1272)
The future King Edward I of England undertook another expedition in 1271, after
having accompanied Louis IX on the Eighth Crusade. He accomplished very
little in Syria and retired the following year after a truce.
Franco-Mongol Alliance
In their later years, faced with the threat of the Egyptian Mamluks, the Crusaders'
hopes rested with a Franco-Mongol alliance. The Mongols were thought to be
sympathetic to Christianity. The French princes were effective in gathering their
help and engineering their invasions of the Middle East on several occasions.
Although the Mongols successfully attacked as far south as Damascus on these
campaigns, they did not effectively coordinate their efforts with the Crusaders.
The Egyptian Mamluks eventually made good their pledge to cleanse the entire
Middle East of the infidel Franks. With the fall of Antioch (1268), Tripoli (1289),
and Acre (1291), the last traces of the Christian rule in Syria disappeared.
Islamic world
The crusades had profound but localized effects upon the Islamic world, where
the equivalents of "Franks" and "Crusaders" remained expressions of disdain.
Muslims traditionally celebrate Saladin as a hero against the Crusaders. In the
21st century, some in the Arab world, such as the Arab independence movement
and Pan-Islamism movement, continue to call Western involvement in the Middle
East a "crusade". The Crusades were regarded by the Islamic world as cruel and
savage onslaughts by European Christians.
Jewish community
Though the Muslims in power at the time tried to protect the Jews in The Holy
Land, the Crusaders' atrocities against them in the German and Hungarian
towns, later also in those of France, England, and in the massacres of Jews in
Palestine and Syria have become a significant part of the history of antiSemitism. These attacks left behind centuries of strong feelings of ill will on both
sides. The social position of the Jews in Western Europe was distinctly
worsened, and legal restrictions increased during and after the Crusades. They
prepared the way for the anti-Jewish legislation of Pope Innocent III and formed
the turning-point in medieval anti-Semitism.