The
CRUSADES
Part One
The Crusades were a series of
religiously-sanctioned military
campaigns waged by much of
Latin Christian Europe,
particularly the Franks of
France and the
Holy Roman Empire. The
specific crusades to restore
Christian control of the Holy
Land were fought over a period
of nearly 200 years, between
1095 and 1291. Other
campaigns in Spain and Eastern
Europe continued into the 15th
century. The Crusades were
fought mainly against Muslims,
although campaigns were also waged against pagan Slavs, Jews,
Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians, Mongols, Cathars,
Hussites, Waldensians, Old Prussians, and political enemies of the
popes.[1] Crusaders took vows and were granted penance for past
sins, often called an indulgence.[1][2]
The Crusades originally had the goal of recapturing Jerusalem and
the Holy Land from Muslim rule and were launched in response to
a call from the Christian Byzantine Empire for help against the
expansion of the Muslim Seljuk Turks into Anatolia. The term is
also used to describe contemporaneous and subsequent campaigns
conducted through to the 16th century in territories outside the
Levant[a] usually against pagans, heretics, and peoples under the
ban of excommunication[3] for a mixture of religious, economic,
and political reasons.[4] Rivalries among both Christian and
Muslim powers led also to alliances between religious factions
against their opponents, such as the Christian alliance with the
Sultanate of Rum during the Fifth Crusade.
The Crusades had far-reaching political, economic, and social
impacts, some of which have lasted into contemporary times.
Because of internal conflicts among Christian kingdoms and
political powers, some of the crusade expeditions were diverted
from their original aim, such as the Fourth Crusade, which resulted
in the sack of Christian Constantinople and the partition of the
Byzantine Empire between Venice and the Crusaders. The Sixth
Crusade was the first crusade to set sail without the official
blessing of the Pope.[5] The Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Crusades
resulted in Mamluk and Hafsid victories, as the Ninth Crusade
marked the end of the Crusades in the Middle East.[6]
Contents:
1 Historical context
1.1 Middle Eastern situation
1.2 Western European situation
1.3 Immediate cause
1.4 After the First Crusade
2 List
2.1 First Crusade 1095-1099
2.1.1 Siege of Jerusalem
2.1.2 Crusade of 1101
2.1.3 Norwegian Crusade 1107-1110
2.2 Second Crusade 1147–1149
2.3 Third Crusade 1187–1192
2.4 Fourth Crusade 1202–1204
2.5 Albigensian Crusade
2.6 Children's Crusade
2.7 Fifth Crusade 1217–1221
2.8 Sixth Crusade 1228–1229
2.9 Seventh Crusade 1248–1254
2.10 Eighth Crusade 1270
2.11 Ninth Crusade 1271–1272
2.12 Aftermath
2.13 Northern Crusades (Baltic and Germany)
2.14 Other
2.14.1 Crusade against the Tatars
2.14.2 Crusades in the Balkans
2.14.3 Aragonese Crusade
2.14.4 Alexandrian Crusade
2.14.5 Hussite Crusade
2.14.6 Swedish Crusades
3 Analysis
4 Historical perspective
5 Legacy
5.1 Politics and culture
5.2 Trade
5.3 Caucasus
6 Etymology and usage
7 See also
8 Footnotes
9 External material
9.1 References
9.2 Notes
9.3 External links
Historical context:
“ It is necessary to look for the origin of a crusading ideal in the
struggle between Christians and Muslims in Spain and consider
how the idea of a holy war emerged from this background. ”
—Norman F. Cantor
Middle Eastern situation:
The Muslim presence in the Holy Land began with the initial Arab
conquest of Palestine in the 7th century. The Muslim armies'
successes put increasing pressure on the Eastern Orthodox
Byzantine Empire.
