The Crusades were a series of religious wars
sanctioned by the Latin Church in the medieval
period.
The most commonly known Crusades are the campaigns
in the Eastern Mediterranean aimed at recovering
the Holy Land from Muslim rule, but the term
"Crusades" is also applied to other church-sanctioned
campaigns.
These were fought for a variety of reasons
including the suppression of paganism and
heresy, the resolution of conflict among rival
Roman Catholic groups, or for political and
territorial advantage.
At the time of the early Crusades the word
did not exist, only becoming the leading descriptive
term around 1760.
In 1095, Pope Urban II called for the First
Crusade in a sermon at the Council of Clermont.
He encouraged military support for the Byzantine
Empire and its Emperor, Alexios I, who needed
reinforcements for his conflict with westward
migrating Turks colonizing Anatolia.
One of Urban's aims was to guarantee pilgrims
access to the Eastern Mediterranean holy sites
that were under Muslim control but scholars
disagree as to whether this was the primary
motive for Urban or those who heeded his call.
Urban's strategy may have been to unite the
Eastern and Western branches of Christendom,
which had been divided since the East–West
Schism of 1054 and to establish himself as
head of the unified Church.
The initial success of the Crusade established
the first four Crusader states in the Eastern
Mediterranean: the County of Edessa, the Principality
of Antioch, the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the
County of Tripoli.
The enthusiastic response to Urban's preaching
from all classes in Western Europe established
a precedent for other Crusades.
Volunteers became Crusaders by taking a public
vow and receiving plenary indulgences from
the Church.
Some were hoping for a mass ascension into
heaven at Jerusalem or God's forgiveness for
all their sins.
Others participated to satisfy feudal obligations,
obtain glory and honour or to seek economic
and political gain.
The two-century attempt to recover the Holy
Land ended in failure.
Following the First Crusade there were six
major Crusades and numerous less significant
ones.
After the last Catholic outposts fell in 1291,
there were no more Crusades; but the gains
were longer lasting in Northern and Western
Europe.
The Wendish Crusade and those of the Archbishop
of Bremen brought all the North-East Baltic
and the tribes of Mecklenburg and Lusatia
under Catholic control in the late 12th century.
In the early 13th century the Teutonic Order
created a Crusader state in Prussia and the
French monarchy used the Albigensian Crusade
to extend the kingdom to the Mediterranean
Sea.
The rise of the Ottoman Empire in the late
14th century prompted a Catholic response
which led to further defeats at Nicopolis
in 1396 and Varna in 1444.
Catholic Europe was in chaos and the final
pivot of Christian–Islamic relations was
marked by two seismic events: the fall of
Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 and
a final conclusive victory for the Spanish
over the Moors with the conquest of Granada
in 1492.
The idea of Crusading continued, not least
in the form of the Knights Hospitaller, until
the end of the 18th-century but the focus
of Western European interest moved to the
New World.
Modern historians hold widely varying opinions
of the Crusaders.
To some, their conduct was incongruous with
the stated aims and implied moral authority
of the papacy, as evidenced by the fact that
on occasion the Pope excommunicated Crusaders.
Crusaders often pillaged as they travelled,
and their leaders generally retained control
of captured territory instead of returning
it to the Byzantines.
During the People's Crusade, thousands of
Jews were murdered in what is now called the
Rhineland massacres.
Constantinople was sacked during the Fourth
Crusade.
However, the Crusades had a profound impact
on Western civilisation: Italian city-states
gained considerable concessions in return
for assisting the Crusaders and established
colonies which allowed trade with the eastern
markets even in the Ottoman period, allowing
Genoa and Venice to flourish; they consolidated
the collective identity of the Latin Church
under papal leadership; and they constituted
a wellspring for accounts of heroism, chivalry,
and piety that galvanised medieval romance,
philosophy, and literature.
The Crusades also reinforced a connection
between Western Christendom, feudalism, and
militarism.
== Terminology ==
The term crusade used in modern historiography
at first referred to the wars in the Holy
Land beginning in 1095, but the range of events
to which the term has been applied has been
greatly extended, so that its use can create
a misleading impression of coherence, particularly
regarding the early Crusades.
The term used for the campaign of the First
Crusade was iter "journey" or peregrinatio
"pilgrimage".
The terminology of crusading remained largely
indistinguishable from that of pilgrimage
during the 12th century, reflecting the reality
of the first century of crusading where not
all armed pilgrims fought, and not all who
fought had taken the cross.
It was not until the late 12th to early 13th
centuries that a more specific "language of
crusading" emerged.
Pope Innocent III used the term negotium crucis
"affair of the cross" for the Eastern Mediterranean
crusade, but was reluctant to apply crusading
terminology to the Albigensian crusade.
The Song of the Albigensian Crusade from about
1213 contains the first recorded vernacular
use of the Occitan crozada.
This term was later adopted into French as
croisade and in English as crusade.
The modern spelling crusade dates to c. 1760.
Sinibaldo Fieschi (the future pope Innocent
IV) used the terms crux transmarina for crusades
in Outremer against Muslims and crux cismarina
for crusades in Europe against other enemies
of the church.The Crusades in the Holy Land
are traditionally counted as nine distinct
campaigns, numbered from the First Crusade
of 1095–99 to the Ninth Crusade of 1271–72.
This convention is used by Charles Mills in
his History of the Crusades for the Recovery
and Possession of the Holy Land (1820) and
is often retained for convenience even though
it is somewhat arbitrary.
The Fifth and Sixth Crusades led by Frederick
II may be considered a single campaign, as
can the Eighth Crusade and Ninth Crusade led
by Louis IX.In modern historiography, the
term "Crusade" may differ in usage depending
on the author.
Giles Constable describes four different perspectives
among scholars:
Traditionalists restrict their definition
of the Crusades to the Christian campaigns
in the Holy Land, "either to assist the Christians
there or to liberate Jerusalem and the Holy
Sepulcher", during 1095–1291.
Pluralists use the term Crusade of any campaign
explicitly sanctioned by the reigning Pope.
This reflects the view of the Roman Catholic
Church (including medieval contemporaries
such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux) that every
military campaign given Papal sanction is
equally valid as a Crusade, regardless of
its cause, justification, or geographic location.
This broad definition includes attacks on
paganism and heresy such as the Albigensian
Crusade, the Northern Crusades, and the Hussite
Wars, and wars for political or territorial
advantage such as the Aragonese Crusade in
Sicily, a Crusade declared by Pope Innocent
III against Markward of Anweiler in 1202,
one against the Stedingers, several (declared
by different popes) against Emperor Frederick
II and his sons, two Crusades against opponents
of King Henry III of England, and the Christian
re-conquest of Iberia.
