essay on crusades

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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

The crusades (1095–1291).

Reliquary Cross

Keystone from a Vaulted Ceiling

Sword Pommel with the Arms of Pierre de Dreux (ca. 1187–1250), Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond

King Louis IX Carrying the Crown of Thorns

Pyxis Depicting Standing Saints or Ecclesiastics and the Entry into Jerusalem with Christ Riding a Donkey

A Knight of the d'Aluye Family

Gemellion (Hand Basin) with the Arms of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem

Scene from the Legend of the True Cross

Leaf from a Gospel Book with Four Standing Evangelists

The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, Queen of France

Jean Pucelle

Initial A with the Battle of the Maccabees

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Workshop of Fra Filippo Lippi

Godfroy de Bouillon

Colin Nouailher

The Crusaders Reach Jerusalem (from a set of Scenes from Gerusalemme Liberata)

Jérusalem, Saint Sépulcre, abside

Auguste Salzmann

Jérusalem, Saint Sépulcre, détails des chapiteaux

[Interior, Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem]

Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters , The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2001 (originally published) February 2014 (last revised)

The First Crusade Most historians consider the sermon preached by Pope Urban II at Clermont-Ferrand in November 1095 to have been the spark that fueled a wave of military campaigns to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control. Considered at the time to be divinely sanctioned, these campaigns, involving often ruthless battles, are known as the Crusades. At their core was a desire for access to shrines associated with the life and ministry of Jesus, above all the Holy Sepulcher, the church in Jerusalem said to contain the tomb of Christ ( 2005.100.373.100 ). Absolution from sin and eternal glory were promised to the Crusaders, who also hoped to gain land and wealth in the East. Nobles and peasants responded in great number to the call and marched across Europe to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine empire . With the support of the Byzantine emperor, the knights , guided by Armenian Christians ( 57.185.3 ), tenuously marched to Jerusalem through Seljuq-controlled territories in modern Turkey and Syria. In June 1099, the Crusaders began a five-week siege of Jerusalem, which fell on July 15, 1099 ( 92.1.15 ). Eyewitness accounts attest to the terror of battle. Ralph of Caen, watching the city from the Mount of Olives, saw “the scurrying people, the fortified towers, the roused garrison, the men rushing to arms, the women in tears, the priests turned to their prayers, the streets ringing with cries, crashing, clanging and neighing.”

The Crusaders took over many of the cities on the Mediterranean coast and built a large number of fortified castles across the Holy Land to protect their newly established territories ( 28.99.1 ), while also establishing churches loyal to Rome. For the Crusaders, the Dome of the Rock was the Temple of Solomon; the Aqsa mosque was converted to use as a palace and stables.

The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem established by the Crusaders boasted fifteen cathedral churches. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, for example, became the seat of a Western Christian bishop in 1110 ( 1988.1174.9 ).

Artists from different traditions met in the city of Jerusalem, with, for example, Syrian goldworkers on the right of the market near the Holy Sepulcher, and Latin goldworkers on the left (Conder 1896). Indeed, metalwork from this period sometimes combines an Islamic aesthetic with Christian subject matter ( 1971.39a,b ). Some pieces even bear an inscription indicating that they were made by an Islamic goldsmith for a Christian. Precious works of art fashioned for the churches of Europe celebrated their links to the Holy Land ( 2002.18 ; Toulouse Cathedral Limoges Reliquary ).

Second and Third Crusade In 1147–49, the Second Crusade, championed by the Cistercian abbot Bernard of Clairvaux ( 1975.1.70b ), attempted to take Damascus in Syria. The campaign was a dismal failure because the Muslims had regrouped. Led by Salah al-Din (Saladin), Muslim forces advanced across Syria and finally retook Jerusalem in October 1187. Saladin was credited by his personal secretary with allowing the Patriarch of Jerusalem to leave the city with the church’s treasure, explaining: “If we make excuses [to confiscate this wealth] they [the Franks] will accuse us of treachery … let us not make them accuse people of faith of breaking their oaths. Let them go. They will talk about our benevolence” (Mohamed el-Moctar, in Paul and Yaeger, 2012, p. 209).

Entering the city, a vizier of Saladin marveled at how the Crusaders had beautified Jerusalem: “the care of the unbelievers had transformed [it] into a Paradise garden … those accursed ones defended with the lance and sword this city, which they had rebuilt with columns and slabs of marble [ 2005.100.373.86 ], where they had founded churches and the palaces of the Templars and the hospitallers … One sees on every side houses as pleasant as their gardens and bright with white marble and columns decorated with leaves, which make them look like living trees” (quoting Kadi el-Fadel in Hamilton, 1979).

By the end of the Third Crusade (1189–92), Crusader forces had gained Cyprus and the coastal city of Acre. Saladin guaranteed access to Jerusalem to European pilgrims and welcomed Jews back to the city as well.

The chronicle of the Spanish-born Ibn Jubayr, who traveled to Mecca from 1183 to 1185, speaks of the ease of trade in the Holy Land, even in times of military hostilities: “the Muslims continuously journeyed from Damascus to Acre (through Frankish territory), and likewise not one of the Christian merchants was stopped and hindered (in Muslim territories) … The soldiers engage themselves in their war, while the people are at peace” (as cited in Paul and Yaeger, 2012, p. 34).

The Fourth Crusade With each crusade, relations between the Byzantines and the Western forces became more estranged. The Fourth Crusade set out in 1202 with Egypt as its goal. After choosing sides in a dynastic dispute in Byzantium, however, the Crusaders turned their siege upon Byzantium’s capital, Constantinople, to collect an enormous sum of money that had been promised for their support. The city was sacked in 1204, its rich treasures divided between the Venetians (the lion’s share of which remains in the Treasury of San Marco, Venice), the French, and other Crusaders. The Latin Empire of Constantinople was established with Baldwin of Flanders as emperor. In 1261, the Byzantines regained the city .

Later Crusades Successive crusades were launched to the Holy Land. The knight Jean d’Alluye traveled to the Holy Land around 1240, but the circumstances of his voyage are not known ( 25.120.201 ).

The Seventh and Eighth Crusades, in 1248 ( 38.60 ) and 1270, were sponsored by Louis IX , who died in Tunisia ( 54.1.2 ; 37.173.3 ). In 1271, Sultan Baibars captured Montfort Castle ( 28.99.1 ), and in 1291, the Crusader city of Acre fell, ending the era of Latin Crusader kingdoms. Calls for new crusades over the next centuries were increasingly ignored, despite the renown in which Crusaders and the Holy Land were held in legend ( 1993.65.4 ; 23.21.4 ; 25.120.528 ; 25.120.529 ; 54.1.1 ; Belles Heures Heraclius leaf, folio 156 ).

Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “The Crusades (1095–1291).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/crus/hd_crus.htm (originally published October 2001, last revised February 2014)

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The Crusades were a series of military campaigns organised by popes and Christian western powers to take Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control and then defend those gains. There were eight major official crusades between 1095 and 1270, as well as many more unofficial ones.

Although there were many crusades, none would be as successful as the first, and by 1291 the Crusader-created states in the Middle East were absorbed into the Mamluk Sultanate. The idea of crusading was applied more successfully (for Christians) to other regions, notably in the Baltic against European pagans and in the Iberian Peninsula against the Muslim Moors.

Involving emperors, kings, and Europe 's nobility, as well as thousands of knights and more humble warriors, the Crusades would have tremendous consequences for all involved. The effects, besides the obvious death , ruined lives, destruction and wasted resources, ranged from the collapse of the Byzantine Empire to a souring of relations and intolerance between religions and peoples in the East and West which still blights governments and societies today.

The Causes of the Crusades

The 11th century First Crusade (1095-1102) set a precedent for the heady mix of politics, religion , and violence that would drive all the future campaigns. The Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081-1118) saw an opportunity to gain western military aid in defeating the Muslim Seljuks who were eating away at his empire in Asia Minor . When the Seljuks took over Jerusalem (from their fellow Muslims, not the Christians who had lost the city centuries earlier) in 1087, this provided the catalyst to mobilise western Christians into action. Pope Urban II (r. 1088-1099) responded to this call for help, motivated by a desire to strengthen the Papacy and milk the prestige to become the undisputed head of the whole Christian church including the Orthodox East. Taking back the Holy City of Jerusalem and such sites as the Holy Sepulchre, considered the tomb of Jesus Christ , after four centuries of Muslim control would be a real coup. Consequently, the Pope issued a Papal Legate and set in motion a preaching campaign across Europe, which appealed for western nobles and knights to sharpen their swords, suit up and get themselves over to the Holy Land to defend Christendom's most precious sites and any Christians there in danger.

The warriors who 'took the cross', as the oath to crusade was known, and made the incredibly arduous journey to fight in a foreign land were motivated by any number of things. First and foremost was the religious aspect - the defence of Christians and the faith, they were promised by the Pope, brought a remission of sins and a fast-track route to Heaven. There were also ideals of chivalry and doing the right thing (although chivalry was in its infancy at the time of the First Crusade), peer and family pressure, the chance to gain material wealth, perhaps even land and titles, and the desire to travel and see the great holy sites in person. Many warriors had far less glamorous ambitions and were simply compelled to follow their lords, some sought to escape debts and justice, others merely sought a decent living with regular meals included. These motivations would continue to guarantee large numbers of recruits throughout all subsequent campaigns.

The First Crusade

Against all odds, the international military expedition of the First Crusade overcame the difficulties of logistics and the skills of the enemy to recapture first Antioch in June 1098 and then the big one, Jerusalem on 15 July 1099. With their heavy cavalry, shining armour, siege technology, and military know-how, the western knights sprung a surprise on the Muslims that would not be repeated. The slaughter of Muslims after the fall of Jerusalem would not be forgotten either. There had been a few cock-ups along the way, like the annihilation of the People's Crusade, a band of non-professional rabble, and a fair amount of deaths due to plagues, disease, and famine, but overall the success of the First Crusade astonished even the organisers themselves. Multinational cooperative warfare could reap dividends, it seemed, and this was the moment when the merchants started to show an interest in the crusades too.

The Crusader States

To defend the territory now in Christian hands, four Crusader States were formed: the Kingdom of Jerusalem , County of Edessa , County of Tripoli, and Principality of Antioch. Collectively, these were known as the Latin East or Outremer. The trade between the West and East, which went through these states, and the lucrative contracts to ship crusaders to the Levant attracted the merchants of such cities as Venice, Pisa, Genoa, and Marseille. Military orders sprang up in the Crusader States, such as the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller , which were able bodies of professional knights who lived as monks and who were given the job of defending key castles and passing pilgrims. Unfortunately for Christendom, the Crusader States always suffered a shortage of manpower and bickering between the nobles who had settled in them. Theirs was not to be an easy existence over the next century.