Another factor that contributed to the change in Western attitudes
towards the East came in the year 1009, when the Fatimid Caliph
al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the destruction of the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre. In 1039 his successor, after requiring large
sums be paid for the right, permitted the Byzantine Empire to
rebuild it.[7] Pilgrimages were allowed to the Holy Lands before
and after the Sepulchre was rebuilt, but for a time pilgrims were
captured and some of the clergy were killed[citation needed]. The
Muslim conquerors eventually realized that the wealth of
Jerusalem came from the pilgrims; with this realization the
persecution of pilgrims stopped.[8] However, the damage was
already done, and the violence of the Seljuk Turks became part of
the concern that spread the passion for the Crusades.[9]
Western European situation:
The origins of the Crusades lie in developments in Western Europe
earlier in the Middle Ages, as well as the deteriorating situation of
the Byzantine Empire in the east caused by a new wave of Turkish
Muslim attacks. The breakdown of the Carolingian Empire in the
late 9th century, combined with the relative stabilization of local
European borders after the Christianization of the Vikings, Slavs,
and Magyars, had produced a large class of armed warriors whose
energies were misplaced fighting one another and terrorizing the
local populace. The Church tried to stem this violence with the
Peace and Truce of God movements, which was somewhat
successful, but trained warriors always sought an outlet for their
skills, and opportunities for territorial expansion were becoming
less attractive for large segments of the nobility.. One exception
was the Reconquista in Spain and Portugal, which at times
occupied Iberian knights and some mercenaries from elsewhere in
Europe in the fight against the Islamic Moors.[citation needed]
In 1063, Pope Alexander II had given his blessing to Iberian
Christians in their wars against the Muslims, granting both a papal
standard (the vexillum sancti Petri) and an indulgence to those who
were killed in battle. Pleas from the Byzantine Emperors, now
threatened by the Seljuks, thus fell on ready ears. These occurred
in 1074, from Emperor Michael VII to Pope Gregory VII and in
1095, from Emperor Alexios I Komnenos to Pope Urban II. One
source identifies Michael VII in Chinese records as a ruler of
Byzantium (Fulin) who sent an envoy to Song Dynasty China in
1081.[10][11] A Chinese scholar suggests that this and further
Byzantine envoys in 1091 were pleas for China to aid in the fight
against the Turks.[12]
The Crusades were, in part, an outlet for an intense religious piety
which rose up in the late 11th century among the lay public. A
crusader would, after pronouncing a solemn vow, receive a cross
from the hands of the pope or his legates, and was thenceforth
considered a "soldier of the Church". This was partly because of
the Investiture Controversy, which had started around 1075 and
was still on-going during the First Crusade. As both sides of the
Investiture Controversy tried to marshal public opinion in their
favor, people became personally engaged in a dramatic religious
controversy. The result was an awakening of intense Christian
piety and public interest in religious affairs, and was further
strengthened by religious propaganda, which advocated Just War
in order to retake the Holy Land from the Muslims. The Holy Land
included Jerusalem (where the death, resurrection and ascension
into heaven of Jesus took place according to Christian theology)
and Antioch (the first Christian city).. Further, the remission of sin
was a driving factor and provided any God-fearing man who had
committed sins with an irresistible way out of eternal damnation in
Hell. It was a hotly debated issue throughout the Crusades as what
exactly "remission of sin" meant. Most believed that by retaking
Jerusalem they would go straight to heaven after death. However,
much controversy surrounds exactly what was promised by the
popes of the time. One theory was that one had to die fighting for
Jerusalem for the remission to apply, which would hew more
closely to what Pope Urban II said in his speeches. This meant that
if the crusaders were successful, and retook Jerusalem, the
survivors would not be given remission. Another theory was that if
one reached Jerusalem, one would be relieved of the sins one had
committed before the Crusade. Therefore one could still be
sentenced to Hell for sins committed afterwards.[citation needed]
All of these factors were manifested in the overwhelming popular
support for the First Crusade and the religious vitality of the 12th
century.[citation needed]
Immediate cause
The immediate cause of the First Crusade was the Byzantine
emperor Alexios I's appeal to Pope Urban II for mercenaries to
help him resist Muslim advances into territory of the Byzantine
Empire. In 1071, at the Battle of Manzikert, the Byzantine Empire
was defeated, which led to the loss of all of Asia Minor (modern
Turkey) save the coastlands. Although attempts at reconciliation
after the East-West Schism between the Catholic Western Church
and the Eastern Orthodox Church had failed, Alexius I hoped for a
positive response from Urban II and got it, although it turned out to
be more expansive and less helpful than he had expected.[citation
needed]
When the First Crusade was preached in 1095, the Christian
princes of northern Iberia had been fighting their way out of the
mountains of Galicia and Asturias, the Basque Country and
Navarre, with increasing success, for about a hundred years. The
fall of Moorish Toledo to the Kingdom of León in 1085 was a major
victory, but the turning points of the Reconquista still lay in the
future. The disunity of Muslim emirs was an essential factor.
While the Reconquista was the most prominent example of
European reactions against Muslim conquests, it is not the only
such example. The Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard had
conquered Calabria in 1057 and was holding what had traditionally
been Byzantine territory against the Muslims of Sicily. The
maritime states of Pisa, Genoa and Catalonia were all actively
fighting Islamic strongholds in Majorca and Sardinia, freeing the
coasts of Italy and Catalonia from Muslim raids. Much earlier, the
Christian homelands of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, and so on
had been conquered by Muslim armies. This long history of losing
territories to a religious enemy created a powerful motive to
respond to Byzantine Emperor Alexius I's call for holy war to
defend Christendom, and to recapture the lost lands starting with
Jerusalem.
The papacy of Pope Gregory VII had struggled with reservations
about the doctrinal validity of a holy war and the shedding of blood
for the Lord and had, with difficulty, resolved the question in
favour of justified violence. More importantly to the Pope, the
Christians who made pilgrimages to the Holy Land were being
persecuted. Saint Augustine of Hippo, Gregory's intellectual
model, had justified the use of force in the service of Christ in The
City of God, and a Christian "just war" might enhance the wider
standing of an aggressively ambitious leader of Europe, as Gregory
saw himself.. The northerners would be cemented to Rome, and
their troublesome knights could see the only kind of action that
suited them. Previous attempts by the church to stem such
violence, such as the concept of the "Peace of God", were not as
successful as hoped. To the south of Rome, Normans were showing
how such energies might be unleashed against both Arabs (in
Sicily) and Byzantines (on the mainland). A Latin hegemony in the
Levant would provide leverage in resolving the Papacy's claims of
supremacy over the Patriarch of Constantinople, which had
resulted in the Great Schism of 1054, a rift that might yet be
resolved through the force of Frankish arms.