Generalists see Crusades as any and all holy
wars connected with the Latin Church and fought
in defence of the faith.
Popularists limit the Crusades to only those
that were characterised by popular groundswells
of religious fervour – that is, only the
First Crusade and perhaps the People's Crusade.The
Arabic loanword Muslim is first attested in
English in the 17th century.
Before this the common term for Muslim was
Saracen, in origin referring to the pre-Islamic,
non-Arab inhabitants of the desert areas around
the Roman province of Arabia.
The term evolved to include Arab tribes, and
by the 12th century it was an ethnic and religious
marker in Medieval Latin literature corresponding
to modern "Muslim".Frank and Latin were used
during the Crusades for Western Europeans,
distinguishing them from Greeks.
Medieval Muslim historiographers such as Ali
ibn al-Athir refer to the Crusades as the
"Frankish Wars" (ḥurūb al-faranǧa حروب
الفرنجة‎).
The term used in modern Arabic, ḥamalāt
ṣalībiyya حملات صليبية‎, lit.
"campaigns of the cross", is a loan translation
of the term Crusade as used in Western historiography.
== Eastern Mediterranean ==
=== Background ===
The Islamic prophet Muhammad founded Islam
in the Arabian Peninsula and had united much
of Arabia into a single polity by his death
in 632.
Arab power expanded rapidly in the 7th and
8th centuries largely by military conquest.
This influence spread to the north-west Indian
subcontinent, across Central Asia, the Middle
East, North Africa, southern Italy, the Iberian
peninsula and the Pyrenees.
Jerusalem was taken from the Byzantine Empire
after a siege in 637.Tolerance, trade, and
political relationships between the Arabs
and the Christian kingdoms waxed and waned.
Pilgrimages by Catholics to sacred sites were
permitted, Christian residents in Muslim territories
were given Dhimmi status, legal rights, and
legal protection.
These Christians were allowed to maintain
churches, and marriages between faiths were
not uncommon.
The various cultures and creeds coexisted
and competed, but the status quo was disrupted
by the western migration of the Turkish tribes.
The 1071 victory over the Byzantine army at
the Battle of Manzikert was once considered
a pivotal event by historians but is now regarded
as only one further step in the expansion
of the Great Seljuk Empire into Anatolia.
Catholic pilgrims and merchants reported that
the frontier conditions between the Syrian
ports and Jerusalem became increasingly inhospitable.From
the 8th century, the Christians entered to
recapture the Iberian peninsula from the Muslims,
known as the Reconquista.
The campaign reached a turning point in 1085
when Alfonso VI of León and Castile captured
Toledo.
In the same period, the Muslim Emirate of
Sicily was conquered by Norman adventurer
Roger de Hauteville in 1091.Europe was immersed
in power struggles on many different fronts.
The Christian Church split along Latin Orthodox
lines in 1054 after centuries of disagreement
leading to a permanent division called the
East–West Schism.
Following the Gregorian Reform, an assertive,
reformist papacy attempted to increase its
power and influence over the laity.
Beginning around 1075 and continuing during
the First Crusade, the Investiture Controversy
was a power struggle between Church and state
in medieval Europe over whether the Catholic
Church or the Holy Roman Empire held the right
to appoint church officials and other clerics.
Antipope Clement III was an alternative pope
for most of this period, and Pope Urban spent
much of his early pontificate in exile from
Rome.
The result was intense piety and an increased
interest in religious affairs amongst the
general population in Catholic Europe and
religious propaganda by the Papacy advocating
a just war to reclaim Palestine from the Muslims.
Participation in a crusade was seen as a form
of penance that could counterbalance sin.
=== First Crusade (1096–1099) and aftermath
===
In 1095, at the Council of Piacenza, Byzantine
Emperor Alexios I Komnenos requested military
aid from Pope Urban II, probably in the form
of a small body of mercenary reinforcements
he could direct and control.
Alexios had restored the Empire's finances
and authority, but he still faced a number
of foreign enemies, particularly the migrating
Turks who had colonised the sparsely populated
areas of Anatolia.
At the Council of Clermont later that year,
Urban raised the issue again and preached
for a Crusade.
Many historians consider that Urban also hoped
that aiding the Eastern Church would lead
to its reunion with the Western under his
leadership.
Almost immediately Peter the Hermit led thousands
of mostly poor Christians out of Europe in
what became known as the People's Crusade.
He claimed he had a letter from heaven instructing
Christians to prepare for the imminent apocalypse
by seizing Jerusalem.
The motivations of this Crusade included a
"messianism of the poor" inspired by an expected
mass ascension into heaven at Jerusalem.
Germany witnessed the first incidents of major
violent European antisemitism when these Crusaders
massacred Jewish communities in what became
known as the Rhineland massacres.
In Speyer, Worms, Mainz, and Cologne the range
of anti-Jewish activity was broad, extending
from limited, spontaneous violence to full-scale
military attacks.
The Crusaders journeyed, despite advice from
Alexios' to wait for the nobles, to Nicaea.
Only 3000 survived an ambush by the Turks
at the Civetot.Both Philip I of France and
Emperor Henry IV were in conflict with Urban
and declined to participate in the official
crusade.
However, members of the high aristocracy from
France, western Germany, the Low countries,
and Italy were drawn to the venture, commanding
their own military contingents in loose, fluid
arrangements based on bonds of lordship, family,
ethnicity, and language.
Foremost amongst these was the elder statesman,
Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse.
He was rivalled by the relatively poor but
martial Bohemond of Taranto and his nephew
Tancred from the Norman community of southern
Italy.
They were joined by Godfrey of Bouillon and
his brother Baldwin I of Jerusalem in leading
a loose conglomerate from Lorraine, Lotharingia,
and Germany.
These five princes were pivotal to the campaign
that was also joined by a Northern French
army led by Robert Curthose, Stephen, Count
of Blois, and Robert II, Count of Flanders.
The armies, which may have contained as many
as 100,000 people, including non-combatants,
travelled eastward by land to Byzantium where
they were cautiously welcomed by the Emperor.
Alexios persuaded many of the princes to pledge
allegiance to him and that their first objective
should be Nicaea, which Kilij Arslan I had
declared the capital of the Sultanate of Rum.
Having already destroyed the earlier People's
Crusade, the over-confident Sultan left the
city to resolve a territorial dispute, enabling
its capture in 1097 after a Crusader siege
and a Byzantine naval assault.