The Second Crusade

In 1144 CE the city of Edessa in Upper Mesopotamia was captured by the Muslim Seljuk leader Imad ad-Din Zangi (r. 1127-1146), the independent ruler of Mosul (in Iraq) and Aleppo (in Syria ), and many Christians were killed or enslaved. This would spark off another crusade in the 12th century to get it back again. The German king Conrad III (r. 1138-1152) and Louis VII, the king of France (r. 1137-1180), led the Second Crusade of 1147-9, but this royal seal of approval did not bring success. Zangi's death only brought an even more determined figure on the scene, his successor Nur ad-Din (sometimes also given as Nur al-Din, r. 1146-1174), who sought to bind the Muslim world together in a holy war against the Christians in the Levant. Two big defeats at the hands of the Seljuks in 1147 and 1148 knocked the stuffing out of the Crusader armies, and their last-ditch attempt to salvage something honourable from the campaign, a siege of Damascus in June 1148, was another miserable failure. The next year Nur ad-Din captured Antioch, and the County of Edessa ceased to exist by 1150.

The First Three Crusades and the 12th-Century Latin East (Outremer)

The Reconquista

In 1147, the Second Crusaders had stopped off at Lisbon en route to the East to assist King Alfonso Henriques of Portugal (r. 1139-1185) capture that city from the Muslims. This was part of the ongoing rise of the northern Christian statelets in Iberia who were eager to push the Muslim Moors out of southern Spain, the so-called Reconquista (the Reconquest, although the Muslims had been there since the early 8th century). The popes were more than happy to support this campaign and widen the idea of crusading to include the Moors as yet another enemy of the West. The same spiritual benefits were offered to those who fought in the Middle East or Iberia. The Spanish and Portuguese nobility were also keen to have the backing of a higher authority and the manpower and financial resources it promised. New local military orders sprang up, and the campaigns were remarkably successful so that only Granada remained in Muslim hands after the mid-13th century.

The Northern Crusades

A third arena for the crusades, again backed by the popes and wider Church infrastructure, was the Baltic and those areas bordering German territories which continued to be pagan. The Northern Crusades of the 12th to 15th century were first conducted by a Saxon army led by German and Danish nobles who selected the pagan Wends (aka Western Slavs ) as their target in 1147. This was a whole new facet of crusading: the active conversion of non-Christians as opposed to liberating territory held by infidels. The crusades would continue thereafter, largely conducted by the military order of Teutonic Knights who called upon knights from across Europe to help them. The order in effect carved out its own state in Prussia and then moved on to what is today Lithuania and Estonia. Quite often brutally converting pagans and probably more motivated by land and wealth acquisition than anything else, the Crusades were so successful in their aims that the Teutonic Knights did themselves out of a job and, by the end of the 14th century, had to focus instead, and with much more meagre results, on the Poles, Ottoman Turks, and Russians.

The Third Crusade

Back in the Middle East, the fate of the three remaining Crusader States was becoming even more precarious. The new star Muslim leader, Saladin , the Sultan of Egypt and Syria (r. 1174-1193) won a great victory against a Latin East army at the Battle of Hattin in 1187 CE and then immediately took Jerusalem. These events would bring on the Third Crusade (1189-1192). Perhaps the most glamorous of all the campaigns, this time there were two western kings and an emperor in command, hence its other name of 'the Kings' Crusade'. The three big names were: Frederick I Barbarossa, King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1152-1190) Philip II of France (r. 1180-1223) and Richard I 'the Lionhearted' of England (r. 1189-1199).

Despite the royal pedigree, things got off to the worst possible start for the Crusaders when Frederick drowned in a river on his way to the Holy Land in June 1190. Richard's presence did finally end the siege of Acre in the Christians' favour in July 1191, after the English king had already caused a stir by capturing Cyprus en route. Marching towards Jaffa, the Christian army scored another victory at the Battle of Arsuf in September 1191, but by the time the force got to Jerusalem, it was felt they could not take the city, and even if they did, the still largely intact army of Saladin would almost certainly and immediately take it back again. The end result of the Third Crusade was a mere consolation prize: a treaty which allowed Christian pilgrims to travel to the Holy Land unmolested and a strip of land around Acre. Still, it was a vital foothold and one which inspired many future crusades to expand it into something rather better.

Later Crusades

The subsequent crusades were very much a story of the Christians shooting their crossbows into their own feet. The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) somehow managed to identify Constantinople , the greatest Christian city in the world, as the prime target. Papal ambitions, the financial greed of the Venetians, and a century of mutual suspicion between the East and the Western parts of the former Roman Empire all created a storm of aggression that resulted in the sacking of the Byzantine Empire's capital in 1204. The Empire was carved up between Venice and its allies, its riches and relics spirited away back to Europe.

The Venetians Attack Constantinople, 1204 CE

The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221) saw a change of strategy as the western powers identified the best way to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims - now dominated by the Ayyubid dynasty (1174-1250) - was to attack the enemy's soft underbelly in Egypt first. Despite the success, after an arduous siege, of taking Damietta on the Nile in November 1219, the westerners' lack of regard for local conditions and proper logistical support spelt their doom at the Battle of Mansourah in August 1221.

The Sixth Crusade (1228-1229) saw negotiation achieve what warfare had not. Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (r. 1220-1250), who had been much criticised for not participating in the Fifth Crusade, managed to strike a deal with al-Kamil, then the Sultan of Egypt and Syria (r. 1218-1238), and Jerusalem was handed over to Christian control with the proviso that Muslim pilgrims could freely enter the city. Al-Kamil was having his own problems in controlling his large empire, especially rebel Damascus, and Jerusalem had no military or economic value at that time, only a religious significance, making it a cheap bargaining chip to avoid a distracting war with Frederick's army.

The Seventh Crusade (1248-1254) was launched after a Christian army was defeated at the battle of La Forbie in October 1244. Led by the French king Louis IX (r. 1226-1270), the Crusaders repeated the strategy of the Fifth Crusade and achieved only the same miserable results: the acquisition of Damietta and then total defeat at Mansourah. Louis was even captured, although he was later ransomed. The French king would have another go in the Eighth Crusade of 1270.

In 1250 the Mamluk Sultanate had taken over from the Ayyubid Dynasty, and they had a formidable leader in the gifted former general Baibars (r. 1260-1277). Louis IX once more attacked North Africa , but the king died of dysentery attacking Tunis in 1270, and with him so too did the Crusade. The Mamluks, meanwhile, extended their domination of the Near East and captured Acre in 1291, so definitively eliminating the Crusader States.

The Consequences of the Crusades

The Crusades had tremendous consequences for all those involved. Besides the obvious death, destruction and hardships the wars caused, they also had significant political and social effects. The Byzantine Empire ceased to be, the popes became the de facto leaders of the Christian Church, the Italian maritime states cornered the Mediterranean market in East-West trade, the Balkans were Christianized, and the Iberian peninsula saw the Moors pushed back to North Africa. The idea of crusading was stretched even further to provide a religious justification for the conquest of the New World in the 15th and 16th century. The sheer cost of the crusades saw the royal houses of Europe grow in power as that of the barons and nobles correspondingly declined. People travelled a little more, especially on pilgrimages, and they read and sang songs about the crusades, opening up a little wider their view of the world, even if it turned out to be a prejudiced one for many.

In the longer term, there was the development of the military orders, which eventually became tied with chivalry, many of which exist in one form or another today. Europeans developed a greater sense of their mutual common identity and culture , which also resulted in a sharper degree of xenophobia against non-Christians - Jews and heretics, in particular. Literature and art perpetuated crusading legends on both sides - Christian and Muslim, creating heroes and tragedies in a complex web of myth, imagery, and language which would be applied, very often inaccurately, to the problems and conflicts of the 21st century.

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Bibliography

Asbridge, T. The Crusades. Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2012.
Gregory, T.E. A History of Byzantium. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Runciman, S. A History of the Crusades. Folio Society, 2018.
Shepherd, J. The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500-1492. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Tyerman, C. God's War. Belknap Press, 2009.

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Essay on Crusades

Students are often asked to write an essay on Crusades in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Crusades

Introduction to crusades.

The Crusades were big fights that happened long ago between 1096 and 1291. They were fought by Christians from Europe against Muslims in the Middle East. The main aim was to take control of Jerusalem, a holy city for both religions.

Reasons for the Crusades

The Crusades started because of religious reasons. The Christians wanted to take back Jerusalem from the Muslims. The Pope, who is like the leader of the Christians, also wanted to increase his power. Many people also joined the Crusades to get rich or for adventure.

Major Crusades

There were eight major Crusades. The first one started in 1096 and was successful for the Christians. They took control of Jerusalem. But in the later Crusades, they were not so successful. The Muslims won back Jerusalem in the end.

Impact of the Crusades

The Crusades had a big impact. They caused a lot of fighting and death. But they also led to more trade between Europe and the Middle East. This helped Europe to grow and develop. The Crusades also changed the way people thought about the world.

250 Words Essay on Crusades

What were the crusades.

The Crusades were religious wars in the Middle Ages. These wars took place between the 11th and 15th centuries. Christians from Europe fought to get control of the Holy Land from Muslims. The Holy Land is a special area in the Middle East that includes Jerusalem, a city important to many religions.

Why did the Crusades start?

Pope Urban II started the first Crusade in 1095. He wanted to help the Byzantine Empire, which was under attack by Muslim Turks. The Pope also wanted Christians to control the Holy Land. Many people joined the Crusades because they believed it was their religious duty. Some joined to get wealth or land.

What happened during the Crusades?

There were many Crusades, and each one was different. The first Crusade was successful for the Christians. They captured Jerusalem in 1099. But later Crusades were not as successful. The Muslims recaptured Jerusalem in 1187. The last major Crusade ended in 1291 when the Christians lost their last stronghold in the Middle East.

What were the effects of the Crusades?

The Crusades had many effects. They caused a lot of death and destruction. But they also led to increased trade between Europe and the Middle East. This trade helped to start the Renaissance, a time of great learning and discovery in Europe. The Crusades also caused tension between different religious groups that still exists today.

In conclusion, the Crusades were a significant part of history. They were driven by religious beliefs and had lasting effects on the world. Even though they happened a long time ago, we can still see their impact today.

500 Words Essay on Crusades

What are crusades, the start of the crusades.

The Crusades started because of religious beliefs. Christians believed that they should control the holy places, like Jerusalem, because Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, lived and died there. The Pope, who is the leader of the Christian Church, asked Christians to fight against the Muslims. The Pope promised that anyone who died in the Crusades would go straight to heaven. This made many people want to join the Crusades.

The Course of the Crusades

The first Crusade started in 1095 and ended in 1099. It was successful for the Christians. They took control of Jerusalem and other holy places. But later, the Muslims fought back and took control of many places again. This led to more Crusades. But not all Crusades were successful. Some ended in failure for the Christians.

The Impact of the Crusades

The end of the crusades.

The last major Crusade ended in 1291. By this time, the Christians had lost control of most of the holy places. The Crusades ended because they were costly and many people were tired of fighting. But the Crusades left a lasting impact. They are still remembered today and they have influenced the way people think about religion and war.

In conclusion, the Crusades were a series of religious wars that had a big impact on the world. They changed the way wars were fought and led to increased trade and growth in Europe. But they also caused a lot of death and suffering. The Crusades are a reminder of the power of religious belief and the impacts it can have on the world.