In the Byzantine homelands, the Eastern Emperor's weakness was
revealed by the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Manzikert in
1071, which reduced the Empire's Asian territory to a region in
western Anatolia and around Constantinople. A sure sign of
Byzantine desperation was the appeal of Alexios I to his enemy,
the Pope, for aid. But Gregory was occupied with the Investiture
Controversy and could not call on the German emperor, so a
crusade never took shape.
For Gregory's more moderate successor, Pope Urban II, a crusade
would serve to reunite Christendom, bolster the Papacy, and
perhaps bring the East under his control. The disaffected Germans
and the Normans were not to be counted on, but the heart and
backbone of a crusade could be found in Urban's own homeland
among the northern French.
After the First Crusade:
On a popular level, the first crusades unleashed a wave of
impassioned, personally felt pious Christian fury that was
expressed in the massacres of Jews that accompanied the
movement of the Crusader mobs through Europe, as well as the
violent treatment of "schismatic" Orthodox Christians of the east.
During many of the attacks on Jews, local Bishops and Christians
made attempts to protect Jews from the mobs that were passing
through. Jews were often offered sanctuary in churches and other
Christian buildings.
In the 13th century, Crusades never expressed such a popular
fever, and after Acre fell for the last time in 1291 and the Occitan
Cathars were exterminated during the Albigensian Crusade, the
crusading ideal became devalued by Papal justifications of political
and territorial aggressions within Catholic Europe.
The last crusading order of knights to hold territory were the
Knights Hospitaller. After the final fall of Acre, they took control
of the island of Rhodes, and in the sixteenth century, were driven
to Malta, before being finally unseated by Napoleon Bonaparte in
1798.
List:
A traditional numbering scheme for the crusades totals nine during
the 11th to 13th centuries. This division is arbitrary and excludes
many important expeditions, among them those of the 14th, 15th,
and 16th centuries. In reality, the crusades continued until the end
of the 17th century, the crusade of Lepanto occurring in 1571, that
of Hungary in 1664, and the crusade to Candia in 1669.[13] The
Knights Hospitaller continued to crusade in the Mediterranean Sea
around Malta until their defeat by Napoleon in 1798. There were
frequent "minor" Crusades throughout this period, not only in
Palestine but also in the Iberian Peninsula and central Europe,
against Muslims and also Christian heretics and personal enemies
of the Papacy or other powerful monarchs.
First Crusade 1095-1099:
A medieval image of Peter the Hermit leading knights, soldiers and
women toward Jerusalem during the First Crusade
In March 1095 at the Council of Piacenza, ambassadors sent by
Byzantine Emperor Alexius I called for help with defending his
empire against the Seljuk Turks. Later that year, at the Council of
Clermont, Pope Urban II called upon all Christians to join a war
against the Turks, promising those who died in the endeavor would
receive immediate remission of their sins.[14]
Following abortive popular crusades in early 1096, the official
crusader armies set off from France and Italy on the papally-
ordained date of 15 August 1096. The armies journeyed eastward
by land toward Constantinople, where they received a wary
welcome from the Byzantine Emperor. Pledging to restore lost
territories to the empire, the Crusaders were supplied and
transported to Anatolia where they laid siege to Seljuk-occupied
Nicea. The city fell on 19 June 1097.[15] The Crusader armies
fought further battles against the Turks, facing grave deprivation
of both food and water in their summer crossing of Anatolia. The
lengthy Siege of Antioch began in October 1097 and endured until
June of 1098. The ruler of Antioch was not sure how the Christians
living within his city would react, so he forced them to live outside
the citadel. The siege only ended when one of the gates to the city
was betrayed by an Armenian dissident. Once inside the city, as
was standard military practice at the time,[16] the Crusaders
massacred the Muslim inhabitants, destroyed mosques and pillaged
the city.[17] Local Christians assassinated Yaghisiyan, former
ruler of the city. However a large Muslim relief army under
Kerbogha immediately besieged the victorious Crusaders within
Antioch. Bohemund of Taranto led a successful break-out and
defeat of Kerbogha's army on the 28th of June. The starving
crusader army marched south, moving from town to town along the
coast, finally reaching the walls of Jerusalem on 7 June 1099 with
only a fraction of their original forces.[18]
Siege of Jerusalem (1099):
Godefroy de Bouillon, a French knight, leader of the First Crusade
and founder of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
The Jews and Muslims fought together to defend Jerusalem
against the invading Franks. They were unsuccessful though and on
15 July 1099 the crusaders entered the city.[17] They proceeded to
massacre the remaining Jewish and Muslim civilians and pillaged or
destroyed mosques and the city itself.[19] One historian has
written that the "isolation, alienation and fear"[1] felt by the
Franks so far from home helps to explain the atrocities they
committed, including the cannibalism which was recorded after the
Siege of Maarat in 1098.[20] As a result of the First Crusade,
several small Crusader states were created, notably the Kingdom
of Jerusalem. In the Kingdom of Jerusalem at most 120,000 Franks
(predominantly French-speaking Western Christians) ruled over
350,000 Muslims, Jews, and native Eastern Christians.[21]
The Crusaders also tried to gain control of the city of Tyre, but
were defeated by the Muslims. The people of Tyre asked Zahir al-
Din Atabek, the leader of Damascus, for help defending their city
from the Franks with the promise to surrender Tyre to him. When
the Franks were defeated the people of Tyre did not surrender the
city, but Zahir al-Din simply said “What I have done I have done
only for the sake of God and the Muslims, nor out of desire for
wealth and kingdom.”[22]
After gaining control of Jerusalem the Crusaders created four
Crusader states: the kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa,
the Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli.[19] Initially,
Muslims did very little about the Crusader states due to internal
conflicts.[23] Eventually, the Muslims began to reunite under the
leadership of Imad al-Din Zangi. He began by re-taking Edessa in
1144. It was the first city to fall to the Crusaders, and became the
first to be recaptured by the Muslims. This led the Pope to call for
a second Crusade.