This marked a high point in Latin and Greek
co-operation and also the start of Crusader
attempts to take advantage of political and
religious disunity in the Muslim world: Crusader
envoys were sent to Egypt seeking an alliance.The
Crusades' first experience with the Turkish
tactic of lightly armoured mounted archers
occurred when an advanced party led by Bohemond
and Duke Robert was ambushed at Dorylaeum.
The Normans resisted for hours before the
arrival of the main army caused a Turkish
withdrawal.
After this, the nomadic Seljuks avoided the
Crusade.
The factionalism amongst the Turks that followed
the death of Malik Shah meant they did not
present a united opposition.
Instead, Aleppo and Damascus had competing
rulers.
The three-month march to Antioch was arduous,
with numbers reduced by starvation, thirst,
and disease, combined with the decision of
Baldwin to leave with 100 knights in order
to carve out his own territory in Edessa.
The Crusaders embarked on an eight-month siege
of Antioch but lacked the resources to fully
invest the city; similarly, the residents
lacked the resources to repel the invaders.
Eventually, Bohemond persuaded a tower guard
in the city to open a gate and the Crusaders
entered, massacring the Muslim and many Christian
Greeks, Syrian and Armenian inhabitants.Sunni
Islam now recognised the threat.
The sultan of Baghdad raised a force to recapture
the city led by the Iraqi general Kerbogha.
The Byzantines provided no assistance to the
Crusaders' defence of the city because the
deserting Stephen of Blois told them the cause
was lost.
Losing numbers through desertion and starvation
in the besieged city, the Crusaders attempted
to negotiate surrender, but this was rejected
by Kerbogha, who wanted to destroy them permanently.
Morale within the city was boosted when Peter
Bartholomew claimed to have discovered the
Holy Lance.
Bohemond recognised that the only option now
was for open combat, and he launched a counterattack
against the besiegers.
Despite superior numbers, Kerbogha's army,
which was divided into factions and surprised
by the commitment and dedication of the Franks,
retreated and abandoned the siege.
The Crusaders then delayed for months while
they argued over who would have the captured
territory.
This ended only when news arrived that the
Fatimid Egyptians had taken Jerusalem from
the Turks, and it became imperative to attack
before the Egyptians could consolidate their
position.
Bohemond remained in Antioch, retaining the
city despite his pledge that this would return
to Byzantine control, while Raymond led the
remaining Crusader army rapidly south along
the coast to Jerusalem.An initial attack on
the city failed and, due to the Crusaders'
lack of resources, the siege became a stalemate.
However, the arrival of craftsman and supplies
transported by the Genoese to Jaffa tilted
the balance in their favour.
Crusaders constructed two large siege engines;
the one commanded by Godfrey breached the
walls on 15 July 1099.
For two days the Crusaders massacred the inhabitants
and pillaged the city.
Historians now believe the accounts of the
numbers killed have been exaggerated, but
this narrative of massacre did much to cement
the Crusaders' reputation for barbarism.
Godfrey further secured the Frankish position
by surprising the Egyptian relief force commanded
by the vizier of the Fatimid Caliph, Al-Afdal
Shahanshah, at Ascalon.
This relief force retreated to Egypt, with
the vizier fleeing by ship.
At this point most of the Crusaders considered
their pilgrimage complete and returned to
Europe, leaving behind Godfrey with a mere
300 knights and 2,000 infantry to defend Palestine.
Of the other princes, only Tancred remained
with the ambition to gain his own princedom.On
a popular level, the First Crusade unleashed
a wave of impassioned, pious Catholic fury
– expressed in the massacres of Jews that
accompanied the Crusades and the violent treatment
of the "schismatic" Orthodox Christians of
the east which occurred at Antioch.
The Islamic world seems to have barely registered
the Crusade; certainly there is limited written
evidence before 1130.
This may be in part due to a reluctance to
relate Muslim failure, but it is more likely
to be the result of cultural misunderstanding.
Al-Afdal and the Muslim world mistook the
Crusaders for the latest in a long line of
Byzantine mercenaries rather than religiously
motivated warriors intent on conquest and
settlement.
In any case, the Muslim world was divided
between the Sunnis of Syria and Iraq and the
Shia Fatimids of Egypt.
Even the Turks were divided, with rival rulers
in Damascus and Aleppo.
In Baghdad the Seljuk sultan vied with an
Abbasid caliph in a Mesopotamian struggle.
This gave the Franks a crucial opportunity
to consolidate without any pan-Islamic counter-attack.
=== 12th century ===
Under the papacies of successive Popes smaller
groups of Crusaders continued to travel to
the Eastern Mediterranean to fight the Muslims
and aid the Crusader States in the early 12th
century.
The third decade saw campaigns by Fulk V of
Anjou, the Venetians, and Conrad III of Germany
and the foundation of the Knights Templar.
The period also saw the innovation of granting
indulgences to those who opposed papal enemies,
and this marked the beginning of politically
motivated Crusades.
The loss of Aleppo in 1128 and Edessa (Urfa)
in 1144 to Imad ad-Din Zengi, governor of
Mosul, led to preaching for what subsequently
became known as the Second Crusade.
King Louis VII and Conrad III led armies from
France and Germany to Jerusalem and Damascus
without winning any major victories.
As in the First Crusade, the preaching led
to attacks on Jews including massacres in
the Rhineland, Cologne, Mainz, Worms and Speyer
amid claims that the Jews were not contributing
financially to the rescue of the Holy Land.
Bernard of Clairvaux, who had encouraged the
Second Crusade in his preaching, was so perturbed
by the violence that he journeyed from Flanders
to Germany to deal with the problem.Christian
princes continued to make gains in the Iberian
peninsula: the King of Portugal, Afonso I,
captured Lisbon and Raymond Berenguer IV of
Barcelona conquered the city of Tortosa.
In northern Europe the Saxons and Danes fought
against tribes of Polabian Slavs known as
Wends in the Wendish Crusade, although no
official papal bulls were issued authorising
new Crusades.
The Wends were finally defeated in 1162.Egypt
was ruled by the Shi'ite Fatimid dynasty from
969, independent from the Sunni Abbasid rulers
in Baghdad and with a rival Shi'ite caliph
– considered the successor to the Muslim
prophet Mohammad.
The caliph's chief administrator, called the
vizier, was chiefly responsible for governance.
From 1121 the system fell into murderous political
intrigue and Egypt declined from its previous
affluent state.
This encouraged Baldwin III of Jerusalem to
plan an invasion that was only halted by the
payment by Egypt of a tribute of 160,000 gold
dinars.
In 1163 the deposed vizier, Shawar, visited
Zengi's son and successor, Nur ad-Din, atabeg
of Aleppo, in Damascus seeking political and
military support.