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How the Crusades shaped the modern world

The Crusades were a series of religious wars fought by Christians from all over Europe in an attempt to retake the Holy Land from the Muslims.

The wars began in 1095 and continued until 1291. While there were many short-term impacts of the crusades, such as increased trade between Europe and the Middle East, there were also several long-term effects.

The birth of the military orders

The Crusades were primarily a military event, as hundreds of thousands of combatants clashed in the various battles that comprised the Crusading era.

As a result, military tactics, weapons, and expertise developed rapidly. Central to this development was the introduction of religious ideology into warfare.

This resulted in the development of new religious orders and institutions, such as hospitals and monasteries.

In addition, a new kind of religious group, known as 'military orders' were created.

Military orders were groups of knights who swore an oath to protect religious pilgrims as they made their way to the Holy Land.

Members of the military order saw it as their duty to defend these pilgrims from potential threats and, if they had to kill in order to protect them, they would.

The best-known military orders are the Knights Hospitaller, the Knights Templar , and the Teutonic Knights .

These orders were incredibly wealthy and powerful, and they played a major role in subsequent crusades.

One of the longest surviving orders was the Knights of St. John, which was founded during the First Crusade.

This order continued to exist until the early 19th century.

Imperial expansion and the crusades

Another long-term impact of the Crusades was that many modern countries had their period of expansion or creation during this time.

For example, Portugal was founded in 1143 as a result of the Spanish Reconquista .

The Crusades also had a significant impact on the development of Spain and France.

Most notably, several Christian kingdoms worked together to expel Muslims from Spain in the Reconquista .

The Byzantine Empire also expanded its territory during the Crusades, as they were able to take advantage of the situation and recapture some land from the Muslims during the First Crusade .

Unfortunately, ongoing conflicts with the European crusaders led to military clashes with Byzantine forces.

In 1204, during the Fourth Crusade , the Byzantine capital itself was captured and began a period of decline in the empire.

In 1299, a new Muslim empire, known as the Ottomans, benefited from these events.

They were able to take control of much of the Byzantine Empire after the Fourth Crusade and continually expand into the 15th century.

In 1453, the Ottoman Empire captured Constantinople and brought the Byzantine Empire to an end.

The creation of new technologies

Another long-term impact of the Crusades was the development of new technology.

This is most evident in the area of warfare, as Europeans were exposed to new weapons and tactics during their time in the Holy Land.

European knights also began using heavier armor, which made them more resistant to attack.

In addition, advances were made in shipbuilding and navigation, which allowed Europeans to travel more easily to other parts of the world.

The Crusades also played a role in spreading ideas and knowledge between Europe and the Middle East.

Increases in learning

During the Crusades, Europeans came into contact with new ideas, technologies and ways of life.

For example, crusaders returning from the East brought back books on a wide range of topics, such as medicine, astronomy and mathematics.

In addition, they also introduced European scholars to Arabic learning. Muslim scholars had managed to save rare copies of written works from the Ancient Greeks and Romans , which had long vanished in Europe.

The rediscovery of this information, and its return to European centres of learning, would be an important fact in the birth of the Renaissance period of history.

As a result of this increased contact and exchange of ideas, there was a significant increase in learning during this period.

Impacts on the Church

The Crusades also helped the Catholic Church develop in a number of ways. For instance, the Church became much more centralized and organized as a result of the Crusades.

The rise of centralised banking within the church was developed as a direct result of the Crusades, in order to manage the large amounts of money and resources that were flowing into the church.

Additionally, the Church developed their understanding of old and new doctrines and practices, such as indulgences and pilgrimages, which would have a lasting impact on Christianity.

Finally, the Church became much more powerful and influential as a result of the Crusades, which helped solidify its position as one of the most important political institutions in Europe.

Impacts on Europe

The Crusades had a number of economic impacts on Europe. One of the most notable is that European countries and cities benefitted financially from the crusades through taxes levied on crusaders, trade with the Middle East, and plundering.

The Crusades also had an impact on currency, as silver coins from Arabic lands began to circulate in Europe during this time.

Cities like Venice and Genoa also became very wealthy as a result of their involvement in the Crusades.

Since they were both sea-faring nations, they were able to profit from transporting people and goods to and from the Holy Land.

During times of open warfare, Venetian traders became valuable sources of food and water for European armies.

The creation of modern flags

There are also a number of national flags that have been influenced by the Crusades.

Specifically, the use of a Crusading cross on a flag became popular during the Crusades.

For example, the flags of England, Scotland, and Estonia all feature crosses. The flag of Malta includes a cross that is similar to the one used by the Knights Hospitaller.

Additionally, the flag of Switzerland features a white cross on a red background, which is similar to the flags used by crusading armies.

Romanticizing the crusades

In addition to its political and economic impact, the Crusades also had a significant impact on literature.

A number of authors wrote about the Crusades during this time, and their works helped shape the modern conception of both crusaders and Muslims.

One notable author is Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote The Canterbury Tales , which includes a number of references to the Crusades.

This inspired writers in later history as well, like Sir Walter Scott. Scott was a 19th century Scottish novelist who was responsible for creating many of the stereotypes and myths about crusaders and Muslims that are still prevalent today.

In his book The Talisman , Scott portrays Muslims as barbaric and cruel, and he romanticizes the Crusades as a battle between good and evil.

In recent years, there has also been a growing trend of criticising the Crusades and the role of the Medieval Church.

This is largely due to films and television shows that have portray crusaders in a negative light.

For instance, the film Kingdom of Heaven (2005) was criticized for its portrayal of crusaders as greedy murderers.

Similarly, the television show The Borgias (2011-2013) focused on Pope Alexander VI, who was involved in a number of scandals, and was used as a general criticism of the late medieval Church.

Wilhelm II and German nationalism

One of the most curious long-term impacts of the Crusades is that Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany played a role in the excavation of Saladin's tomb.

In 1898, Wilhelm II visited Damascus and requested to see where the Crusading-era Muslim leader was buried.

However, the tomb had been lost and forgotten over time, and it took a number of years to locate.

Once it was finally found, Wilhelm II helped finance the excavation of the tomb.

Today, Saladin's tomb is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Damascus.

When Wilhelm II visited Saladin's tomb in Damascus, he left a wreath with the following inscription: "To the great Saladin, who in battle was never defeated, from his admirer, the German Emperor Wilhelm II."

Wilhelm was intentionally trying to align Saladin's memory with early 20th century German nationalism.

This is likely due to the fact that, at the time, Germany was in competition with England and France for colonial territory.

By associating Saladin with German nationalism, Wilhelm II hoped to gain support from Muslim countries in his quest for colonies.

Modern nationalist movements

Finally, the 19th century colonialism was often compared to the Crusades. This is because both involved Europeans expanding their territory into other parts of the world.

The British and French Empires were sometimes referred to as the 'crusaders' of the modern era.

This analogy was used in a negative way, as it suggested that these Empires were motivated by greed and power, rather than religion.

However, there have also been a number of nationalist movements that have drawn inspiration from the Crusades.

In the Middle East, there have been a number of Islamist groups that have used the Crusades as a rallying cry.

For instance, the group al-Qaeda used the Crusades in their propaganda to justify attacks on Western targets.

In George Bush's "War on Terror" speech, which was delivered following the September 11th attacks on New York , the US President called for "a new crusade", to defeat terrorists and bring "peace and democracy" to the Middle East.

While most modern nationalist movements are not directly inspired by the Crusades, there are still a number of groups that use the Crusades as part of their rhetoric.

This shows that the long-term impact of the Crusades is still being felt today.

The results of the Crusades

Crusade as metaphor

How many Crusades were there, and when did they take place?
What was the purpose of the Crusades?
Who were the leaders of the Crusades?
Were the Crusades successful?
Were there lasting results from the Crusades?

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Table Of Contents

The entire structure of European society changed during the 12th and 13th centuries, and there was a time when this change was attributed largely to the Crusades. Historians now, however, tend to view the Crusades as only one, albeit significant, factor in Europe’s development. It is likely that the disappearance of old families and the appearance of new ones can be traced in part to the Crusades, but generalizations must be made with caution. It should, moreover, be remembered that, while some Crusaders sold or mortgaged their property, usually to ecclesiastical foundations, others bequeathed it to relatives. The loss of life was without doubt considerable; many Crusaders, however, did return to their homes.

The sectors acquired by burgeoning Italian cities in the Crusader states enabled them to extend their trade with the Muslim world and led to the establishment of trade depots beyond the Crusade frontiers, some of which lasted long after 1291. The transportation they provided was significant in the development of shipbuilding techniques. Italian banking facilities became indispensable to popes and kings. Catalans and Provençals also profited, and, indirectly, so did all of Europe. Moreover, returning Crusaders brought new tastes and increased the demand for spices, Oriental textiles, and other exotic fare. But such demands can also be attributed to changing lifestyles and commercial growth in Europe itself.

The establishment of the Franciscan and Dominican friars in the East during the 13th century made possible the promotion of missions within the Crusade area and beyond. Papal bulls granted special facilities to missionary friars, and popes sent letters to Asian rulers soliciting permission for the friars to carry on their work. Often the friars accompanied or followed Italian merchants, and, since the Mongols were generally tolerant of religious propaganda , missions were established in Iran, the Asian interior, and even China. But, since Islamic law rigidly prohibited propaganda and punished apostasy with death, conversions from Islam were few. The Dominican William of Tripoli had some success, presumably within the Crusaders’ area; he and his colleague Riccoldo di Monte Croce both wrote perceptive treatises on Islamic faith and law. Other missionaries usually failed, and many suffered martyrdom. In the 14th century the Franciscans were finally permitted to reside in Palestine as caretakers for the holy places but not as missionaries.

The Crusades, especially the Fourth, so embittered the Greeks that any real reunion of the Eastern and Western churches was, as a result, out of the question. Nonetheless, certain groups of Eastern Christians came to recognize the authority of the pope, and they were usually permitted to retain the use of their own liturgies. Although the majority of the missions that grew out of the Crusades collapsed with the advance of the Ottoman Turks in the Middle East in the mid-14th century, some of the contacts that the Western church had made with its Eastern brethren remained.

Unlike Sicily and Spain, the Latin East did not, it seems, provide an avenue for the transmission of Arabic science and philosophy to the West. But the Crusades did have a marked impact on the development of Western historical literature. From the beginning there was a proliferation of chronicles, eyewitness accounts, and later more ambitious histories, in verse and in prose, in the vernacular as well as in Latin.

There can be little doubt that the Crusades slowed the advance of Islamic power, although how much is an open question. At the very least, they bought Europe some much-needed time. Without centuries of Crusading effort, it is difficult to see how western Europe could have escaped conquest by Muslim armies, which had already captured the rest of the Mediterranean world.

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The Reasons of The Crusades

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The Crusades: Motivations, Administration, and Cultural Influence

Introduction

The Crusades were a series of religious and political wars fought between 1096 and 1291 for control of the Holy Land. Pope Urban II initiated the First Crusade (1096–1102) in order to aid the Christian Byzantine Empire, which was under attack by Muslim Seljuk Turks. As a result of this crusade, Europeans captured Jerusalem in 1099. Muslims quickly unified against the Christian invading and occupying force and the two groups battled in subsequent wars for control of the Holy Land. By 1291 the Muslims firmly controlled Jerusalem and the coastal areas, which remained in Islamic hands until the twentieth century.