Crusade of 1101:
Following this crusade there was a second, less successful wave of
crusaders, in which Turks led by Kilij Arslan defeated the
Crusaders in three separate battles in a well-managed response to
the First Crusade.[24] This is known as the Crusade of 1101 and
may be considered an adjunct of the First Crusade.
Norwegian Crusade 1107-1110:
Sigurd I of Norway was the first European king who went on a
crusade and his crusader armies defeated Muslims in Spain, the
Baleares, and in Palestine where they joined the king of Jerusalem
in the Siege of Sidon.
Second Crusade 1147–1149:
The status of Europe in 1142
After a period of relative peace in which Christians and Muslims
co-existed in the Holy Land, Muslims conquered the town of
Edessa. A new crusade was called for by various preachers, most
notably by Bernard of Clairvaux. French and South German
armies, under the Kings Louis VII and Conrad III respectively,
marched to Jerusalem in 1147 but failed to win any major victories,
launching a failed pre-emptive siege of Damascus, an independent
city that would soon fall into the hands of Nur ad-Din, the main
enemy of the Crusaders.[25] On the other side of the
Mediterranean, however, the Second Crusade met with great
success as a group of Northern European Crusaders stopped in
Portugal, allied with the Portuguese King, Afonso I of Portugal,
and retook Lisbon from the Muslims in 1147. [25] A detachment
from this group of crusaders helped Count Raymond Berenguer IV
of Barcelona conquer the city of Tortosa the following year.[26] In
the Holy Land by 1150, both the kings of France and Germany had
returned to their countries without any result. St. Bernard of
Clairvaux, who in his preachings had encouraged the Second
Crusade, was upset with the amount of misdirected violence and
slaughter of the Jewish population of the Rhineland.[3] North
Germans and Danes attacked the Wends during the 1147 Wendish
Crusade, which was unsuccessful as well.
Third Crusade 1187–1192:
In 1187, Saladin, Sultan of Egypt, recaptured Jerusalem, following
the Battle of Hattin. After taking Jerusalem back from the
Christians, the Muslims spared civilians and for the most part left
churches and shrines untouched to be able to collect ransom money
from the Franks.[27] Saladin is remembered respectfully in both
European and Islamic sources as a man who "always stuck to his
promise and was loyal."[28] The reports of Saladin's victories
shocked Europe. Pope Gregory VIII called for a crusade, which
was led by several of Europe's most important leaders: Philip II of
France, Richard I of England (aka Richard the Lionheart), and
Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor.. Frederick drowned in Cilicia in
1190, leaving an unstable alliance between the English and the
French. Before his arrival in the Holy Land Richard captured the
island of Cyprus from the Byzantines in 1191.[25] Cyprus would
serve as a Crusader base for centuries to come, and would remain
in Western European hands until the Ottoman Empire conquered
the island from Venice in 1571.[25] After a long siege, Richard the
Lionheart promised to leave noncombatants unharmed if the city of
Acre surrendered. The brutality of an outnumbered army in a
hostile land could be seen again when the city surrendered and
Richard proceeded to massacre everyone, despite his earlier
promise.[29] From the Frankish point of view, an oath made to a
non-Christian was no oath at all. Philip left, in 1191, after the
Crusaders had recaptured Acre from the Muslims. The Crusader
army headed south along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
They defeated the Muslims near Arsuf, recaptured the port city of
Jaffa, and were in sight of Jerusalem.[25] However, Richard did
not believe he would be able to hold Jerusalem once it was
captured, as the majority of Crusaders would then return to
Europe, and the crusade ended without the taking of Jerusalem.
[25] Richard left the following year after negotiating a treaty with
Saladin. The treaty allowed unarmed Christian pilgrims to make
pilgrimages to the Holy Land (Jerusalem), while it remained under
Muslim control.
On Richard's way home, his ship was wrecked and he ended up in
Austria, where his enemy, Duke Leopold, captured him. The Duke
delivered Richard to the Emperor Henry VI, who held the King for
ransom. By 1197, Henry felt ready for a crusade, but he died in the
same year of malaria. Richard I died during fighting in Europe and
never returned to the Holy Land. The Third Crusade is sometimes
referred to as the Kings' Crusade.
Fourth Crusade 1202–1204
The Fourth Crusade was initiated in 1202 by Pope Innocent III,
with the intention of invading the Holy Land through Egypt.