Some historians have considered Nur ad-Din's
support as a visionary attempt to surround
the Crusaders, but in practice he prevaricated
before responding only when it became clear
that the Crusaders might gain an unassailable
foothold on the Nile.
Nur al-Din sent his Kurdish general, Shirkuh,
who stormed Egypt and restored Shawar.
However, Shawar asserted his independence
and allied with Baldwin's brother and successor
Amalric of Jerusalem.
When Amalric broke the alliance in a ferocious
attack, Shawar again requested military support
from Syria, and Shirkuh was sent by Nur ad-Din
for a second time.
Amalric retreated, but the victorious Shirkuh
had Shawar executed and was appointed vizier.
Barely two months later he died, to be succeeded
by his nephew, Yusuf ibn Ayyub, who has become
known by his honorific 'Salah al-Din', 'the
goodness of faith', which in turn has become
westernised as Saladin.
Nur al-Din died in 1174.
He was the first Muslim to unite Aleppo and
Damascus in the Crusade era.
Some Islamic contemporaries promoted the idea
that there was a natural Islamic resurgence
under Zengi, through Nur al-Din to Saladin
although this was not as straightforward and
simple as it appears.
Saladin imprisoned all the caliph's heirs,
preventing them from having children, as opposed
to having them all killed, which would have
been normal practice, to extinguish the bloodline.
Assuming control after the death of his overlord,
Nur al-Din, Saladin had the strategic choice
of establishing Egypt as an autonomous power
or attempting to become the pre-eminent Muslim
in the Eastern Mediterranean – he chose
the latter.
As Nur al-Din's territories became fragmented
after his death, Saladin legitimised his ascent
by positioning himself as a defender of Sunni
Islam subservient to both the Caliph of Baghdad
and Nur al-Din's son and successor, As-Salih
Ismail al-Malik.
In the early years of his ascendency, he seized
Damascus and much of Syria, but not Aleppo.
After building a defensive force to resist
a planned attack by the Kingdom of Jerusalem
that never materialised, his first contest
with the Latin Christians was not a success.
His overconfidence and tactical errors led
to defeat at the Battle of Montgisard.
Despite this setback, Saladin established
a domain stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates
through a decade of politics, coercion, and
low-level military action.
After a life-threatening illness early in
1186, he determined to make good on his propaganda
as the champion of Islam, embarking on heightened
campaigning against the Latin Christians.
King Guy responded by raising the largest
army that Jerusalem had ever put in the field.
However, Saladin lured the force into inhospitable
terrain without water supplies, surrounded
the Latins with a superior force, and routed
them at the Battle of Hattin.
Saladin offered the Christians the option
of remaining in peace under Islamic rule or
taking advantage of 40 days' grace to leave.
As a result, much of Palestine quickly fell
to Saladin including, after a short five-day
siege, Jerusalem.
According to Benedict of Peterborough, Pope
Urban III died of deep sadness on 19 October
1187 on hearing of the defeat.
His successor as Pope, Gregory VIII issued
a papal bull titled Audita tremendi that proposed
a further Crusade later named the Third Crusade
to recapture Jerusalem.
On 28 August 1189 King Guy of Jerusalem besieged
the strategic city of Acre, only to be in
turn besieged by Saladin.
Both armies could be supplied by sea so a
long stalemate commenced.
Such were the deprivations of the Crusaders
that at times they are thought to have resorted
to cannibalism.The journey to the Eastern
Mediterranean was inevitably long and eventful.
Travelling overland, Frederick I, Holy Roman
Emperor, drowned in the Saleph River, and
few of his men reached the Eastern Mediterranean.
Travelling by sea, Richard the Lionheart,
King of England conquered Cyprus in 1191 in
response to his sister and fiancée, who were
travelling separately, being taken captive
by the island's ruler, Isaac Komnenos.
Philip II of France was the first king to
arrive at the siege of Acre; Richard arrived
on 8 June 1191.
The arrival of the French and Angevin forces
turned the tide in the conflict, and the Muslim
garrison of Acre finally surrendered on 12
July.
Philip considered his vow fulfilled and returned
to France to deal with domestic matters, leaving
most of his forces behind.
But Richard travelled south along the Mediterranean
coast, defeated the Muslims near Arsuf, and
recaptured the port city of Jaffa.
He twice advanced to within a day's march
of Jerusalem before judging that he lacked
the resources to successfully capture the
city, or defend it in the unlikely event of
a successful assault, while Saladin had a
mustered army.
This marked the end of Richard's crusading
career and was a calamitous blow to Frankish
morale.
A three-year truce was negotiated that allowed
Catholics unfettered access to Jerusalem.
Politics in England and illness forced Richard's
departure, never to return, and Saladin died
in March 1193.
Emperor Henry VI initiated the German Crusade
to fulfil the promises made by his father,
Frederick, to undertake a Crusade to the Holy
Land.
Led by Conrad, Archbishop of Mainz, the army
captured the cities of Sidon and Beirut.
However, in 1197 Henry died and most of the
Crusaders returned to Germany to protect their
holdings and take part in the election of
his successor as Emperor.
=== 13th century ===
Pope Innocent III also began preaching what
became the Fourth Crusade in 1200, primarily
in France but also in England and Germany.
After gathering in Venice, the Crusade was
used by Doge Enrico Dandolo and Philip of
Swabia to further their secular ambitions.
Dandolo aimed to expand Venice's power in
the Eastern Mediterranean, and Philip intended
to restore his exiled nephew, Alexios IV Angelos,
along with Angelos's father, Isaac II Angelos,
to the throne of Byzantium.
This would require overthrowing the present
ruler, Alexios III Angelos, the uncle of Alexios
IV.
When an insufficient number of knights arrived
in Venice, the Crusaders were unable to pay
the Venetians for a fleet, so they agreed
to divert to Constantinople and share what
could be looted as payment.
As collateral, the Crusaders seized the Christian
city of Zara; Innocent was appalled, and promptly
excommunicated them.
However, the French Crusaders eventually had
their excommunications lifted.
When the original purpose of the campaign
was defeated by the assassination of Alexios
IV Angelos, they conquered Constantinople,
not once but twice.
Following upon their initial success, the
Crusaders captured Constantinople again and
this time sacked it, pillaging churches and
killing many citizens.
The Fourth Crusade never came within 1,000
miles of its objective of Jerusalem.The 13th
century saw popular outbursts of ecstatic
piety in support of the Crusades such as that
resulting in the Children's Crusade in 1212.
Large groups of young adults and children
spontaneously gathered, believing their innocence
would enable success where their elders had
failed.
Few, if any at all, journeyed to the Eastern
Mediterranean.
Although little reliable evidence survives
for these events, they provide an indication
of how hearts and minds could be engaged for
the cause.
