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The Crusades
"God wills it!"
Don’t Write This
• That was the battle cry of the thousands of Christians
who joined crusades to free the Holy Land from the
Muslims. From 1096 to 1270 there were eight major
crusades
• Only the First Crusade was successful from a Christian
standpoint.
• In the long history of the Crusades, thousands of
knights, soldiers, merchants, and peasants lost their
lives on the march or in battle.
The Beginning
• The time is 1050 A.D.
• Seljuk Turks have
invaded the Byzantine
Empire
• The Byzantine empire
is at the brink of total
destruction . . .
• Byzantine Emperor
Alexius is in
desperate need of
help, so he calls out
to his Christian
Brothers in the West
• More specifically –
The Pope Urban II
• Pope Urban II agrees to help Alexius
•Urban II calls
the Council of
Clermont to
drum up
support for
Alexius
 Famous picture of
the Council of
Clermont
We will learn later
that this is not
what it looked like
at all
Pope Urban II again
• At the Council the Pope urged French and
German Bishops to “Reclaim the Holy Land”
“Holy Land” = Jerusalem
Reasons For The Crusades
• The Pope believed that the Crusades would
increase his power in Europe
• Christians believed that their sins
would be forgiven if they
participated in the Crusades
• Nobles hoped to gain wealth and
land by participating in the Crusades
• Adventures saw the Crusades as a chance
for travel and excitement
• Serfs hoped to escape feudal oppression by
fighting in the Crusades
The 1st Crusade
• The Crusade begins with in 1095 and
ends in 1099 with the fall of Jerusalem.
• The crusaders establish the Kingdom of
Jerusalem and other crusader states
nearby.
Route of the first Crusade
Crusader
States

1st Crusade (2)
• Although these gains lasted for less than two
hundred years, the First Crusade was a major
turning point in the expansion of Western
power.
1st Crusade
The military
success of the
1st Crusade also
opened up
trade routes
that had been
closed since the
fall of the
Western Roman
Empire
Don’t Write
• After the Western Victory most Crusaders
returned home
According to William of Tyre, "barely three hundred
knights and two thousand foot soldiers could be found"
in the kingdom in 1100. From the very beginning, the
Crusaders were little more than a colonial frontier
exercising rule over the native Muslim, Greek and Syrian
population, who were more populous in number.
nd
2
The
Crusade
called in 1145 in response to the fall of the County
of Edessa the previous year.
“The Crusade for Damascus”
2nd Crusade (2)
• Edessa was the
first of the
Crusader states to
have been founded
during the First
Crusade (1095–
1099), and was the
first to fall.
2nd Crusade (3)
• The Second Crusade was announced
by Pope Eugene III,
and
was the first of the
crusades to be led by
European kings,
namely Louis
VII of
France and
Conrad III
of Germany,
2nd Crusade (4)
• The armies of the two kings marched
separately across Europe after crossing
Byzantine territory into Turkey, both
armies were constantly attacked by the
Seljuk Turks.
2nd Crusade (5)
Louis and Conrad
and the remnants
of their armies
reached Jerusalem
and, in 1148,
participated in an
ill-advised attack on
Damascus.
2nd Crusade (6)
The 2nd crusade was a failure for the
crusaders and a great victory for the
Muslims.
2nd Crusade (7)
• It would ultimately lead to the fall of
Jerusalem and the Third Crusade at the
end of the 12th century.
nd
2
Crusade (8)
after the 2nd Crusade