Because the Crusaders lacked the funds to pay for the fleet and
provisions that they had contracted from the Venetians, Doge
Enrico Dandolo enlisted the crusaders to restore the Christian city
of Zara (Zadar) to obedience. Because they subsequently lacked
provisions and time on their vessel lease, the leaders decided to go
to Constantinople, where they attempted to place a Byzantine
exile on the throne. After a series of misunderstandings and
outbreaks of violence, the Crusaders sacked the city in 1204, and
established the so-called Latin Empire and a series of other
Crusader states throughout the territories of the Greek Byzantine
Empire. This is often seen as the final breaking point of the Great
Schism between the Eastern Orthodox Church and (Western)
Roman Catholic Church.
Albigensian Crusade:
The Albigensian Crusade was launched in 1209 to eliminate the
heretical Cathars of Occitania (the south of modern-day France).
It was a decade-long struggle that had as much to do with the
concerns of northern France to extend its control southwards as it
did with heresy. In the end, both the Cathars and the independence
of southern France were exterminated.[30]
Children's Crusade:
The Children's Crusade is a series of possibly fictitious or
misinterpreted events of 1212. The story is that an outburst of the
old popular enthusiasm led a gathering of children in France and
Germany, which Pope Innocent III interpreted as a reproof from
heaven to their unworthy elders. The leader of the French army,
Stephen, led 30,000 children. The leader of the German army,
Nicholas, led 7,000 children. None of the children actually reached
the Holy Land: those who did not return home or settle along the
route to Jerusalem either died from shipwreck or hunger, or were
sold into slavery in Egypt or North Africa.
Fifth Crusade 1217–1221:
By processions, prayers, and preaching, the Church attempted to
set another crusade afoot, and the Fourth Council of the Lateran
(1215) formulated a plan for the recovery of the Holy Land. In the
first phase, a crusading force from Austria and Hungary joined the
forces of the king of Jerusalem and the prince of Antioch to take
back Jerusalem. In the second phase, crusader forces achieved a
remarkable feat in the capture of Damietta in Egypt in 1219, but
under the urgent insistence of the papal legate, Pelagius, they then
launched a foolhardy attack on Cairo in July of 1221. The
crusaders were turned back after their dwindling supplies led to a
forced retreat. A night-time attack by the ruler of Egypt, the
powerful Sultan Al-Kamil, resulted in a great number of crusader
losses and eventually in the surrender of the army. Al-Kamil
agreed to an eight-year peace agreement with Europe.
Sixth Crusade 1228–1229:
Emperor Frederick II had repeatedly vowed a crusade but failed to
live up to his words, for which he was excommunicated by Pope
Gregory IX in 1228. He nonetheless set sail from Brindisi, landed in
Palestine, and through diplomacy he achieved unexpected success:
Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem were delivered to the
crusaders for a period of ten years.
In 1229 after failing to conquer Egypt, Frederick II of the Holy
Roman Empire, made a peace treaty with Al-Kamil, the ruler of
Egypt. This treaty allowed Christians to rule over most of
Jerusalem, while the Muslims were given control of the Dome of
the Rock and the Al-Aksa mosque. The peace brought about by
this treaty lasted for about ten years.[31] Many of the Muslims
though were not happy with Al-Kamil for giving up control of
Jerusalem and in 1244, following a siege, the Muslims regained
control of the city.[23]
Seventh Crusade 1248–1254:
The papal interests represented by the Templars brought on a
conflict with Egypt in 1243, and in the following year a
Khwarezmian force summoned by the latter stormed Jerusalem.
The crusaders were drawn into battle at La Forbie in Gaza. The
crusader army and its Bedouin mercenaries were completely
defeated within forty-eight hours by Baibars' force of
Khwarezmian tribesmen. This battle is considered by many
historians to have been the death knell to the Kingdom of
Outremer. Although this provoked no widespread outrage in
Europe as the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 had done, Louis IX of
France organized a crusade against Egypt from 1248 to 1254,
leaving from the newly constructed port of Aigues-Mortes in
southern France. It was a failure, and Louis spent much of the
crusade living at the court of the crusader kingdom in Acre. In the
midst of this crusade was the first Shepherds' Crusade in 1251.
Eighth Crusade 1270:
The eighth Crusade was organized by Louis IX in 1270, again
sailing from Aigues-Mortes, initially to come to the aid of the
remnants of the crusader states in Syria. However, the crusade
was diverted to Tunis, where Louis spent only two months before
dying. For his efforts, Louis was later canonised. The Eighth
Crusade is sometimes counted as the Seventh, if the Fifth and Sixth
Crusades are counted as a single crusade. The Ninth Crusade is
sometimes also counted as part of the Eighth.