Following Innocent III's Fourth Council of
the Lateran, crusading resumed in 1217 against
Saladin's Ayyubid successors in Egypt and
Syria for what is classified as the Fifth
Crusade.
Led by Andrew II of Hungary and Leopold VI,
Duke of Austria, forces drawn mainly from
Hungary, Germany, Flanders, and Frisia achieved
little.
Leopold and John of Brienne besieged and captured
Damietta but an army advancing into Egypt
was compelled to surrender.
Damietta was returned and an eight-year truce
agreed.
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, was excommunicated
for breaking a treaty obligation with the
Pope that required him to lead a crusade.
However, since his marriage to Isabella II
of Jerusalem gave him a claim to the kingdom
of Jerusalem, he finally arrived at Acre in
1228.
Frederick was culturally the Christian monarch
most empathetic to the Muslim world, having
grown up in Sicily, with a Muslim bodyguard
and even a harem.
His great diplomatic skills meant that the
Sixth Crusade was largely negotiation supported
by force.
A peace treaty was agreed upon, giving Latin
Christians most of Jerusalem and a strip of
territory that linked the city to Acre, while
the Muslims controlled their sacred areas.
In return, an alliance was made with Al-Kamil,
Sultan of Egypt, against all of his enemies
of whatever religion.
The treaty and suspicions about Frederick's
ambitions in the region made him unpopular,
and he was forced to return to his domains
when they were attacked by Pope Gregory IX.
While the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy
were in conflict, it often fell to secular
leaders to campaign.
What is sometimes known as the Barons' Crusade
was led by Theobald I of Navarre and Richard
of Cornwall; it combined forceful diplomacy
and the playing of rival Ayyubid factions
off against each other.
This brief renaissance for Frankish Jerusalem
was illusory, being dependent on Ayyubid weakness
and division following the death of Al-Kamil.In
1244 a band of Khwarezmian mercenaries travelling
to Egypt to serve As-Salih Ismail, Emir of
Damascus, seemingly of their own volition,
captured Jerusalem en route and defeated a
combined Christian and Syrian army at the
Battle of La Forbie.
In response, Louis IX, king of France, organised
a Crusade, called the Seventh Crusade, to
attack Egypt, arriving in 1249.
It was not a success.
Louis was defeated at Mansura and captured
as he retreated to Damietta.
Another truce was agreed upon for a ten-year
period, and Louis was ransomed.
Louis remained in Syria until 1254 to consolidate
the Crusader states.
From 1265 to 1271, the Mamluk sultan Baibars
drove the Franks to a few small coastal outposts.Late
13th-century politics in the Eastern Mediterranean
were complex, with a number of powerful interested
parties.
Baibars had three key objectives: to prevent
an alliance between the Latins and the Mongols,
to cause dissension between the Mongols particularly
between the Golden Horde and the Persian Ilkhanate,
and to maintain access to a supply of slave
recruits from the Russian steppes.
In this he developed diplomatic ties with
Manfred, King of Sicily, supporting him against
the Papacy and Louis IX's brother Charles
of Anjou.
The Crusader states were fragmented, and various
powers were competing for influence.
In the War of Saint Sabas, Venice drove the
Genoese from Acre to Tyre where they continued
to trade happily with Baibars' Egypt.
Indeed, Baibars negotiated free passage for
the Genoese with Michael VIII Palaiologos,
Emperor of Nicaea, the newly restored ruler
of Constantinople.
The French, led by Charles, similarly sought
to expand their influence; Charles seized
Sicily and Byzantine territory while marrying
his daughters to the Latin claimants to Byzantium.
To create his own claim to the throne of Jerusalem,
Charles executed one rival and purchased the
rights to the city from another.
In 1270 Charles turned his brother King Louis
IX's last Crusade, known as the Eighth Crusade,
to his own advantage by persuading Louis to
attack his rebel Arab vassals in Tunis.
Louis' army was devastated by disease, and
Louis himself died at Tunis on 25 August.
Louis' fleet returned to France, leaving only
Prince Edward, the future king of England,
and a small retinue to continue what is known
as the Ninth Crusade.
Edward survived an assassination attempt organised
by Baibars, negotiated a ten-year truce, and
then returned to manage his affairs in England.
This ended the last significant crusading
effort in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The 1281 election of a French pope, Martin
IV, brought the full power of the papacy into
line behind Charles.
He prepared to launch a crusade against Constantinople
but, in what became known as the Sicilian
Vespers, an uprising fomented by Michael VIII
Palaiologos deprived him of the resources
of Sicily, and Peter III of Aragon was proclaimed
king of Sicily.
In response, Martin excommunicated Peter and
called for an Aragonese Crusade, which was
unsuccessful.
In 1285 Charles died, having spent his life
trying to amass a Mediterranean empire; he
and Louis had viewed themselves as God's instruments
to uphold the papacy.The causes of the decline
in Crusading and the failure of the Crusader
States is multi-faceted.
Historians have attempted to explain this
in terms of Muslim reunification and Jihadi
enthusiasm but Thomas Asbridge, amongst others,
considers this too simplistic.
Muslim unity was sporadic and the desire for
Jihad ephemeral.
The nature of Crusades was unsuited to the
conquest and defence of the Holy Land.
Crusaders were on a personal pilgrimage and
usually returned when it was completed.
Although the philosophy of Crusading changed
over time, the Crusades continued to provide
short-lived armies without centralised leadership
led by independently minded potentates.
What the Crusader states needed were large
standing armies.
Religious fervour enabled amazing feats of
military endeavour but proved difficult to
direct and control.
Succession disputes and dynastic rivalries
in Europe, failed harvests and heretical outbreaks,
all contributed to reducing Latin Europe's
concerns for Jerusalem.
Ultimately, even though the fighting was also
at the edge of the Islamic world, the huge
distances made the mounting of Crusades and
the maintenance of communications insurmountably
difficult.
It enabled Islam, under the charismatic leadership
of Nur al-Din and Saladin as well as the ruthless
Baibars to use the logistical advantages from
proximity to victorious effect.
The mainland Crusader states of the outremer
were finally extinguished with the fall of
Tripoli in 1289 and Acre in 1291.
Many Latin Christians were evacuated to Cyprus
by boat, were killed or enslaved.
== European campaigns ==
=== 
Northern Crusades ===
The success of the First Crusade inspired
12th-century popes such as Celestine III,
Innocent III, Honorius III, and Gregory IX
to call for military campaigns with the aim
of Christianising the more remote regions
of northern and north-eastern Europe.
These campaigns are known as the Northern
Crusades.
