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The Crusades
Success, Failure, Success
Crusades of the 11th and 12th
 Strengthened the papal claim to leadership of
Christian society
 The Christian warrior class as a new nobility
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New prestige in the knightly class
 According to Perry they represent an
outpouring of Christian Zeal and an attempt by
the papacy to regain preeminence
 These were also a sign of vitality, strength, and
self confidence in western Europe.
Leading up to the Crusades
 Pilgrimages to the holy land
 Mid 11th Seljuk Turks, from central Asia took
control over most of middle east
 1085 they captured Jerusalem
 Byzantium appealed for help from the west
 The West had been fairly successful prior to
this
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In 11th Pisa and Genoa had driven Muslims out of
Sardinia; then they attacked Tunis wiping out the
base for Muslim pirates and forcing the emir to free
Christian captives and to trade with Italy; in 1091
Normans drove them out of Sicily and took
southern Italy from Byzantium
Motives for the Crusaders
 Spiritual reasons
 Christian Obligation
 Plenary Indulgences
 Personal Reasons
 Younger sons had a chance to gain territory
 There was much wealth to be gained
 Personal Glory
 Dreams of Adventure
 Papal Reasons
 Might extend his influence over the east which was
lost after the Schism of 1054
1st Crusade 1096-1099
 1091 Byzantine emperor Alexius Comnenus I
requested aid from Pope Urban II
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Protection from the Turks
Protection for pilgrims
 1095 – Council of Clermont – Urban speaks to
crowds about fighting the Turks, claiming that
“God wills it!”
 Hundreds sign up to fight under the leadership
of the Church
 Peter the Hermit’s Army of peasants
 The German Peasant army

Beat up by the Magyars and then again by the
Turks before making it
Jerusalem
 A real army of Knights finally assembled at
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Constantinople in 1097
Crusaders first took Antioch and reached
Jerusalem in the spring of 1099
Godfrey of Bouillon broke through the city walls
Crusaders were merciless and contemporary
accounts say they were wading through blood
up to their knees
Thousands of Moslems and Jews were killed
The Next Century
 As the Western Nobles sapped up the
luxuries of their Eastern conquests the
Muslims organized and called for a jihad
 Also during this time, church ordained
military orders came into existence in the
East
Military Orders
 1118, a group of knights stationed in Jerusalem organized
the Knights of the Temple or the Knights Templar

Headquartered on the site of Solomon’s Temple
 Started off as a group to protect the holy lands
 Eventually lost sense of original purpose, became
extremely wealthy and served as a large-scale banking
organization
 A second order – the Knights of St John, later known as
the hospitalers – founded in 1083 at the Benedictine
abbey of Amalfi
 3rd order – the Knights of St Mary of the Teutons, or
Teutonic Knights – organized in 1127 by the crusaders
from Germany
2nd Crusade – 1147-1149
 Muslims set out to drive the crusaders back into
the sea and recaptured Edessa in 1144
 Pope Eugenius III ordered Bernard of Clairvaux
to call a crusade
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Spoke to a large group of knights: “forgiveness of
sins and absolution we grant…so that he who has
devoutly undertaken so holy a journey and finished
it or died there shall obtain absolution for all his
sins”
King Louis VII of France and Holy Roman Emperor
Conrad II responded to the call
 Much of the two armies (traveling separately)
was lost by the time they arrived and the siege
failed; Edessa remained in Moslem control
3rd Crusade – 1189-1192
 The gifted leader Saladin conquered Iraq, Syria and
Egypt so he surrounded the crusaders on 3 sides
 In 1187 he invaded and recaptured Jerusalem, defeated
the crusaders and captured King Guy of Lusignon but
permitted no needless slaughter of Christians
 Frederick Barbarossa of the Holy Roman Empire, Phillip
Augustus of France, and Richard the Lionhearted of
England took on the crusade
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Frederick drowned in a river and his army went home
Phillip and Richard got into a beef in Sicily and again in
Palestine and Philip went home
Richard fought but lost and made an arrangement with
Saladin that Christians could still visit the Holy Land
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On his way home, he was taken prisoner by Leopold of
Austria, whom he had insulted during the war
England had to pay a ransom but John took advantage
4th Crusade – 1202-1204
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Pope Innocent III called a new crusade
10 thousand French knights met in Venice
Crusaders didn’t enough money to pay for the voyage
The Doge offered to pay if the crusaders would capture Zara,
a trade rival in the Adriatic
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The crusaders did so but were in trouble with the Pope
because Zara was a Catholic city so the Pope
excommunicated them…for a little while
Next a deal was cut with Alexius IV who offered big money
for the crusaders to restore his throne in Constantinople
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So did while others went to Syria
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It fell for the first time ever- major disaster for all
involved- the crusaders massacred people and looted
and the moral authority of the Church suffered
Latin Kingdom only lasted until 1261 when Byzantine
empire got it back only to fall to Ottoman Turks in 1453
This embittered relationship between east and west
churches
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Children’s Crusades
 Children’s crusade of 1212 stirred by shepherd
boy Stephen of Cloyes who claimed that Christ
was guiding him
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Thousands of French peasant kids with priests
marched to the Mediterranean expecting it to part
When it didn’t they got on ships supplied by William
the Pig and Hugo the Iron
2 Ships were lost at sea and 5 were captured by
Muslim pirates who worked out a deal with William
and Hugo and the kids were sold into slavery in
North Africa and never heard from again
Another Children’s crusade originated in Germany
and thousands of kids died
Later Crusades
 By 1217 Italian cities were fighting for trade routes
 5th crusade- invasion of Egypt did nothing and they all
came home
 6th crusade- Emperor Frederick II negotiated without
fighting to gain some control in the Holy Lands
 7th Crusade- 25 year old King of France Louis IX took up
the cause but was not supported by fellow monarchs
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He was taken captive and ransomed by the Moslems in
1254
He tried again in 1270 but died
 In the End, the holy land remained in Moslem control
Results
 May have contributed to the decline of feudalism because
many lords died and many squandered their wealth to
finance these expeditions
 Introduced thousands of Europeans to the larger world
 Increased trade between Europe and the eastern
Mediterranean
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But this had already begun with the Italian city-states
 Awestruck by luxuries and advanced civilizations

But most of the intellectual contact was made in Spain
and Italy
 Increased the pace of economic changes – new systems
of money, credit, and banking practiced were introduced
 May have contributed to the growth of shipping