Ninth Crusade 1271–1272:
The future Edward I of England undertook another expedition
against Baibars in 1271, after having accompanied Louis on the
Eighth Crusade. Louis died in Tunisia. The Ninth Crusade was
deemed a failure and ended the Crusades in the Middle East.[32]
In their later years, faced with the threat of the Egyptian
Mamluks, the Crusaders' hopes rested with a Franco-Mongol
alliance. The Ilkhanate's Mongols were thought to be sympathetic
to Christianity, and the Frankish princes were most effective in
gathering their help, engineering their invasions of the Middle East
on several occasions.[citation needed] Although the Mongols
successfully attacked as far south as Damascus on these
campaigns, the ability to effectively coordinate with Crusades from
the west was repeatedly frustrated most notably at the Battle of
Ain Jalut in 1260. The Mamluks eventually made good their pledge
to cleanse the entire Middle East of the Franks. With the fall of
Antioch (1268), Tripoli (1289), and Acre (1291), those Christians
unable to leave the cities were massacred or enslaved and the last
traces of Christian rule in the Levant disappeared.[33][34]
Aftermath:
The island of Ruad, three kilometers from the Syrian shore, was
occupied for several years by the Knights Templar but was
ultimately lost to the Mamluks in the Siege of Ruad on September
26, 1302. The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, which was not itself a
crusader state, and was not Latin Christian, but was closely
associated with the crusader states and was ruled by the Latin
Christian Lusignan dynasty for its last 34 years, survived until
1375. Other echoes of the crusader states survived for longer, but
well away from the Holy Land itself. The Knights of St John
carved out a new territory based on the Aegean island of Rhodes,
which they ruled until 1522. Cyprus remained under the rule of the
House of Lusignan until 1474/89 (the precise date depends on how
Venice's highly unusual takeover is interpreted - see Caterina
Cornaro) and subsequently that of Venice until 1570. By this time
the Knights of St John had moved to Malta - even further from the
Holy Land - which they ruled until 1798.
Northern Crusades (Baltic and Germany):
The Crusades in the Baltic Sea area and in Central Europe were
efforts by (mostly German) Christians to subjugate and convert
the peoples of these areas to Christianity. These Crusades ranged
from the 12th century, contemporaneous with the Second Crusade,
to the 16th century.
Contemporaneous with the Second Crusade, Saxons and Danes
fought against Polabian Slavs in the 1147 Wendish Crusade. In the
13th century, the Teutonic Knights led Germans, Poles, and
Pomeranians against the Old Prussians during the Prussian
Crusade.
Between 1232 and 1234, there was a crusade against the
Stedingers. This crusade was special, because the Stedingers were
not heathens or heretics, but fellow Roman Catholics. They were
free Frisian farmers who resented attempts of the count of
Oldenburg and the archbishop Bremen-Hamburg to make an end to
their freedoms. The archbishop excommunicated them, and Pope
Gregory IX declared a crusade in 1232. The Stedingers were
defeated in 1234.
The Teutonic Order's attempts to conquer Orthodox Russia
(particularly the Republics of Pskov and Novgorod), an enterprise
endorsed by Pope Gregory IX, can also be considered as a part of
the Northern Crusades. One of the major blows for the idea of the
conquest of Russia was the Battle of the Ice in 1242. With or
without the Pope's blessing, Sweden also undertook several
crusades against Orthodox Novgorod.
Other - Crusade against the Tatars:
In 1259 Mongols led by Burundai and Nogai Khan ravaged the
principality of Halych-Volynia, Lithuania and Poland. After that
Pope Alexander IV tried without success to create a crusade
against the Blue Horde (see Mongol invasion of Poland).
In the 14th century, Khan Tokhtamysh combined the Blue and
White Hordes forming the Golden Horde. It seemed that the
power of the Golden Horde had begun to rise, but in 1389,
Tokhtamysh made the disastrous decision of waging war on his
former master, the great Tamerlane. Tamerlane's hordes
rampaged through southern Russia, crippling the Golden Horde's
economy and practically wiping out its defenses in those lands.
After losing the war, Tokhtamysh was then dethroned by the party
of Khan Temur Kutlugh and Emir Edigu, supported by Tamerlane.
When Tokhtamysh asked Vytautas the Great for assistance in
retaking the Horde, the latter readily gathered a huge army which
included Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Russians, Mongols, Moldavians,
Poles, Romanians and Teutonic Knights.
In 1398, the huge army moved from Moldavia and conquered the
southern steppe all the way to the Dnieper River and northern
Crimea. Inspired by their great successes, Vytautas declared a
'Crusade against the Tatars' with Papal backing. Thus, in 1399, the
army of Vytautas once again moved on the Horde. His army met
the Horde's at the Vorskla River, slightly inside Lithuanian
territory.
Although the Lithuanian army was well equipped with cannon, it
could not resist a rear attack from Edigu's reserve units. Vytautas
hardly escaped alive. Many princes of his kin—possibly as many as
20—were killed (for example, Stefan Musat, Prince of Moldavia
and two of his brothers, while a fourth was badly injured[citation
needed]), and the victorious Tatars besieged Kiev. "And the
Christian blood flowed like water, up to the Kievan walls," as one
chronicler put it. Meanwhile, Temur Kutlugh died from the wounds
received in the battle, and Tokhtamysh was killed by one of his
own men.
Crusades in the Balkans:
To counter the expanding Ottoman Empire, several crusades were
launched in the 15th century. The most notable are:
the Crusade of Nicopolis (1396) organized by Sigismund of
Luxemburg king of Hungary culminated in the Battle of Nicopolis
the Crusade of Varna (1444) led by the Polish-Hungarian king
Władysław Warneńczyk ended in the Battle of Varna and the Crusade
of 1456 organized to lift the Siege of Belgrade led by John Hunyadi
and Giovanni da Capistrano.