The crusading movement involved men and women from every country in Europe and touched upon almost every aspect of daily life, from the Church and religious thought, to politics and economics. It also found its way into the arts, as patrons and artists from diverse backgrounds and traditions were brought together to create new forms of expression. Frescos, mosaics, sculptures, and even coins reflected a blend of Western (Latin/Catholic) and Eastern (Byzantine/Eastern Christian) traditions. Crusaders appeared in histories as well as in French and German epic poetry from the twelfth century, such as the Chanson d’Antioche , an account of the 1098 siege in Antioch.

Christians understood the Crusades as a path to salvation for those who participated. As the French monk Guilbert of Nogent wrote in his twelfth century chronicle of the Crusades, “God has instituted in our time holy wars, so that the order of knights and the crowd running in its wake… might find a new way of gaining salvation. And so they are not forced to abandon secular affairs completely by choosing the monastic life or any religious profession, as used to be the custom, but can attain in some measure God’s grace while pursuing their own careers, with the liberty and in the dress to which they are accustomed.” Those who “took up the cross” were recipients of both spiritual and earthly rewards. The spiritual reward was the indulgence, or the forgiveness, of sins. The earthly rewards included plunder from conquest, forgiveness of debts, and freedom from taxes, as well as fame and political power. Crusaders did not only fight for control of the Holy Land; they also worked to secure the Church’s power in Europe. Like the wars against the Muslims, these conflicts were promoted by various popes in Christ’s name and led by crusaders who took vows and received special privileges and indulgences. The “enemies” of the Church in Europe included people who were not Christians. It also included Christians who were labeled heretics, that is, people who challenged the official teachings of the Church or who questioned the pope’s power and authority.

Millions of people, Christian and non-Christian, soldiers and noncombatants lost their lives during the Crusades. In addition to the enormous loss of life, the debt incurred and other economic costs associated with the multiple excursions to the Middle East impacted all levels of society, from individual families and villages, to budding nation-states. The wars also resulted in the destruction of cities and towns that lay in the crusaders’ wake. In his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , Edward Gibbon refers to the Crusades as an event in which “the lives and labours of millions, which were buried in the East, would have been more profitably employed in the improvement of their native country.”

Beginning in 1095 with Pope Urban II’s proclamation and concluding, according to some historians, with Napoleon’s conquest of Malta in 1798, the Crusades had a lasting impact on European and Middle Eastern culture and politics that still continues to this day. The following documents offer insight into the religious and social motivations and benefits for undertaking a crusade, as well as a glimpse into the more mundane administrative details required to make this transcontinental excursion to the Holy Land. They also suggest how the Crusades were both commemorated and criticized in literature and history for centuries after they had ended.

The Call to Crusade

In the years approaching the twelfth century, some Christians began to believe that an individual’s thoughts and meditations—in addition to one’s actions—were an important indicator of piety and goodness. Devout Christians increasingly pursued religious pilgrimages, or journeys, to the places where Jesus lived, died, and was buried. At the time of the First Crusade, the Church taught that an individual’s sins could be remedied, at least in theory, by acts of penance that demonstrated remorse and a desire for forgiveness. As communications through Central Europe improved, and Italian trade in the Mediterranean increased, more Western European people than ever before could journey or make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and seek penance for past sins. The First Crusade, proposed by Pope Urban II in 1095, was undertaken by many as a devotional act of pilgrimage.

A literal transcription of Urban’s words at Clermont does not exist, however there are multiple recorded versions of the speech. This version was written by the priest Fulcher of Chartes, who was most likely present when Urban spoke at Clermont. Fulcher of Chartes traveled to Constantinople during the First Crusade and witnessed the events that he describes in his famous chronicles.

Christian Devotion and Reward in the Crusades

The Church promoted taking the cross and going on to the Holy Land as a demonstration of Christian love and devotion to God. Likewise, knights were taught that to be a good Christian knight, one must undertake acts of love and charity. Among these acts of charity were “Love of God” and “Love of Neighbor.” Defending the Holy Land and protecting Christians in their time of need were seen as acts of loving one’s neighbor. Bernard of Clairvoix, commenting on the Muslim victories in the Holy Land wrote, “If we harden our hearts and pay little attention… where is our love of God, where is our love for our neighbor?” While there were additional motivations for taking up the cross—opportunity for economic or political gain, desire for adventure, and the feudal obligation to follow one’s lord into battle—to become a soldier for Christ was to express total devotion to God. According to historian Jonathan Riley-Smith, taking up the cross was based on Christ’s statement: “Whoever doth not carry his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14. 27). Underscoring this belief, priests encouraged participation in the Crusades by praising acts of devotion to God and invoking fear of the last judgment for failure to act.

Popes and kings granted special privileges to crusaders to reinforce this message. Initially, Pope Urban II promised forgiveness of sins to those who took up the cross. However, as the wars continued, Church and political leaders found that they had to promise additional benefits, beyond the spiritual, to encourage participation. These benefits included forgiveness of debts and interest payments, protection of property and family, even different courts of justice for those crusaders who commit criminal acts.

The following documents include an account of the privileges granted to crusaders by Pope Eugene III and a poem portraying the Crusades as the ultimate act of Christian devotion.

Images of the Crusades

British interest in the Crusades increased following the translation of Italian poet Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (“Jerusalem Delivered”) into English in 1600. In 1639 Thomas Fuller, an English historian, published the first, modern, full-length account of the Crusades in English. Three more editions of his four-volume History of the Holy Warre appeared within the next decade. Fuller researched his subject extensively, drew on numerous sources, and included maps and a supplemental commentary in his history. Fuller was sharply critical of the papacy for promoting the Crusades and devoted nine chapters of The History of the Holy Warre to describing their failure.

The first document below is the frontispiece of the first edition of Fuller’s history. A portrait of Baldwin, King of the Crusader state of Jerusalem (1100–1118), appears on the top left of the image and, to the right, a portrait of Saladin, the Muslim sultan who defeated the crusaders and captured Jerusalem in 1187. The image below the portraits shows the crusaders’ advance and retreat between Europe and Jerusalem, and the words, “We went out full but returned empty.” The Latin phrase Vestigia pauca retrorfum in the upper right of the image means “few lived to return home.”

British publisher Henry George Bohn included the second image below as the frontispiece to his Chronicles of the Crusades . Bohn writes that the image is a reproduction from a fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript. It portrays an event in 1270, when three French knights “were accosted by three Saracen knights requesting baptism.” While the Frenchmen spoke with the Saracens (or Muslims), they were attacked, and “sixty Christians were slain before the infidels were put to flight.”

Logistics of a Crusade

While anyone could join in a crusade, it became clear in later crusades that success often depended on having well-qualified personnel on the battlefield. Those best prepared came from the warrior classes: the knights, heavy cavalry (armored front-line troops), and support personnel such as bowmen, foot soldiers, and siege engineers. Other strategic personnel included those with special skills, including priests who were literate and could perform church rituals as well as administrative tasks, merchants who controlled the supplies, surgeons, and members of the crusader lord’s household staff. In later crusades, sailors were crucial as the journey to the Holy Land involved sea voyages. However, the knights were the core of the crusading forces and it was under their leadership that the armies were organized.

Participating in a crusade became widely accepted as an important feature of knightly behavior. Deciding who would go on crusade was dictated by the social and political structure of the region. If a king “took up the cross” or undertook a crusade, it was assumed that those in his circle would be obligated to join him out of political loyalty or duty to him, rather than as an expression of religious devotion. As one knight observed in Jean de Joinville’s account of the Crusades, “if we do not take up the cross, we shall lose the favor of the king; if we do take it, we shall lose God’s favor, since we shall not be taking it for his sake, but through fear of displeasing the king.”

Kinship also influenced participation in a crusade. It was common for sons to accompany fathers, brothers to go with brothers, or uncles with nephews. The decision of which family members would take up the cross, and which would remain behind was often made collectively. The family members who remained behind were tasked with the maintenance and administration of the family property and position.

The Crusades, like all wars, were extremely expensive. For example, Louis IX spent an estimated 3,000,000 livres, or 12 times his annual income, on his first crusade in 1248 until his return in 1254. Expenses included provisions for Louis and his household, wages for the knight and soldiers, replacement and purchase of horses, mules and camels, shipping, gifts to crusaders, and Louis’ ransom after he was taken prisoner by the Egyptians in April 1250. Individual lords were also expected to contribute toward the costs of the crusade and ransom. Paying for the war was a continual concern for all those involved. Though there was the opportunity for plunder, the costs of the crusade were rarely offset by the captured treasure.

The following document identifies the knights who accompanied Louis IX on his first crusade (1217–1221) and describes their terms of agreement. It was published in the nineteenth century as an appendix to an English edition of Jean de Joinville’s Life of Saint Louis , which Joinville completed in 1309. Joinville was a counselor and close friend to the king. He led a successful effort to have Louis canonized (or deemed a saint) by the Catholic Church after Louis’ death in 1270.

Critical Perspectives on the Crusades

The following poems offer critical perspectives on the Crusades from writers who lived through them. The first document, below, is an excerpt from Jean de Joinville’s Life of Saint Louis (published as Lord de Joinville’s Memoirs of Louis IX, King of France in this 1848 English edition). Joinville accompanied Louis IX of France on his first crusade (1217–1221) and was captured alongside the king when the Egyptians defeated the Christian army at al-Mansura, Egypt, in 1250. Joinville attributed these words to the Muslim poet Essahib-Giémal-Edden-Ben-Matroub.

The second poem below was composed in 1267 by a trouvère known as Rutebeuf. Its original French title is “La Disputation du Croisé et du Décroisé,” or “Argument between Crusader and Non-crusader.” Trouvères were poets and minstrels working in northern France during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. While their poems and songs primarily focused on the theme of courtly love, the trouvères turned their attention to the Crusades as well. This witty minstrel flourished during the reign of Louis IX, to whom many of his works are dedicated. At the time this poem was written, people began to question the value of participating in a crusade. However, Louis had already decided to go on his second crusade (1269–1272), much to the unhappiness of his wife, many of his ministers and members of the clergy, and even some of his subjects. Rutebeuf did not want to anger the monarch by criticizing his plans, and possibly risk the loss of his patronage, so he presented the argument about taking up the cross in a dialogue form. Louis IX died in Tunisia in 1270 during this second crusade.

A Scottish King’s Last Request

The fourteenth-century writer John Barbour has been called the father of Scottish poetry. Inspired by the French trouvères and their poems of romance and chivalry, Barbour celebrated the deeds of the Scottish king Robert the Bruce and his companions in this poem, completed in 1375.