The Wendish Crusade of 1147 saw Saxons, Danes,
and Poles attempt to forcibly convert the
tribes of Mecklenburg and Lusatia, who were
Polabian Slavs or "Wends".
Celestine III called for a Crusade in 1193,
but when Bishop Berthold of Hanover responded
in 1198, he led a large army into defeat and
to his death.
In response, Innocent III issued a bull declaring
a Crusade, and Hartwig of Uthlede, Bishop
of Bremen, along with the Brothers of the
Sword brought all of the north-east Baltic
under Catholic control.
Konrad of Masovia gave Chelmno to the Teutonic
Knights in 1226 as a base for a Crusade against
the local Polish princes.
The Livonian Brothers of the Sword were defeated
by the Lithuanians, so in 1237 Gregory IX
merged the remainder of the order into the
Teutonic Order as the Livonian Order.
By the middle of the century, the Teutonic
Knights completed their conquest of the Prussians
before conquering and converting the Lithuanians
in the subsequent decades.
The order also came into conflict with the
Eastern Orthodox Church of the Pskov and Novgorod
Republics.
In 1240 the Orthodox Novgorod army defeated
the Catholic Swedes in the Battle of the Neva,
and, two years later, they defeated the Livonian
Order in the Battle on 
the Ice.
=== Albigensian Crusade ===
The Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229) was
a campaign against heretics that Innocent
III launched to eradicate Catharism, which
had gained a substantial following in southern
France.
The Cathars were brutally suppressed and the
autonomous County of Toulouse formally submitted
to the crown of France.
The county's sole heiress Joan was engaged
to Alphonse, Count of Poitiers, a younger
brother of Louis IX of France.
The marriage was childless so that after Joan's
death the county fell under the direct control
of Capetian France which was in part one of
the motivations of the Crusaders.
=== Bosnian Crusade ===
The Bosnian Crusade was a campaign against
the independent Bosnian Church, which was
accused of Catharism (Bogomilism).
However, it was also possibly motivated by
Hungarian territorial ambitions.
In 1216 a mission was sent to convert Bosnia
to Rome but failed.
In 1225 Honorius III encouraged the Hungarians
to crusade in Bosnia.
This ended in failure after the Hungarians
were defeated by the Mongols at the Battle
of Mohi.
From 1234 Gregory IX encouraged further crusading,
but again the Bosniaks repelled the Hungarians.
=== Reconquista ===
In the Iberian peninsula, Crusader privileges
were given to those aiding the Templars, the
Hospitallers, and the Iberian orders that
merged with the orders of Calatrava and Santiago.
The Christian kingdoms pushed the Muslim Moors
and Almohads back in frequent Papal-endorsed
Iberian Crusades from 1212 to 1265.
The Emirate of Granada held out until 1492,
at which point the Muslims and Jews were finally
expelled from the peninsula.
== Late Middle Ages and Renaissance ==
Minor Crusading efforts lingered into the
14th century, and several Crusades were launched
during the 14th and 15th centuries to counter
the expansion of the Ottoman conquest of the
Balkans.
In 1309 as many as 30,000 peasants gathered
from England, north-eastern France, and Germany
proceeded as far as Avignon but disbanded
there.
Peter I of Cyprus captured and sacked Alexandria
in 1365 in what became known as the Alexandrian
Crusade; his motivation was as much commercial
as religious.
Louis II led the 1390 Barbary Crusade against
Muslim pirates in North Africa; after a ten-week
siege, the Crusaders signed a ten-year truce.The
Ottomans had conquered most of the Balkans
and reduced Byzantine influence to the area
immediately surrounding Constantinople after
victory at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389.
Nicopolis was seized from the Bulgarian Tsar
Ivan Shishman in 1393 and a year later Pope
Boniface IX proclaimed a new Crusade against
the Turks, although the Western Schism had
split the papacy.
This Crusade was led by Sigismund of Luxemburg,
King of Hungary; many French nobles joined
Sigismund's forces, including the Crusade's
military leader, John the Fearless (son of
the Duke of Burgundy).
Sigismund advised the Crusaders to adopt a
cautious, more defensive strategy, when they
reached the Danube, instead they besieged
the city of Nicopolis.
The Ottomans defeated them in the Battle of
Nicopolis on 25 September, capturing 3,000
prisoners.
The Hussite Wars, also known as the Hussite
Crusade, involved military action against
the Bohemian Reformation in the Kingdom of
Bohemia and the followers of early Czech church
reformer Jan Hus, who was burned at the stake
in 1415.
Crusades were declared five times during that
period: in 1420, 1421, 1422, 1427, and 1431.
These expeditions forced the Hussite forces,
who disagreed on many doctrinal points, to
unite to drive out the invaders.
The wars ended in 1436 with the ratification
of the compromise Compacts of Basel by the
Church and the Hussites.As the Ottomans pressed
westward, Sultan Murad II destroyed the last
Papal-funded Crusade at Varna on the Black
Sea in 1444 and four years later crushed the
last Hungarian expedition.
In 1453 they extinguished most of the remains
of the Byzantine Empire with the capture of
Constantinople.
John Hunyadi and Giovanni da Capistrano organised
a 1456 Crusade to oppose the Ottoman Empire
and lift its Siege of Belgrade.
Æneas Sylvius and John of Capistrano preached
the Crusade, the princes of the Holy Roman
Empire in the Diets of Ratisbon and Frankfurt
promised assistance, and a league was formed
between Venice, Florence, and Milan, but nothing
eventually came of it.
In April 1487 Pope Innocent VIII called for
a Crusade against the Waldensians of Savoy,
the Piedmont, and the Dauphiné in southern
France and northern Italy because they were
unorthodox and heretical.
The only efforts undertaken were in the Dauphiné,
resulting in little change.
Venice was the only polity to continue to
pose a significant threat to the Ottomans
in the Mediterranean, but it pursued the "Crusade"
mostly for its commercial interests, leading
to the protracted Ottoman–Venetian Wars,
which continued, with interruptions, until
1718.
The end of the Crusading in terms of at least
nominal efforts by Catholic Europe against
Muslim incursion, came in the 16th century,
when the Franco-Imperial wars assumed continental
proportions.
Francis I of France sought allies from all
quarters, including from German Protestant
princes and Muslims.
Amongst these, he entered into one of the
capitulations of the Ottoman Empire with Suleiman
the Magnificent while making common cause
with Hayreddin Barbarossa and a number of
the Sultan's North African vassals.
== Crusader states ==
After the First Crusade's capture of Jerusalem
and victory at Ascalon the majority of the
Crusaders considered their personal pilgrimage
complete and returned to Europe.