Aragonese Crusade:
The Aragonese Crusade, or Crusade of Aragón, was declared by Pope
Martin IV against the King of Aragón, Peter III the Great, in 1284 and
1285.
Alexandrian Crusade:
The Alexandrian Crusade of October 1365 was a minor seaborne
crusade against Muslim Alexandria led by Peter I of Cyprus. His
motivation was at least as commercial as religious.
Hussite Crusade:
The Hussite Crusade(s), also known as the "Hussite Wars," or the
"Bohemian Wars," involved the military actions against and
amongst the followers of Jan Hus in Bohemia in the period 1420 to
circa 1434. The Hussite Wars were arguably the first European
war in which hand-held gunpowder weapons such as muskets made
a decisive contribution. The Taborite faction of the Hussite
warriors were basically infantry, and their many defeats of larger
armies with heavily armoured knights helped affect the infantry
revolution. In the end, it was an inconclusive war.
Swedish Crusades:
The Swedish conquest of Finland in the Middle Ages has
traditionally been divided into three "crusades": the First Swedish
Crusade around 1155 AD, the Second Swedish Crusade about 1249
AD and the Third Swedish Crusade in 1293 AD.
The First Swedish Crusade is purely legendary, and according to
most historians today, never took place as described in the legend
and did not result in any ties between Finland and Sweden. For the
most part, it was made up in the late 13th century to date the
Swedish rule in Finland further back in time. No historical record
has also survived describing the second one, but it probably did
take place and ended up in the concrete conquest of southwestern
Finland. The third one was against Novgorod, and is properly
documented by both parties of the conflict.[citation needed]
According to archaeological finds, Finland was largely Christian
already before the said crusades. Thus the "crusades" can rather
be seen as ordinary expeditions of conquest whose main target was
territorial gain. The expeditions were dubbed as actual crusades
only in the 19th century by the national-romanticist Swedish and
Finnish historians.[citation needed]
Analysis:
Elements of the Crusades were criticized by some from the time of
their inception in 1095. For example, Roger Bacon felt the
Crusades were not effective because, "those who survive, together
with their children, are more and more embittered against the
Christian faith."[35] In spite of such criticism, the movement was
widely supported in Europe long after the fall of Acre in 1291.
Historians agree that St. Francis of Assisi crossed enemy lines to
meet the Sultan of Egypt. Hoeberichts cast doubt on the intentions
most Christian historians assign to Francis. From the fall of Acre
forward, the Crusades to recover Jerusalem and the Christian East
were largely lost. Later, 18th century Enlightenment thinkers
judged the Crusaders harshly. Likewise, some modern historians in
the West expressed moral outrage. In the 1950s, Sir Steven
Runciman wrote a resounding condemnation:
"High ideals were besmirched by cruelty and greed … the Holy
War was nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of
God".[35]
Historiography of the Crusades:
Western and Eastern historiography present variously different
views on the crusades, in large part because "crusade" invokes
dramatically opposed sets of associations—"crusade" as a valiant
struggle for a supreme cause, and "crusade" as a byword for
barbarism and aggression.
Legacy - Politics and culture:
The Crusades had an enormous influence on the European Middle
Ages.. At times, much of the continent was united under a powerful
Papacy, but by the 14th century, the development of centralized
bureaucracies (the foundation of the modern nation-state) was well
on its way in France, England, Spain, Burgundy, and Portugal, and
partly because of the dominance of the church at the beginning of
the crusading era.
Although Europe had been exposed to Islamic culture for centuries
through contacts in Iberian Peninsula and Sicily, much knowledge
in areas such as science, medicine, and architecture was
transferred from the Islamic to the western world during the
crusade era.
The military experiences of the crusades also had their effects in
Europe; for example, European castles became massive stone
structures as they were in the east, rather than smaller wooden
buildings as they had typically been in the past.
In addition, the Crusades are seen as having opened up European
culture to the world, especially Asia:
“ The Crusades brought about results of which the popes had never
dreamed, and which were perhaps the most, important of all. They
re-established traffic between the East and West, which, after
having been suspended for several centuries, was then resumed
with even greater energy; they were the means of bringing from
the depths of their respective provinces and introducing into the
most civilized Asiatic countries Western knights, to whom a new
world was thus revealed, and who returned to their native land
filled with novel ideas... If, indeed, the Christian civilization of
Europe has become universal culture, in the highest sense, the
glory redounds, in no small measure, to the Crusades."[3] ”
Along with trade, new scientific discoveries and inventions made
their way east or west. Arab advances (including the development
of algebra, optics, and refinement of engineering) made their way
west and sped the course of advancement in European universities
that led to the Renaissance in later centuries.
The invasions of German crusaders prevented formation of the
large Lithuanian state incorporating all Baltic nations and tribes.
Lithuania was destined to become a small country and forced to
expand to the East looking for resources to combat the crusaders.