Robert the Bruce was born in 1274, and descended from Scots, Gaelic, and English nobility. In 1304 Bruce’s father died and gave him a viable claim to the throne. Two years later, Bruce met with his rival John Comyn at Greyfriars Church in Dumfries. A fight broke out, daggers were drawn, and Bruce killed Comyn near the Church altar. To commit murder in a church was seen as sacrilege and a mortal, or serious sin. The Pope excommunicated Bruce, but the Bishop of Glasgow in Scotland absolved (or forgave) him and made plans for Bruce to quickly take the throne, which he did in 1306. Edward I, King of England, challenged Bruce’s claim to the Scottish throne, and the battle for Scottish independence continued until 1328 when the English king confirmed Scotland as a unique and independent kingdom with Robert at its head.

In his quest for Scottish sovereignty, Bruce made a sacred vow that, if God would grant Scotland freedom from English rule, he would take up the cross. Bruce died on June 7, 1329, without making the journey. However, before his death, he asked that his heart be removed and carried in battle “against God’s foes” on a crusade to the Holy Land, with eventual burial in Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This gesture was his penance for breaking his sacred vow to go on crusade during his lifetime and to atone for his past sins, including the sacrilegious murder of John Comyn in the Greyfriars church.

Bruce’s preserved heart was placed in a silver heart-shaped casket, which Sir James Douglas, his loyal subject, then carried on a chain around his neck. When a planned international crusade failed to occur, Douglas and his company of soldiers sailed to Spain where Alfonso XI of Castile was mounting a campaign against the Moorish (Muslim) kingdom of Granada. Douglas was killed in battle in 1330, and his body and the casket containing Bruce’s embalmed heart were left on the field. However, they were found and conveyed back to Scotland and, in accordance with Bruce’s written request, his heart was buried at Melrose Abbey in Roxburghshire, Scotland.

Selected Sources

Riley-Smith, Jonathan, and Louise Riley-Smith. The Crusades: Idea and Reality, 1095–1274 . London: Edward Arnold, 1981.
Riley-Smith, Jonathan. “Crusading as an Act of Love.” Journal of the Historical Association 65 (June 1980): 177–192.
Riley-Smith, Jonathan, ed. Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades . 2001.
Harf-Lancner, Laurence. “Rutebeuf Chantre de la Croisade? La Disputation du Croise et du Decroise.” Synergies 2 (2007): 19–28. http://ressources-cla.univ-fcomte.fr/gerflint/Inde2/laurence.pdf .

By Rachel Rooney Assistant Director, Editorial and Resource Management Great Minds

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The Crusades: A Complete History

A comprehensive account of a compelling and controversial topic, whose bitter legacy resonates to this day.

Crusaders embark for the Levant. From ‘Le Roman de Godefroi de Bouillon’, France, 1337. (Bibliothèque Nationale / Bridgeman Images)

During the last four decades the Crusades have become one of the most dynamic areas of historical enquiry, which points to an increasing curiosity to understand and interpret these extraordinary events. What persuaded people in the Christian West to want to recapture Jerusalem? What impact did the success of the First Crusade (1099) have on the Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities of the eastern Mediterranean? What was the effect of crusading on the people and institutions of western Europe? How did people record the Crusades and, finally, what is their legacy?

Academic debate moved forwards significantly during the 1980s, as discussion concerning the definition of a crusade gathered real steam. Understanding of the scope of the Crusades widened with a new recognition that crusading extended far beyond the original 11th-century expeditions to the Holy Land, both in terms of chronology and scope. That is, they took place long after the end of the Frankish hold on the East (1291) and continued down to the 16th century. With regards to their target, crusades were also called against the Muslims of the Iberian peninsula, the pagan peoples of the Baltic region, the Mongols, political opponents of the Papacy and heretics (such as the Cathars or the Hussites). An acceptance of this framework, as well as the centrality of papal authorisation for such expeditions, is generally referred to as the 'pluralist' position.

Download our special issue on the history of the Crusades

The emergence of this interpretation energised the existing field and had the effect of drawing in a far greater number of scholars. Alongside this came a growing interest in re-evaluating the motives of crusaders, with some of the existing emphases on money being downplayed and the cliché of landless younger sons out for adventure being laid to rest. Through the use of a broader range of evidence than ever before (especially charters, that is sales or loans of lands and/or rights), a stress on contemporary religious impulses as the dominant driver for, particularly the First Crusade, came through. Yet the wider world intruded on and then, in some ways, stimulated this academic debate: the horrors of 9/11 and President George W. Bush's disastrous use of the word 'crusade' to describe the 'war on terror' fed the extremists' message of hate and the notion of a longer, wider conflict between Islam and the West, dating back to the medieval period, became extremely prominent. In reality, of course, such a simplistic view is deeply flawed but it is a powerful shorthand for extremists of all persuasions (from Osama Bin Laden to Anders Breivik to ISIS) and certainly provided an impetus to study the legacy of the crusading age into the modern world, as we will see here, calling on the extensive online archive of History Today .

The First Crusade was called in November 1095 by Pope Urban II at the town of Clermont in central France. The pope made a proposal: 'Whoever for devotion alone, but not to gain honour or money, goes to Jerusalem to liberate the Church of God can substitute this journey for all penance.' This appeal was the combination of a number of contemporary trends along with the inspiration of Urban himself, who added particular innovations to the mix. For several decades Christians had been pushing back at Muslim lands on the edge of Europe, in the Iberian peninsula, for example, as well as in Sicily. In some instances the Church had become involved in these events through the offer of limited spiritual rewards for participants.

The Council of Clermont and the arrival of Pope Urban II. Bibliothèque Nationale / Bridgeman Images

Urban was responsible for the spiritual well-being of his flock and the crusade presented an opportunity for the sinful knights of western Europe to cease their endless in-fighting and exploitation of the weak (lay people and churchmen alike) and to make good their violent lives. Urban saw the campaign as a chance for knights to direct their energies towards what was seen as a spiritually meritorious act, namely the recovery of the holy city of Jerusalem from Islam (the Muslims had taken Jerusalem in 637). In return for this they would, in effect, be forgiven those sins they had confessed. This, in turn, would save them from the prospect of eternal damnation in the fires of Hell, a fate repeatedly emphasised by the Church as the consequence of a sinful life. To find out more see Marcus Bull , who reveals the religious context of the campaign in his 1997 article.

Within an age of such intense religiosity the city of Jerusalem, as the place where Christ lived, walked and died, held a central role. When the aim of liberating Jerusalem was coupled to lurid (probably exaggerated) stories of the maltreatment of both the Levant's native Christians and western pilgrims, the desire for vengeance, along with the opportunity for spiritual advancement, formed a hugely potent combination. Urban would be looking after his flock and improving the spiritual condition of western Europe, too. The fact that the papacy was engaged in a mighty struggle with the German emperor, Henry IV (the Investiture Controversy), and that calling the crusade would enhance the pope's standing was an opportunity too good for Urban to miss.

A spark to this dry tinder came from another Christian force: the Byzantine Empire. Emperor Alexios I feared the advance of the Seljuk Turks towards his capital city of Constantinople. The Byzantines were Greek Orthodox Christians but, since 1054, had been in a state of schism with the Catholic Church. The launch of the crusade presented Urban with a chance to move closer to the Orthodox and to heal the rift.

The reaction to Urban's appeal was astounding and news of the expedition rippled across much of the Latin West. Thousands saw this as a new way to attain salvation and to avoid the consequences of their sinful lives. Yet aspirations of honour, adventure, financial gain and, for a very small number, land (in the event, most of the First Crusaders returned home after the expedition ended) may well have figured, too. While churchmen frowned upon worldly motives because they believed that such sinful aims would incur God's displeasure, many laymen had little difficulty in accommodating these alongside their religiosity. Thus Stephen of Blois, one of the senior men on the campaign, could write home to his wife, Adela of Blois (daughter of William the Conqueror), that he had been given valuable gifts and honours by the emperor and that he now had twice as much gold, silver and other riches as when he left the West. People of all social ranks (except kings) joined the First Crusade, although an initial rush of ill-disciplined zealots sparked an horrific outbreak of antisemitism, especially in the Rhineland, as they sought to finance their expedition by taking Jewish money and to attack a group perceived as the enemies of Christ in their own lands. These contingents, known as the 'Peoples' Crusade', caused real problems outside Constantinople, before Alexios ushered them over the Bosporus and into Asia Minor, where the Seljuk Turks destroyed them.

Led by a series of senior nobles, the main armies gathered in Constantinople during 1096. Alexios had not expected such a huge number of westerners to appear on his doorstep but saw the chance to recover land lost to the Turks. Given the crusaders' need for food and transport, the emperor held the upper hand in this relationship, although this is not to say that he was anything other than cautious in dealing with the new arrivals, particularly in the aftermath of the trouble caused by the Peoples' Crusade and the fact that the main armies included a large Norman Sicilian contingent, a group who had invaded Byzantine lands as recently as 1081. See Peter Frankopan . Most of the crusade leaders swore oaths to Alexios, promising to hand over to him lands formerly held by the Byzantines in return for supplies, guides and luxury gifts.

In June 1097 the crusaders and the Greeks took one of the emperor's key objectives, the formidable walled city of Nicaea, 120 miles from Constantinople, although in the aftermath of the victory some writers reported Frankish discontent at the division of booty. The crusaders moved inland, heading across the Anatolian plain. A large Turkish army attacked the troops of Bohemond of Taranto near Dorylaeum. The crusaders were marching in separate contingents and this, plus the unfamiliar tactics of swift attacks by mounted horse archers, almost saw them defeated until the arrival of forces under Raymond of Toulouse and Godfrey of Bouillon saved the day. This hard-won victory proved an invaluable lesson for the Christians and, as the expedition went on, the military cohesion of the crusader army grew and grew, making them an ever more effective force.

Over the next few months the army, under Count Baldwin of Boulogne, crossed Asia Minor with some contingents taking the Cilician towns of Tarsus and Mamistra and others, heading via Cappadocia towards the eastern Christian lands of Edessa (biblical Rohais), where the largely Armenian population welcomed the crusaders. Local political conflict meant Baldwin was able to take power himself and thus, in 1098, the first so-called Crusader State, the County of Edessa, came into being.

Baldwin I, King of Jerusalem (c.1058-1118), from the Abrégé de la Chronique de Jerusalem, France, 15th century. De Agostini / Bridgeman Images

By this time the bulk of the army had reached Antioch, today just inside the southern Turkish border with Syria. This huge city had been a Roman settlement; to Christians it was significant as the place where saints Peter and Paul had lived and it was one of the five patriarchal seats of the Christian Church. It was also important to the Byzantines, having been a major city in their empire as recently as 1084. The site was too big to surround properly but the crusaders did their best to squeeze the place into submission. Over the winter of 1097 conditions became extremely harsh, although the arrival of a Genoese fleet in the spring of 1098 provided some useful support. The stalemate was only ended when Bohemond persuaded a local Christian to betray one of the towers and on June 3rd, 1098 the crusaders broke into the city and captured it. Their victory was not complete, however, because the citadel, towering over the site, remained in Muslim hands, a problem compounded by the news that a large Muslim relief army was approaching from Mosul. Lack of food and the loss of most of their horses (essential for the knights, of course) meant that morale was at rock bottom. Count Stephen of Blois, one of the most senior figures on the crusade, along with a few other men, had recently deserted, believing the expedition doomed. They met Emperor Alexios, who was bringing long-awaited reinforcements, and told him that the crusade was a hopeless cause. Thus, in good faith, the Greek ruler turned back. In Antioch, meanwhile, the crusaders had been inspired by the 'discovery' of a relic of the Holy Lance, the spear that had pierced Christ's side as he was on the cross. A vision told a cleric in Raymond of St Gilles' army where to dig and, sure enough, there the object was found. Some regarded this as a touch convenient and too easy a boost to the standing of the Provençal contingent, but to the masses it acted as a vital inspiration. A couple of weeks later, on June 28th, 1098, the crusaders gathered their last few hundred horses together, drew themselves into their now familiar battle lines and charged the Muslim forces. With writers reporting the aid of warrior saints in the sky, the crusaders triumphed and the citadel duly surrendered leaving them in full control of Antioch before the Muslim relief army arrived.

