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Event
The Fatimid caliph of Cairo, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, had the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem destroyed.
Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus asked his enemy, Pope Gregory VII for help against the
Seljuk Turkish Muslims, and Gregory said no, as he was busy arguing with Holy Roman Emperor
Henry IV about authority over church officials.
Alexius I Comnenus asks Pope Urban II for help, but specifically for some of his highly trained
soldiers to help defend Constantinople from advancing Muslims.
Pope Urban II held the Council of Clermont, where he called all Christians (not just highly trained
knights) to go and retake the Holy Land from the Muslims. He told them that if they fought
against and killed non-Christians, they were guaranteed to get into Heaven. Alexius only wanted
the select knights to defend Constantinople, not retake Jerusalem. So when thousands of dirty,
untrained Franks (crusaders) showed up at Constantinople, he was not happy. Pope Urban
thought a crusade would serve to reunite Christendom, bolster the Papacy, and perhaps bring
the East under his control.
Anna Komnena is the daughter of Emperor Alexius I. She writes the only first-hand Greek, or
Hellenic, account of the First Crusade. She wrote a good amount about Bohemond of Taranto.
Peter the Hermit was a Priest who talked thousands into taking up the cross and heading to the
Holy Land to fight for the Catholic Church.
Godfrey of Bouillon was a medieval Frankish knight who was one of the leaders of the First
Crusade from 1096 until his death. He took the city of Jerusalem.
Bohemond of Taranto was a Norman noble who fought alongside Godfrey. He was a very large,
intimidating man. Bohemond captured the city of Antioch.
Sigurd was a Norwegian king who led the first Norwegian crusade to Jerusalem. He shared the
kingdom with his brother, Oystein, but because of his war and exploration experience, Sigurd was
chosen to lead the army. Sigurd fought alongside his men in battle, earning their trust and
respect. Their crusade was successful, and Sigurd returned home with a piece of the True Cross.
After the First Crusade, many Christian pilgrims traveled to Holy Places. While traveling, many of
these pilgrims were rounded up and slaughtered. A monastic order was created to protect these
pilgrims. They were called the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, or "Templar"
knights. Templars were often the advance force in key battles of the Crusades, as the heavily
armored knights on their warhorses would set out to charge at the enemy, in an attempt to
break opposition lines.
Pope Gregory the VIII was the pope who called for a third Crusade, since Jerusalem had fallen
back into the hands of the Muslims. He died after being Pope for only 57 days.
Saladin, the Western name for the ruler Salah al-Din ibn Ayyub, was the great Muslim general
who confronted the Crusaders in the Near East. While coming to power, he faced a threat from
the Hashshashin sect or "Assassins" led by Rashid ad-Din Sinan. Saladin had recaptured almost
every Crusader city, including Jerusalem. He fought against Richard the Lion-hearted often.
They had a mutual respect for each other.
Richard the Lionheart was the King of England. However, during his ten year reign as King, he
only spent 6 months in England. Much of his time was spent on the Third Crusade, the Kings
crusade. He teamed up with King Philip II Augustus of France, and King Frederick Barbarossa of
Germany. On the trip, Frederick drown, leaving only the two kings. France and England were
often at war, and for the most part enemies. Philip turned around and went home, attacking
much of Richard’s lands in France. Richard went on to fight Saladin in the Holy Land. He was
never able to capture Jerusalem, but his epic battles Saladin are often depicted in stories, and
Richard is seen as a hero to the Church.
1198 1217
1219
12251230
Pope Innocent III called for the Fourth Crusade of 1198, intended to recapture the Holy Land. The
pope directed his call towards the knights and nobles of Europe rather than to the kings; he did
not deliberately try to exclude kings, but Henry of Germany had just died, and King Richard I of
England and King Philip II of France were not anxious to resume the cross after just being at war.
He also called for the fifth crusade, which began one year after he died
In 1219, Francis of Assisi and another Friar went to Egypt where a Crusader army had been
encamped for over a year. He wanted to either convert the Sultan of Egypt or become a Christian
Martyr. The Sultan, al-Kamil, was a nephew of Saladin. A bloody and futile attack on the city was
launched by the Christians on 29 August 1219, following which both sides agreed to a ceasefire
which lasted four weeks. It was most probably during this interlude that Francis and his
companion crossed the Muslim line and were brought before the Sultan, remaining in his camp
for a few days. The visit is reported in Crusader sources and in the earliest biographies of Francis,
but they give no information about what transpired during the encounter beyond noting that the
Sultan received Francis graciously and that Francis preached to the Muslims without effect,
returning unharmed to the Crusader camp. No contemporary Arab source mentions the visit.
In 1225, Emperor Frederick II had married Yolande of Jerusalem, heiress to the Kingdom of
Jerusalem. Frederick immediately saw to it that his new father-in-law John of Brienne, the
current king of Jerusalem, was dispossessed and his rights transferred to the emperor. In August
1227, Frederick set out for the Holy Land, but was forced to return when he was struck down by
an epidemic that had broken out. On 29 September 1227, Frederick was excommunicated by
Pope Gregory IX for failing to honor his crusading pledge.
Many contemporary chroniclers doubted the sincerity of Frederick's illness, and their attitude
may be explained by their pro-papal leanings.
Frederick eventually sailed again in June 1228. The pope regarded that action as a provocation,
since, as an excommunicate, Frederick was technically not capable of conducting a Crusade, and
excommunicated the emperor a second time. The crusade ended in a truce and in Frederick's
coronation as King of Jerusalem on 18 March 1229, although this was technically improper.
Frederick's wife Yolande, the heiress, had died, leaving their infant son Conrad as rightful king.
There is also disagreement as to whether the 'coronation' was a coronation at all, as a letter
written by Frederick to Henry III of England suggests that the crown he placed on his own head
was in fact the imperial crown of the Romans.
Frederick's further attempts to rule over the Kingdom of Jerusalem were met by resistance. In
the mid-1230s, Frederick's viceroy was forced to leave Acre, and in 1244, following a siege,
Jerusalem itself was lost again to a new Muslim offensive.
12391243
Whilst Frederick's seeming bloodless recovery of Jerusalem for the cross brought him great
prestige in some European circles, his decision to complete the crusade while excommunicated
provoked Church hostility. Although in 1230 the Pope lifted Frederick's excommunication.
Overall this crusade, arguably the first successful one since the First Crusade, was adversely
affected by the manner in which Frederick carried out negotiations without the support of the
church.
King Louis IX was a devout Catholic. He took very seriously his mission as "lieutenant of God on
Earth", with which he had been invested when he was crowned in Rheims. Thus, in order to fulfill
his duty, he conducted two crusades, and even though they were unsuccessful, they contributed
to his prestige. Contemporaries would not have understood if the king of France did not lead a
crusade to the Holy Land. In order to finance his first crusade Louis ordered the expulsion of all
Jews engaged in usury and the confiscation of their property, for use in his crusade. However, he
did not cancel the debts owed by Christians. Louis also ordered, at the urging of Pope Gregory IX,
the burning in Paris in 1243 of some 12,000 manuscript copies of the Talmud and other Jewish
books.