[36] The Northern Crusades caused great loss of life among the
pagan Polabian Slavs, and they consequently offered little
opposition to German colonization (known as Ostsiedlung) of the
Elbe-Oder region and were gradually assimilated by the Germans,
with the exception of Sorbs.[37]
The First Crusade ignited a long tradition of organized violence
against Jews in European culture.[38][citation needed]
Trade:
The need to raise, transport and supply large armies led to a
flourishing of trade throughout Europe. Roads largely unused since
the days of Rome saw significant increases in traffic as local
merchants began to expand their horizons. This was not only
because the Crusades prepared Europe for travel, but also because
many wanted to travel after being reacquainted with the products
of the Middle East. This also aided in the beginning of the
Renaissance in Italy, as various Italian city-states from the very
beginning had important and profitable trading colonies in the
crusader states, both in the Holy Land and later in captured
Byzantine territory.
Increased trade brought many things to Europeans that were once
unknown or extremely rare and costly. These goods included a
variety of spices, ivory, jade, diamonds, improved glass-
manufacturing techniques, early forms of gun powder, oranges,
apples, and other Asian crops, and many other products.
From a larger perspective, and certainly from that of noted
naval/maritime historian Archibald Lewis, the Crusades must be
viewed as part of a massive macrohistorical event during which
Western Europe, primarily by its ability in naval warfare,
amphibious siege, and maritime trade, was able to advance in all
spheres of civilization.[25] Recovering from the Dark Ages of AD
700-1000, throughout the 11th century Western Europe began to
push the boundaries of its civilization.[25] Prior to the First
Crusade the Italian city-state of Venice, along with the Byzantine
Empire, had cleared the Adriatic Sea of Islamic pirates, and
loosened the Islamic hold on the Mediterranean Sea (Byzantine-
Muslim War of 1030-1035).[25] The Normans, with the assistance
of the Italian city-states of Genoa and Pisa, had retaken Sicily
from the Muslims from 1061-1091.[25] These conflicts prior to the
First Crusade had both retaken Western European territory and
weakened the Islamic hold on the Mediterranean, allowing for the
rise of Western European Mediterranean trading and naval powers
such as the Sicilian Normans and the Italian city-states of Venice,
Genoa, and Pisa.[25]
During the Middle Ages, the key trading region of the Earth was
the Black Sea-Mediterranean Sea-Red Sea.[25] It was the
aforementioned pre-First Crusade actions, along with the Crusades
themselves, which allowed Western Europe to control the trade of
the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, a control which began in the
1000s and would only be threatened by the Turkish Ottoman
Empire beginning in the mid-to-late 1400s.[25] This Western
European control of vital sea lanes allowed the economy of
Western Europe to advance to previously unknown degrees, most
obviously as regards the Maritime Republics of Venice, Genoa, and
Pisa.[25] Indeed, it is no coincidence that the Renaissance began in
Italy, as the Maritime Republics, through their control of the
Eastern Mediterranean and Black Seas, were able to return to
Italy the ancient knowledge of the Greeks and Romans, as well as
the products of distant East Asia.[25]
Combined with the Mongol Empire, Western Europe traded
extensively with East Asia, the security of the Mongol Empire
allowing the products of Asia to be brought to such Western
European controlled ports as Acre, Antioch, Kaffa (on the Black
Sea) and even, for a time, Constantinople itself.[25] The Fifth
Crusade of 1217-1221 and the Seventh Crusade of 1248-1254 were
largely attempts to secure Western European control of the Red
Sea trade region, as both Crusades were directed against Egypt,
the power base of the Ayyubid, and then Mameluke, Sultanates.
[25] It was only in the 1300s, as the stability of trade with Asia
collapsed with the Mongol Empire, the Mamelukes destroyed the
Middle Eastern Crusader States, and the rising Ottoman Empire
impeded further Western European trade with Asia, that Western
Europeans sought alternate trade routes to Asia, ultimately leading
to Columbus's voyage of 1492.[25]
Caucasus:
In the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia, in the remote highland
region of Khevsureti, a tribe called the Khevsurs are thought to
possibly be direct descendants of a party of crusaders who got
separated from a larger army and have remained in isolation with
some of the crusader culture intact. Into the 20th century, relics of
armor, weaponry and chain mail were still being used and passed
down in such communities. Russian serviceman and ethnographer
Arnold Zisserman who spent 25 years (1842–67) in the Caucasus,
believed the exotic group of Georgian highlanders were
descendants of the last Crusaders based on their customs,
language, art and other evidence.[39] American traveler Richard
Halliburton saw and recorded the customs of the tribe in 1935.[40]
Etymology and usage:
The crusades were never referred to as such by their participants.
The original crusaders were known by various terms, including
fideles Sancti Petri (the faithful of Saint Peter) or milites Christi
(knights of Christ). They saw themselves as undertaking an iter, a
journey, or a peregrinatio, a pilgrimage, though pilgrims were
usually forbidden from carrying arms.[citation needed]
Like pilgrims, each crusader swore a vow (a votus), to be fulfilled
on successfully reaching Jerusalem, and they were granted a cloth
cross (crux) to be sewn into their clothes. This "taking of the
cross", the crux, eventually became associated with the entire
journey; the word "crusade" (coming into English from the
Medieval French croisade and Spanish cruzada)[41] developed
from this.