In the aftermath of victory many of the exhausted Christians succumbed to disease, including Adhémar of Le Puy, the papal legate and spiritual leader of the campaign. The senior crusaders were bitterly divided. Bohemond wanted to stay and consolidate his hold on Antioch, arguing that since Alexios had not fulfilled his side of the bargain then his oath to the Greeks was void and the conquest remained his. The bulk of the crusaders scorned this political squabbling because they wanted to reach Christ's tomb in Jerusalem and they compelled the army to head southwards. En route, they avoided major set-piece confrontations by making deals with individual towns and cities and they reached Jerusalem in June 1099. John France relates the capture of the city in his article from 1997.

Forces concentrated to the north and the south of the walled city and on July 15th, 1099 the troops of Godfrey of Bouillon managed to bring their siege towers close enough to the walls to get across. Their fellow Christians burst into the city and over the next few days the place was put to the sword in an outburst of religious cleansing and a release of tension after years on the march. A terrible massacre saw many of the Muslim and Jewish defenders of the city slaughtered, although the oft-repeated phrase of 'wading up to their knees in blood' is an exaggeration, being a line from the apocalyptic Book of Revelation (14:20) used to convey an impression of the scene rather than a real description – a physical impossibility. The crusaders gave emotional thanks for their success as they reached their goal, the tomb of Christ in the Holy Sepulchre.

Their victory was not yet assured. The vizier of Egypt had viewed the crusaders' advance with a mixture of emotions. As the guardian of the Shi'ite caliphate in Cairo he had a profound dislike of the Sunni Muslims of Syria, but equally he did not want a new power to establish itself in the region. His forces confronted the crusaders near Ascalon in August 1099 and, in spite of their numerical inferiority, the Christians triumphed and also secured a substantial amount of booty. By this time, having achieved their aims, the vast majority of the exhausted crusaders were only too keen to return to their homes and families. Some, of course, chose to remain in the Levant, resolved to guard Christ's patrimony and to set up lordships and holdings for themselves. Fulcher of Chartres, a contemporary in the Levant, lamented that only 300 knights stayed in the kingdom of Jerusalem; a tiny number to establish a permanent hold on the land.

Over the next decade, however, aided by the lack of real opposition from the local Muslims and boosted by the arrival of a series of fleets from the West, the Christians began to take control of the whole coastline and to create a series of viable states. The support of the Italian trading cities of Venice, Pisa and, particularly at this early stage, Genoa, was crucial. The motives of the Italians have often been questioned but there is convincing evidence to show they were just as keen as any other contemporaries to capture Jerusalem, yet as trading centres they were determined to advance the cause of their home city, too. The writings of Caffaro of Genoa, a rare secular source from this period, show little difficulty in assimilating these motives. He went on pilgrimage to the River Jordan, attended Easter ceremonies in the Holy Sepulchre and celebrated the acquisition of riches. Italian sailors and troops helped capture the vital coastal ports (such as Acre, Caesarea and Jaffa), in return for which they were awarded generous trading privileges which, in turn, gave a vital boost to the economy as the Italians transported goods from the Muslim interior (especially spices) back to the West. Just as important was their role in bringing pilgrims to and from the Holy Land. Now that the holy places were in Christian hands, many thousands of westerners could visit the sites and, as they came under Latin control, religious communities flourished. Thus, the basic rationale behind the Crusades was fulfilled. There is a strong case for saying that the crusader states could not have been sustained were it not for the contribution of the Italians.

One interesting side-effect of the First Crusade (and a matter of immense interest to scholars today) is the unprecedented burst of historical writing that emerged after the capture of Jerusalem. This amazing episode inspired authors across the Christian West to write about these events in a way that nothing in earlier medieval history had done. No longer had they to look back to the heroes of antiquity, because their own generation had provided men of comparable renown. This was an age of rising literacy and the creation and circulation of crusade texts was a big part of this movement. Numerous histories, plus oral storytelling, often in the form of Chansons de geste , popular within the early flowerings of the chivalric age, celebrated the First Crusade. Historians have previously looked at these narratives to construct the framework of events but now many scholars are looking behind these texts to consider more deeply the reasons why they were written, the different styles of writing, the use of classical and biblical motifs, the inter-relationships and the borrowings between the texts.

Another area to receive increasing attention is the reaction of the Muslim world. It is now clear that when the First Crusade arrived the Muslims of the Near East were extremely divided, not just along the Sunni/Shi'ite fault line, but also, in the case of the former, among themselves. Robert Irwin draws attention to this in his 1997 article, as well as considering the impact of the crusade on the Muslims of the region. It was a fortunate coincidence that during the mid-1090s the death of senior leaders in the Seljuk world meant that the crusaders encountered opponents who were primarily concerned with their own political infighting rather than seeing the threat from outside. Given that the First Crusade was, self-evidently, a novel event, this was understandable. The lack of jihad spirit was also evident, as lamented by as-Sulami, a Damascene preacher whose urging of the ruling classes to pull themselves together and fulfil their religious duty was largely ignored until the time of Nur ad-Din (1146-74) and Saladin onwards.

The Frankish settlers had to fit in to the complex cultural and religious blend of the Near East. Their numbers were so few that once they had captured places they very quickly needed to adapt their behaviour from the militant holy war rhetoric of Pope Urban II to a more pragmatic stance of relative religious toleration, with truces and even occasional alliances with various Muslim neighbours. Had they oppressed the majority local population (and many Muslims and eastern Christians lived under Frankish rule), there would have been no-one to farm the lands or to tax and their economy would simply have collapsed. Recent archaeological work by the Israeli scholar Ronnie Ellenblum has done much to show that the Franks did not, as was previously believed, live solely in the cities, separated from the local populace. Local Christian communities often existed alongside them, sometimes even sharing churches.

Muhammad al-Idrisi’s map of the world, with Jerusalem at its centre, drawn for Roger II of Sicily in 1154. Bridgeman Images

The Frankish states of Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli and Jerusalem established themselves in the complex religious, political and cultural landscape of the Near East. One of the early rulers of Jerusalem had married into native Armenian Christian nobility and thus Queen Melisende (1131-52) had a strong interest in supporting the indigenous as well as the Latin Church. The quirks of genetics, coupled with a high mortality rate among male rulers, meant that women exerted greater power than previously supposed given the war-torn environment of the Latin East and prevailing religious attitudes towards women as weak temptresses. It still needed a strong personality to survive and, in the case of Melisende, that was certainly so, as Simon Sebag Montefiore recounts in a 2011 article, which also gives a sense of the city of Jerusalem during the 12th century, as well as some contemporary Muslim views of the Christian settlers.

The Franks were always short on manpower but were a dynamic group who developed innovative institutions, such as the Military Orders, to survive. The Orders were founded to help look after pilgrims; in the case of the Hospitallers, through healthcare; in that of the Templars, to guard visitors on the road to the River Jordan. Soon both were fully-fledged religious institutions, whose members took the monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. It proved a popular concept and donations from admiring and grateful pilgrims meant that the Military Orders developed a major role as landowners, as the custodians of castles and as the first real standing army in Christendom. They were independent of the control of the local rulers and could, at times, cause trouble for the king or squabble with one another. The Templars and Hospitallers also held huge tracts of land across western Europe, which provided income for the fighting machine in the Levant, especially the construction of the castles that became so vital to the Christian hold on the region.

In December 1144 Zengi, the Muslim ruler of Aleppo and Mosul, captured Edessa to mark the first major territorial setback for the Franks of the Near East. The news of this disaster prompted Pope Eugenius III to issue an appeal for the Second Crusade (1145-49). Fortified by this powerful call to live up to the deeds of their first crusading forefathers, coupled with the inspiring rhetoric of (Saint) Bernard of Clairvaux, the rulers of France and Germany took the cross to mark the start of royal involvement in the Crusades. Christian rulers in Iberia joined with the Genoese in attacking the towns of Almeria in southern Spain (1147) and Tortosa in the north-east (1148); likewise the nobles of northern Germany and the rulers of Denmark launched an expedition against the pagan Wends of the Baltic shore around Stettin. While this was no grand plan of Pope Eugenius but rather a reaction to appeals sent to him, it shows the confidence in crusading at this time. In the event, this optimism proved deeply unfounded. A group of Anglo-Norman, Flemish and Rhineland crusaders captured Lisbon in 1147 and the other Iberian campaigns were also successful but the Baltic campaign achieved virtually nothing and the most prestigious expedition of all, that to the Holy Land, was a disaster, as Jonathan Phillips explains in his 2007 article. The two armies lacked discipline, supplies and finance, and both were badly mauled by the Seljuk Turks as they crossed Asia Minor. Then, in conjunction with the Latin settlers, the crusaders laid siege to the most important Muslim city in Syria, Damascus. Yet, after only four days, fear of relief forces led by Zengi's son, Nur ad-Din, prompted an ignominious retreat. The crusaders blamed the Franks of the Near East for this failure, accusing them of accepting a pay-off to retreat. Whatever the truth in this, the defeat at Damascus certainly damaged crusade enthusiasm in the West and over the next three decades, in spite of increasingly elaborate and frantic appeals for help, there was no major crusade to the Holy Land.

To regard the Franks as entirely enfeebled would, however, be a serious error. They captured Ascalon in 1153 to complete their control of the Levantine coast, an important advance for the security of trade and pilgrim traffic in terms of reducing harassment by Muslim shipping. The following year, however, Nur ad-Din took power in Damascus to mark the first time that the cities had been joined with Aleppo under the rule of the same man during the crusader period, something that greatly increased the threat to the Franks. Nur ad-Din's considerable personal piety, his encouragement of madrasas (teaching colleges) and the composition of jihad poetry and texts extolling the virtues of Jerusalem created a bond between the religious and the ruling classes that had been conspicuously lacking since the crusaders arrived in the East. During the 1160s Nur ad-Din, acting as the champion of Sunni orthodoxy, seized control of Shi'ite Egypt, dramatically raising the strategic pressure on the Franks and at the same time enhancing the financial resources at his disposal through the fertility of the Nile Delta and the vital port of Alexandria.

Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, reconsecrated as an Islamic shrine when Jerusalem was retaken by Saladin in 1187. Jonathan Phillips

This period of the history of the Latin East is related in detail by the most important historian of the age, William, Archbishop of Tyre, as Peter Edbury describes. William was an immensely educated man, who soon became embroiled in the bitter political struggles of the late 1170s and 1180s during the reign of the tragic figure of King Baldwin IV (1174-85), a youth afflicted by leprosy. The need to establish his successor provided an opportunity for rival factions to emerge and to cause the Franks to expend much of their energy on bickering with each other. That is not to say that they were unable to inflict serious damage on Nur ad-Din's ambitious successor, Saladin, who from his base in Egypt, hoped to usurp his former master's dynasty, draw the Muslim Near East together and to expel the Franks from Jerusalem. Norman Housely expertly relates this period in his 1987 article. In 1177, however, the Franks triumphed at the Battle of Montgisard, a victory that was widely reported in western Europe and did little to convince people of the settlers' very real need for help. The construction in 1178 and 1179 of the large castle of Jacob's Ford, only a day's ride from Damascus, was another aggressive gesture that required Saladin to destroy the place. Yet by 1187 the sultan had gathered a large, but fragile coalition of warriors from Egypt, Syria and Iraq that was sufficient to bring the Franks into the field and to inflict upon them a terrible defeat at Hattin on July 4th. Within months, Jerusalem fell and Saladin had recovered Islam's third most important city after Mecca and Medina, an achievement that still echoes down the centuries.

News of the calamitous fall of Jerusalem sparked grief and outrage in the West. Pope Urban III was said to have died of a heart attack at the news and his successor, Gregory VIII, issued an emotive crusade appeal and the rulers of Europe began to organise their forces. Frederick Barbarossa's German army successfully defeated the Seljuk Turks in Asia Minor only for the emperor to drown crossing a river in southern Turkey. Soon afterwards many of the Germans died of sickness and Saladin escaped facing this formidable enemy. The Franks in the Levant had managed to cling onto the city of Tyre and then besieged the most important port on the coast, Acre. This provided a target for western forces and it was here in the summer of 1190 that Philip Augustus and Richard the Lionheart landed. The siege had lasted almost two years and the arrival of the two western kings and their troops gave the Christians the momentum they needed. The city surrendered and Saladin's prestige was badly dented. Philip soon returned home and while Richard made two attempts to march on Jerusalem, fears as to its long-term prospects after he left meant that the holy city remained in Muslim hands. Thus the Third Crusade failed in its ultimate objective, although it did at least allow the Franks to recover a strip of lands along the coast to provide a springboard for future expeditions. For his part, Saladin had suffered a series of military setbacks but, crucially, he had held onto Jerusalem for Islam.

The pontificate of Innocent III (1198-1216) saw another phase in the expansion of crusading. Campaigns in the Baltic advanced further and the holy war in Iberia stepped forwards too. In 1195 Muslims had crushed Christian forces at the Battle of Alarcos, which, so soon after the disaster at Hattin, seemed to show God's deep displeasure with his people. By 1212, however, the rulers of Iberia managed to pull together to rout the Muslims at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa to seal a major step in the recovery of the peninsula. That said, the particular cultural, political and religious make-up of the region mean that it would be wrong, as in the Holy Land, to characterise relations between religious groups as constant warfare, a situation outlined by Robert Burns and Paul Chevedden . In southern France, meanwhile, efforts to curb the Cathar heresy had failed and, in a bid to defeat this sinister threat to the Church in its own backyard, Innocent authorised a crusade to the area. See the piece by Richard Cavendish . Catharism was a dualist faith, albeit with a few links to mainstream Christian practice, but it also had its own hierarchy and was intent upon replacing the existing elite. Years of warfare ensued as the crusaders, led by Simon de Monfort, sought to drive the Cathars out, but ultimately their roots in southern French society meant they could endure and it was only the more pervasive techniques of the Inquisition, initiated in the 1240s, that succeeded where force had failed.

The most infamous episode of the age was the Fourth Crusade (1202-04) which saw another effort to recover Jerusalem end up sacking Constantinople, the greatest Christian city in the world. Jonathan Phillips describes this episode. The reasons for this were a combination of long-standing tensions between the Latin (Catholic) Church and the Greek Orthodox; the need for the crusaders to fulfil the terms of a wildly over-optimistic contract for transportation to the Levant with the Venetians and the offer to pay this off by a claimant to the Byzantine throne. This combination of circumstances brought the crusaders to the walls of Constantinople and when their young candidate was murdered and the locals turned definitively against them they attacked and stormed the city. At first Innocent was delighted that Constantinople was under Latin authority but as he learned of the violence and looting that had accompanied the conquest he was horrified and castigated the crusaders for 'the perversion of their pilgrimage'.

Capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204

One consequence of 1204 was the creation of a series of Frankish States in Greece that, over time, also needed support. Thus, in the course of the 13th century, crusades were preached against these Christians, although by 1261 Constantinople itself was back in Greek hands.

In spite of this series of disasters, it is interesting to see that crusading remained an attractive concept, something made manifest by the near-legendary Children's Crusade of 1212. Inspired by divine visions, two groups of young peasants (best described as youths, rather than children) gathered around Cologne and near Chartres in the belief that their purity would ensure divine approval and enable them to recover the Holy Land. The German group crossed the Alps and some reached the port of Genoa, where the harsh realities of having no money or real hope of achieving anything was made plain when they were refused passage to the East and the entire enterprise collapsed.

Thus, the early 13th century was characterised by the diversity of crusading. Holy war was proving a flexible and adaptable concept that allowed the Church to direct force against its enemies on many fronts. The rationale of crusading, as a defensive act to protect Christians, could be refined to apply specifically to the Catholic Church and thus when the papacy came into conflict with Emperor Frederick II over the control of southern Italy it eventually called a crusade against him. Frederick had already been excommunicated for failing to fulfil his promises to take part in the Fifth Crusade. This expedition had achieved the original intention of the Fourth Crusade by invading Egypt but became bogged down outside the port of Damietta before a poorly executed attempt to march on Cairo collapsed. Frederick's attempts to make good this were frustrated by genuine ill health but by this time the papacy had lost patience with him. Recovered, Frederick went to the Holy Land as, by this time, king of Jerusalem (by marriage to the heiress to the throne) where – irony of ironies – as an excommunicate, he negotiated the peaceful restoration of Jerusalem to the Christians. His diplomatic skills (he spoke Arabic), the danger posed by his considerable resources as well as the divisions in the Muslim world in the decades after Saladin's death, enabled him to accomplish this. A brief period of better relations between pope and emperor followed, but by 1245 the curia described him as a heretic and authorised the preaching of a crusade against him.

Aside from the plethora of crusading expeditions that took place over the centuries, we should also remember that the launch of such campaigns had a profound impact on the lands and people from whence they came, something covered by Christopher Tyerman . Crusading required substantial levels of financial support and this, over time, saw the emergence of national taxes to support such efforts, as well as efforts to raise money from within the Church itself. The absence of a large number of senior nobles and churchmen could affect the political balance of an area, with opportunities for women to act as regents or for unscrupulous neighbours to defy ecclesiastical legislation and to try to take the lands of absent crusaders. The death or disappearance of a crusader, be they a minor figure or an emperor, obviously carried deep personal tragedy for those they had left behind, but might also precipitate instability and change.

The previous year, Jerusalem had fallen back into Muslim hands and this was the principal prompt for what turned out to be the greatest crusade expedition of the century (known as the Seventh Crusade) led by King (later Saint) Louis IX of France. Simon Lloyd outlines Louis's crusading career. Well financed and carefully prepared and with an early victory at Damietta, this campaign appeared to be set fair only for a reckless charge by Louis's brother at the Battle of Mansourah to weaken the crusaders' forces. This, coupled with hardening Muslim resistance, brought the expedition to a halt and, starving and sick, they were forced to surrender. Louis remained in the Holy Land for a further four years – a sign of his guilt at the failure of the campaign, but also a remarkable commitment for a European monarch to be absent from his home for a total of six years – trying to bolster the defences of the Latin kingdom. By this time, with the Latins largely confined to the coastal strip the settlers relied more and more on massive fortifications and it was during the 13th century that mighty castles such as Krak des Chevaliers, Saphet and Chastel Pelerin, as well as the immense urban fortifications of Acre, took shape.

By this stage the political complexion of the Middle East was changing. The Mongol invaders added another dimension to the struggle as they conquered much of the Muslim world to the East; they had also briefly threatened Eastern Europe with savage incursions in 1240-41 (which also prompted a crusade appeal). Saladin's successors were displaced by the Mamluks, the former slave-soldiers, whose figurehead, the sultan Baibars, was a ferocious exponent of holy war and did much to bring the crusader states to their knees over the next two decades. James Waterson describes their advance. Bouts of in-fighting among the Frankish nobility, further complicated by the involvement of the Italian trading cities and the Military Orders served to further weaken the Latin States and finally, in 1291, the Sultan al-Ashraf smashed into the city of Acre to end the Christian hold on the Holy Land.

Some historians used to regard this as the end of the crusades but, as noted above, since the 1980s there has been a broad recognition that this was not the case, not least because of the series of plans made to try to recover the Holy Land during the 14th century. Elsewhere crusading was still a powerful idea, not least in northern Europe, where the Teutonic Knights (originally founded in the Holy Land) had transferred their interests and where they had created what was effectively an autonomous state. By the early 15th century, however, their enemies in the region were starting to Christianise anyway and thus it became impossible to justify continued conflict in terms of holy war. The success of Las Navas de Tolosa had effectively pinned the Muslims down to the very south of the Iberian peninsula, but it took until 1492 when Ferdinand and Isabella brought the full strength of the Spanish crown to bear upon Granada that the reconquest was completed. Plans to recover the Holy Land had not entirely died out and in a spirit of religious devotion, Christopher Columbus set out the same year hoping to find a route to the Indies that would enable him to reach Jerusalem from the East.

The 14th century began with high drama: the arrest and imprisonment of the Knights Templar on charges of heresy, a story related by Helen Nicholson . A combination of lax religious observance and their failure to protect the Holy Land had made them vulnerable. This uncomfortable situation, coupled with the French crown owing them huge sums of money (the Templars had emerged as a powerful banking institution) meant that the manipulative and relentless Philip IV of France could pressure Pope Clement V into suppressing the Order in 1312 and one of the great institutions of the medieval age was terminated.

Modern painting of Mehmed II and the Ottoman Army approaching Constantinople with a giant bombard, by Fausto Zonaro

Crusading within Europe itself had continued to mutate, too. The papacy had issued crusading indulgences on many occasions during its own struggles against both political enemies and against heretical groups such as the Hussites of Bohemia. The main threat to Christendom by this time, however, was from the Ottoman Turks, who, as Judith Herrin relates, captured Constantinople in 1453. Numerous efforts were made to draw together the leaders of the Latin West, but the growing power of nation states and their increasingly engrained conflicts, exemplified by the Hundred Years' War, meant that there was little appetite for the kind of Europe-wide response that had been seen in 1187, for example. Nigel Saul outlines this period of crusading history in his article.