Godfrey found himself left with only 300 knights
and 2,000 infantry to defend the territory
won in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Of the crusader princes, only Tancred remained
with the aim of establishing his own lordship.
At this point the Franks held Jerusalem and
two great Syrian cities – Antioch and Edessa
– but not the surrounding country.
Jerusalem remained economically sterile despite
the advantages of being the centre of administration
of church and state and benefiting from streams
of pilgrims.The "Law of Conquest" supported
the seizure of land and property by impecunious
Crusaders from the autochthonous population,
enabling poor men to become rich and part
of a noble class.
Although some historians, like Jotischky,
question the model once proposed, in which
the primary motivation was understood in sociological
and economic rather than spiritual terms.That
class did not expel the native population,
but adopted strict segregation and at no point
attempted to integrate it by way of religious
conversion.
In this way the Crusaders created a colonial
noble class that perpetuated itself through
an incessant flow of religious pilgrims and
settlers keen to take economic advantage.
The territorial gains followed distinct ethnic
and linguistic entities.
The Principality of Antioch, founded in 1098
and ruled by Bohemond, became Norman in character
and custom.
The Kingdom of Jerusalem, founded in 1099,
followed the traditions of northern France.
The County of Tripoli, founded in 1104 (although
the city of Tripoli itself remained in Muslim
control until 1109) by Raymond de Saint-Gilles
became Provençal.
The County of Edessa, founded in 1098, differed
in that although it was ruled by the French
Bouillons and Courteneys its largely Armenian
and Jacobite native nobility was preserved.
These states were the first examples of "Europe
overseas".
They are generally known by historians as
Outremer, from the French outre-mer ("overseas"
in English).Largely based in the ports of
Acre and Tyre, Italian, Provençal and Spanish
communes provided a significant characteristic
of Crusader social stratification and political
organisation.
Separate from the Frankish nobles or burgesses,
the communes were autonomous political entities
closely linked to their countries of origin.
This gave the inhabitants the ability to monopolise
foreign trade and almost all banking and shipping
in the Crusader states.
Every opportunity to extend trade privileges
was taken.
One example saw the Venetian Doge receiving
one third of Tyre, its territories and exemption
from all taxes, after Venice participated
in the successful 1124 siege of the city.
However, despite all efforts, the two ports
were unable to replace Alexandria and Constantinople
as the primary centres of commerce in the
region.
Instead, the communes competed with the Crown
and each other to maintain economic advantage.
Power derived from the support of the communards'
native cities rather than their number, which
never reached more than several hundred.
Thus by the middle of the 13th century, the
rulers of the communes were barely required
to recognise the authority of the crusaders
and divided Acre into a number of fortified
miniature republics.The Fourth Crusade established
a Latin Empire in the east and allowed participating
crusaders to partition the Byzantine European
territory.
The Latin emperor controlled one-fourth of
the Byzantine territory, Venice three-eighths
(including three-eighths of the city of Constantinople),
and the remainder was divided among the other
leaders of the Crusade.
This began the period of Greek history known
as Frankokratia or Latinokratia ("Frankish
[or Latin] rule"), when Catholic Western European
nobles – primarily from France and Italy
– established states on former Byzantine
territory and ruled over the Orthodox Byzantine
Greeks.
In the long run, the sole beneficiary was
Venice.
== Military orders ==
The Crusaders' mentality to imitate the customs
from their Western European homelands meant
that there were very few innovations developed
from the culture of the crusader states.
Three notable exceptions to this rule are
the military orders, warfare and fortifications.
The Hospitallers (Order of Knights of the
Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem) were
founded in Jerusalem before the First Crusade
but added a martial element to its ongoing
medical functions to become a much larger
military order.
In this way the knighthood entered the previously
monastic and ecclesiastical sphere.The military
orders such as the Knights Hospitaller and
the Knights Templar provided Latin Christendom's
first professional armies in support of the
Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the other Crusader
states.
The Poor Knights of Christ (Templars) and
their Temple of Solomon were founded around
1119 by a small band of knights who dedicated
themselves to protecting pilgrims en route
to Jerusalem.
The Hospitallers and the Templars became supranational
organisations as Papal support led to rich
donations of land and revenue across Europe.
This in turn led to a steady flow of new recruits
and the wealth to maintain multiple fortifications
across the Outremer.
In time, this developed into autonomous power
in the region.
After the fall of Acre the Hospitallers first
relocated to Cyprus, then conquered and ruled
Rhodes (1309–1522) and Malta (1530–1798),
and continue in existence to the present day.
Philip IV of France probably had financial
and political reasons to oppose the Knights
Templar, which led to him exerting pressure
on Pope Clement V. The Pope responded in 1312,
with a series of papal bulls including Vox
in excelso and Ad providam that dissolved
the order on the alleged and probably false
grounds of sodomy, magic, and heresy.
== Legacy ==
The Kingdom of Jerusalem was the first experiment
in European colonialism creating a 'Europe
Overseas' or Outremer.
The Arabs had come to dominate trade in the
Mediterranean after their conquests.
Before the Crusades, Fatimids had trade relations
with Italian city-states like Amalfi and Genoa.
Amalfian merchants are attested to have lived
in Cairo in 10th century by Cairo Geniza documents
and were allowed to live in Jerusalem around
1060 by al-Mustansir.
In return for assisting the Crusaders, Genoa,
Pisa and Venice were granted wide privileges
in matter of land, trade and jurisdiction.
Amalfi however didn't participate.
The raising, transportation, and supply of
large armies led to flourishing trade between
Europe and the outremer.
The Italian city states of Genoa and Venice
flourished, creating profitable trading colonies
in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The colonies allowed them to engage in trade
with eastern markets.
This trade was sustained through the middle
Byzantine and Ottoman eras, and the communities
were often assimilated and known as Levantines
or Franco-Levantines.The Crusades consolidated
the papal leadership of the Latin Church,
reinforcing the link between Western Christendom,
feudalism, and militarism and increased the
tolerance of the clergy to violence.
The growth of the system of indulgences became
a catalyst for the Protestant Reformation
in the early 16th century.
The Crusades also had a role in the creation
and institutionalisation of the military and
the Dominican orders as well as the Medieval
Inquisition.The behaviour of the Crusaders
appalled the Greeks and Muslims, creating
a lasting barrier between the Latin world
and both the Islamic and Orthodox religions.
It was an obstacle to the reunification of
the Christian church and created a perception
of Westerners as defeated aggressors.
Many historians argue that the interaction
between the western Christian and Islamic
cultures was a significant, ultimately positive,
factor in the development of European civilisation
and the Renaissance.