Certain dynasties such as the dukes of Burgundy, were enthusiastic about the idea of crusading and a couple of reasonably-sized expeditions took place, although the Burgundians and the Hungarians were thrashed at Nicopolis in Bulgaria in 1396. By the middle of the 15th century the Ottomans had already twice besieged Constantinople and in 1453 Sultan Mehmet II brought forwards an immense army to achieve his aim. Last-minute appeals to the West brought insufficient help and the city fell in May. The Emperor Charles V invoked the crusading spirit in his defence of Vienna in 1529, although this struggle resembled more of an imperial fight rather than a holy war. Crusading had almost run its course; people had become increasingly cynical about the Church's sale of indulgences. The advance of the Reformation was another obvious blow to the idea, with crusading being viewed as a manipulative and money-making device of the Catholic Church. By the late 16th century the last real vestiges of the movement could be seen; the Spanish Armada of 1588 benefitted from crusade indulgences, while the Knights Hospitaller, who had first ruled Rhodes from 1306 to 1522 before making their base on Malta, inspired a remarkable victory over an Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. Jonathan Riley-Smith relates the knights' story. The Hospitallers of Malta had also survived a huge Turkish siege in 1480 and their existence served as a long-lasting relic of the original crusading conflict until Napoleon Bonaparte extinguished their rule of the island in 1798.

Crusading survived in the memory and the imagination of the peoples of western Europe and the Middle East. In the former, it regained profile through the romantic literature of writers such as Sir Walter Scott and, as lands in the Middle East fell to the imperialist empires of the age, the French, in particular, chose to draw links with their crusading past. The word became a shorthand for a cause with moral right, be it in a non-military context, such as a crusade against drink, or in the horrors of the First World War. General Franco's ties with the Catholic Church in Spain invoked crusading ideology in perhaps the closest modern incarnation of the idea and it remains a word in common usage today.

In the Muslim world, the memory of the Crusades faded, although did not disappear, from view and Saladin continued to be a figure held out as an exemplar of a great ruler. In the context of the 19th century, the Europeans' invocation of the past built upon this existing memory and meant that the image of hostile, aggressive westerners seeking to conquer Muslim or Arab lands became extremely potent for Islamists and Arab Nationalist leaders alike, and Saladin, as the man who recaptured Jerusalem, stands as the man to aspire to. Articles by Jonathan Phillips and Umej Bhatia cover the memory and the legacy of the crusades to bring the story down to modern times.

Jonathan Phillips is Professor of Crusading History at Royal Holloway University of London and the author of Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades (Vintage, 2010).

The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople

Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont

The Call of the Crusades

How the South Became Republican

Barbarossa’s fleet wintering in Toulon harbour, 1543, by Matrakçı Nasuh, mid-16th century. Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo.

An Ottoman Winter in Toulon

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The crusades were a series of religious wars fought between Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages. The goal of the crusades was to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslim rule. They lasted from the 11th to the 13th century, with various outcomes. The crusades had a profound impact on European and Middle Eastern history, shaping politics, religion, and cultures. They also led to the rise of trade and commerce, as well as the spread of ideas and technologies between the East and West. However, the crusades were marred by brutality and destruction, with many lives lost and societies disrupted. Today, the crusades continue to be a controversial and debated topic in history.

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Introduction

Negative outcomes of the crusades, positive outcomes.

History is full of significant events that had great impacts on the lives of people and nations of the time. One of these great events is the Crusades, which were devastating wars undertaken by Christians against Muslims. The Crusades can trace their start to November 1095 when Pope Urban II made an appeal in France for the Knights to embark on a military expedition to free the Holy city of Jerusalem from Muslim power. The Crusade as to be a “war of liberation” since Jerusalem, which was regarded as the Christian holy land, was under Muslim control. In response to Urban’s call, over 60,000 Knights and peasants took up arms and headed East to fight against the Muslims and recover the Holy Land (Tyerman, 1998). The first crusade was followed by a series of other major and minor crusades, which continued to be waged until 1291. This paper will argue that the Crusades were a failure since they led to great losses for all the parties involved in the wars and they did not lead to any lasting benefits.

The crusades failed to attain their main objective, which was to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims. When Pope Urban II called for the crusade, a Christian army marched to Jerusalem to reclaim the Holy Land and establish a Christian control in the area. Due to the dedication of the army, the First crusade succeeded in taking control over Jerusalem. However, the Christian armies were unable to hold on to the captured land and at the end; the Holy Land remained in the hands of the Muslims. In spite of many successive crusades, the Christians were unable to liberate Jerusalem (Nicolle 1986). In spite of all the finances invested in the war and lives lost, Europe’s Christians were forced to accept that they were not to be the guardians of the Holy Land.

The crusades led to religious intolerance by the Muslims who had been the main target for the crusading forces. The crusades were primarily launched against the Muslims who were in control of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Before the crusades, the Muslim rulers demonstrated tolerance to other religions and the Christians and Jews in the Holy Land were treated favorably. Nayak (2008) documents that the Islamic community accepted Christians and Jews as believers of an inferior faith and no persecutions were supported by the state. This good relationship was severely damaged by the crusades, which were characterized by aggressive attacks against Muslims by Christian forces. Nayak (2008) contends that the Crusades against Saracens “reversed the relationship between Christianity and Islam and created enormous damage” (p.273). The hostility started by the crusades continued to characterize the relationship between these two religions for centuries.

Cities were robbed off old treasures and historical artifacts because of the crusades. The temples in Jerusalem were filled with treasures and relics that had been collected over the centuries. The Muslim rulers had not respected these religious artifacts and preserved them throughout their rule. However, the crusading forces led to the loss of these treasures. The crusading forces were in part made up of peasants who had been drawn to the way by the promise of wealth and riches in the East. These soldiers were therefore not noble and took any opportunity to enrich themselves. Princess Anna Comnena of Constantinople recorded that the crusaders were unstable and greedy for money (Andrea & Overfield, 2012). When these crusading armies invaded the Holy Land, they broke into the temples and looted Jerusalem off gold, silver, and other treasures.

The crusades led to the killing of many innocent civilians and the destruction of property in Jerusalem. In their quest to liberate the Holy Land, the crusaders engaged in a brutal campaign and looting. Gonzalez (1984) documents that the Crusaders went through the Holy land carrying out a massacre of the population of Jerusalem. Historians note that the killing was not only confined to the Muslim armies but also innocent civilians. In the 1099 siege of Jerusalem, the crusaders overran the city killing the Saracens who were retreating.

The Crusades accelerated the collapse of the great Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire was a Christian state and therefore under the protection of the Church. The crusaders passed through the Byzantine Empire as they headed towards the Holy Land to wage war against the Muslims. It was understood that the crusading armies would not attack their fellow Christians. However, the Fourth Crusade led to conditions that led to the attack against the Byzantine Empire. The recruitment for the Fourth Crusade by Pope Innocent 111 in 1198 failed to obtain the financial support necessary to sustain the crusade. In early 1203, the crusading force en route to Jerusalem was promised financial help by Prince Alexius Angelos if they helped him to reclaim his Byzantine imperial title (Jonathan, 2004).

The armies of the Forth Crusades therefore captured the Byzantine Capital of Constantinople and proceeded to loot it off great amounts of treasure. Jonathan (2004) documents that Constantinople had served as the greatest metropolis in the Christian world for centuries. This City had been able to resist numerous attacks by Arabs and Persians through the centuries and the capital had been a cultural and economic hub. After the attack by the crusaders, the Byzantine Empire was not able to resist the attacks by the Muslims for long and it collapsed in 1453.

The crusades had a positive impact on European life. Before the crusades, European society was not very advanced and the Byzantium Empire even regarded the Westerners as Barbarians. Europe had not opened herself up to the rest of the world and most citizens were unaware of the outside world. Because of the crusades, ordinary Europeans and even nobles ventured into distant lands. The interaction that Europeans had with the outside world led to an enrichment of European life and culture (Byfield, 2008). Western Europe was able to benefit from the cultural advances of Greece as many Greek scholars took refuge in the West. The Economy of Europe was also stimulated as the continent opened itself up for trade with the Middle East and Asia. Many crusaders returned home with treasured looted from the Holy land and goods acquired from the East. This created a demand for Eastern products therefore fostering trade.

Historians suggest that the Crusades helped to ensure the stability of the European countries for a while. Medieval Europe was full of social upheavals and rebellions by the people. The Crusades provided an outlet for their aggression and energy that might have been used to disrupt social life in Europe. Morris (2000) states that the most of the aggressive members of the society made the journey to the Middle East to take part in the war. Without these members, the rulers did not have trouble maintaining social order in their kingdoms.

The Crusades established Western Europe as the global center of Christianity. Before the Crusades, Constantinople hosted the greatest civilization and it was regarded as the Christian capital. This city had many relics and historical documents, which made it attractive to scholars and religious pilgrims. Riley-Smith (1999) notes that the Fourth Crusade reduced the Eastern Empire to a shadow of its former self and made it vulnerable to attacks by the Turks. These conditions hastened the end of Constantinople, which had served as the Center of Christendom. Following the destruction of the Byzantine Empire, the most civilized part of Christendom became centered in the West. France and its neighboring European states became the fount of Christian and European civilization because of the Crusades.

This paper set out to discuss the historical crusades carried out during the 11 th century in order to show that the battles were failures. It began by nothing that this wars were waged by Christians who aspired to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims who had established control in Jerusalem for Centuries. The paper has revealed that the Crusades were not only unsuccessful in capturing Jerusalem but they also created a legacy of suspicion and animosity between Muslims and Christians. The expeditions also resulted in the loss of many lives and the destruction of property both in the Byzantine Empire and in the Holy Land. The paper has also highlighted the positive effects that the battle had on European cultural advancement and trade expansion. From the arguments raised in this paper, it is clear that the crusade mostly led to negative effects. It can therefore be presumed that all the parties involved would have benefited more if the crusades were never waged.

Andrea, A., & Overfield, J.H. (2012). The Human Record: Sources of Global History (Seventh Edition) Volume I: To 1700. Boston: Wadsworth-Cengage Learning.

Byfield, T. (2008). A Glorious Disaster: A.D. 1100 to 1300: The Crusades: Blood, Valor, Iniquity, Reason, Faith. New York: Christian History Project, 2008. Print.

Gonzalez J. (1984). The Story of Christianity. NY: Harper.

Jonathan, P. (2004). The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople. History Today , 54(5), 21-28.

Morris, D. (2000). A History of England . London: CUP Archive, 2000.

Nayak, A. (2008). Crusade Violence: Understanding and Overcoming the Impact of Mission among Muslims. International Review of Mission , 97(386), 273-291.

Nicolle, D. (1986). Saladin and the Saracens: Armies of the Middle East 1000-1300 . London: Reed International Books.

Riley-Smith, L. (1999). The Crusades . Boston: Taylor & Francis.

Tyerman, C. (1998). Who Went on Crusades to the Holy Land? Oxford: Herford College.

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