The many interactions between Europeans and
the Islamic world across the entire length
of the Mediterranean Sea led to improved perceptions
of Islamic culture, but also make it difficult
for historians to identify the specific source
of various instances of cultural cross-fertilisation.
The art and architecture of the Outremer show
clear evidence of cultural fusion but it is
difficult to track illumination of manuscripts
and castle design back to their sources.
Textual sources are simpler, and translations
made in Antioch are notable but considered
secondary in importance to the works emanating
from Muslim Spain and the hybrid culture of
Sicily.
In addition, Muslim libraries contained classical
Greek and Roman texts that allowed Europe
to rediscover pre-Christian philosophy, science
and medicine.Jonathan Riley-Smith considers
that much of the popular understanding of
the Crusades derives from the novels of Walter
Scott and the French histories by Joseph François
Michaud.
The Crusades provided an enormous amount of
source material, stories of heroism, and interest
that underpinned growth in medieval literature,
romance, and philosophy.Historical parallelism
and the tradition of drawing inspiration from
the Middle Ages have become keystones of Islamic
ideology.
Secular Arab Nationalism concentrates on the
idea of Western Imperialism.
Gamal Abdel Nasser likened himself to Saladin
and imperialism to the Crusades.
In his History of the Crusades Sa'id Ashur
emphasised the similarity between the modern
and medieval situation facing Muslims and
the need to study the Crusades in depth.
Sayyid Qutb declared there was an international
Crusader conspiracy.
The ideas of Jihad and a long struggle have
developed some currency.
== Historiography ==
Five major sources of information exist on
the Council of Clermont that led to the First
Crusade: the anonymous Gesta Francorum (The
Deeds of the Franks), dated about 1100–01;
Fulcher of Chartres, who attended the council;
Robert the Monk, who may have been present,
and the absent Baldric, archbishop of Dol
and Guibert de Nogent.
These retrospective accounts differ greatly.
In his 1106–07 Historia Iherosolimitana,
Robert the Monk wrote that Urban asked western
Roman Catholic Christians to aid the Orthodox
Byzantine Empire because "Deus vult" ("God
wills it") and promised absolution to participants;
according to other sources, the pope promised
an indulgence.
In these accounts, Urban emphasises reconquering
the Holy Land more than aiding the emperor,
and lists gruesome offences allegedly committed
by Muslims.
Urban wrote to those "waiting in Flanders"
that the Turks, in addition to ravaging the
"churches of God in the eastern regions",
seized "the Holy City of Christ, embellished
by his passion and resurrection – and blasphemy
to say it – have sold her and her churches
into abominable slavery".
Although the pope did not explicitly call
for the reconquest of Jerusalem, he called
for military "liberation" of the Eastern Churches.During
the 16th-century Reformation and Counter-Reformation,
Western historians saw the Crusades through
the lens of their own religious beliefs.
Protestants saw them as a manifestation of
the evils of the papacy, and Catholics viewed
them as forces for good.
18th-century Enlightenment historians tended
to view the Middle Ages in general, and the
Crusades in particular, as the efforts of
barbarian cultures driven by fanaticism.
These scholars expressed moral outrage at
the conduct of the Crusaders and criticised
the Crusades' misdirection – that of the
Fourth in particular, which attacked a Christian
power (the Byzantine Empire) instead of Islam.
The Fourth Crusade had resulted in the sacking
of Constantinople, effectively ending any
chance of reconciling the East–West Schism
and leading to the fall of the Byzantine Empire
to the Ottomans.
In The History of the Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire, 18th-century English historian
Edward Gibbon wrote that the Crusaders' efforts
could have been more profitably directed towards
improving their own countries.The 20th century
produced three important histories of the
Crusades: one by Steven Runciman, another
by Rene Grousset, and a multi-author work
edited by Kenneth Setton.
Historians in this period often echoed Enlightenment-era
criticism: Runciman wrote during the 1950s,
"High ideals were besmirched by cruelty and
greed ... the Holy War was nothing more than
a long act of intolerance in the name of God".
According to Norman Davies, the Crusades contradicted
the Peace and Truce of God supported by Urban
and reinforced the connection between Western
Christendom, feudalism, and militarism.
The formation of military religious orders
scandalised the Orthodox Byzantines, and Crusaders
pillaged countries they crossed on their journey
east.
Violating their oath to restore land to the
Byzantines, they often kept the land for themselves.
The Fourth Crusade is widely considered controversial
in its "betrayal" of Byzantium.
Similarly, Norman Housley viewed the persecution
of Jews in the First Crusade – a pogrom
in the Rhineland and the massacre of thousands
of Jews in Central Europe – as part of the
long history of anti-Semitism in Europe.With
an increasing focus on gender studies in the
early 21st century, studies have examined
the topic of "Women in the Crusades".
An essay collection on the topic was published
in 2001 under the title Gendering the Crusades.
In an essay on "Women Warriors", Keren Caspi-Reisfeld
concludes that "the most significant role
played by women in the West was in maintaining
the status quo", in the sense of noble women
acting as regents of feudal estates while
their husbands were campaigning.
The presence of individual noble women in
Crusades has been noted, such as Eleanor of
Aquitaine (who joined her husband, Louis VII).
The presence of non-noble women in the Crusading
armies, as in medieval warfare in general,
was mostly in the role of logistic support
(such as "washerwomen"), while the occasional
presence of women soldiers was recorded by
Muslim historians.The Muslim world exhibited
little interest in European culture until
the 16th century and in the Crusades until
the mid-19th century.
There was no history of the Crusades translated
into Arabic until 1865 and no published work
by a Muslim until 1899.
In the late 19th century, Arabic-speaking
Syrian Christians began translating French
histories into Arabic, leading to the replacement
of the term "wars of the Ifranj" – Franks
– with al-hurub al Salabiyya – wars of
the Cross.
Namik Kamel published the first modern Saladin
biography in 1872.
The Jerusalem visit in 1898 of Kaiser Wilhelm
prompted further interest, with Sayyid Ali
al-Harri producing the first Arabic history
of the Crusades.
Muslim thinkers, politicians and historians
have drawn parallels between the Crusades
and modern political developments such as
the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon,
Mandatory Palestine, and the United Nations
mandated foundation of the state of Israel.
== See also ==
Arab–Byzantine wars (634–1050s)
Art of the Crusades
Byzantine–Ottoman Wars (1265–1479)
Crusade cycle – Old French cycle of epic
poems concerning the First Crusade
The Crusades, An Arab Perspective
History of the Jews and the Crusades
Jihad
List of principal Crusaders
List of Crusader castles
Ottoman Wars in Europe (1453–1922)
Miles Christianus ("Christian soldier")
Religious war
== Notes
