Crusades

This article is about the 11th–13th century religious military campaigns. For other uses, see Crusade (disambiguation) and Crusader (disambiguation).

Crusades were religiously motivated campaigns conducted between the 11th and 16th centuries predominantly but not exclusively against Muslims in the Near East but also against pagans, heretics, and peoples under the ban of excommunication for a mixture of religious, economic, and political reasons. Their emblem was the cross—the term "crusade" is derived from the French term for taking up the cross. Many were from France and called themselves "Franks", which became the common term used by Muslims. Europeans had historically called the occupants of the Holy Land Saracens, and used this in a negative sense throughout the Crusades and often in European history books into the 20th century.

The first crusade was called by Pope Urban II in 1095 with the stated goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem. This led to an intermittent 200-year struggle to reclaim the Holy Land that ended in failure. The background was the Arab–Byzantine Wars, the Byzantine–Seljuq Wars and the defeat of the Byzantine army by Seljuk Turks at Manzikert in 1071. The Norman conqueror Robert Guiscard's conquest of Byzantine territories added to the problems of the Byzantine Empire. In an attempt to curtail both dangers, its Emperor Alexios I sought to align Christian nations against a common enemy, requested western aid, and Urban II in turn enlisted western leaders in the cause. Several hundred thousand soldiers became Crusaders by taking vows; the papacy granted them plenary indulgences. The crusaders were Christians from all over Western Europe under feudal rather than unified command. There were seven major and numerous minor Crusades against Muslim territories. Rivalries among both Christian and Muslim powers also led to alliances between religious factions against their opponents, such as the Christian alliance with the Islamic Sultanate of Rûm during the Fifth Crusade. When the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land fell at Acre in 1291 there was no coherent response.

The Crusades had major political, economic, and social impacts on western Europe. It resulted in a substantial weakening of the Byzantine Empire, which fell several centuries later to the Ottoman Empire. The Reconquista, a long period of wars in Spain and Portugal (Iberia), where Christian forces reconquered the peninsula from Muslims, is closely tied to the Crusades.

Background

Middle East

Main articles: Muslim conquests, Great Seljuq Empire, Byzantine–Seljuq wars, and Arab–Byzantine wars

After 636 when Muslim forces defeated the Eastern Roman/Byzantines at the Battle of Yarmouk, control of Palestine passed through the Umayyad Dynasty, the Abbasid Dynasty and the Fatimids. Toleration, trade and political relationships between the Arabs and the Christian states of Europe ebbed and flowed until 1072 when the Fatimids lost control of Palestine to the rapidly expanding Great Seljuq Empire.. This shown by the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordering the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre but his successor permitting the Byzantine Empire to rebuild it in 1036. Pilgrimages by Christians to the holy sites were allowed. However, under the Seljuqs the unsettled conditions were not conducive to either pilgrims or merchants. This underpinned the support for the Crusades across the Christian world.

Western Europe

By 1081 the loss of the resources of Anatolia left the Empire in financial crisis increasing taxes needed from a smaller population to fund increased defences.

The Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard had conquered northern Sicily by 1072. The maritime state of Pisa funded its new cathedral from the spoils of two raids on the Muslims – Palermo in 1063 and Mahdia in 1087. Not all these precursor conflicts were Christian versus Muslim; the Germans were expanding at the expense of the Slavs in Northern Europe. All of these expeditions, along with a few others, are considered precursors to the Crusades, and are often given the name of "proto-crusades". The western European idea of the Crusades came in response to the deterioration of the Byzantine Empire caused by many years of Seljuk attacks. The Byzantine emperors in the east, now threatened by the Seljuks, sent emissaries to the papacy asking for aid in their struggles with the Seljuk Turks. In 1074, Emperor Michael VII sent a request for aid to Pope Gregory VII, but although Gregory appears to have considered leading an expedition to aid Michael, nothing reached the planning stage. In 1095 Emperor Alexios I Komnenos asked Pope Urban II for help against the Turks.

The Crusades were, in part, an outlet for an intense religious piety which rose up in the late 11th century among the lay public. This was an outgrowth of the Investiture Controversy, which had started around 1075 and was still on-going during the First Crusade. The papacy began to assert its independence of secular rulers and marshalled arguments for the proper use of armed force by Christians. 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 Palestine from the Muslims. Taking part in such a war was seen as a form of penance, which could remit sins.

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 Urban II said in his speeches. This meant that if the crusaders were successful, and retook Jerusalem, the survivors would not be given remission.^{[citation needed]}

Byzantine weakness

The Seljuq dynasty at its greatest extent, in 1092.

The Eastern Empire and its church were officially divided from the Western church and society in 1054, with the East-West Schism, but cultural differences had long divided the two before the official break in 1054. In the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern emperor's weakness was revealed by the defeat at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, which opened Anatolia to the control of the Turks. The Empire was on the verge of collapse, with its treasury bankrupt, its armies poorly deployed, and its aged emperor ineffective. Although an appeal was made in 1074 to the papacy, no aid was forthcoming from Pope Gregory VII. The Eastern Empire also faced difficulties in the Danube river area, as the Petchenegs had allied with the Seljuks and threatened the Empire until 1091 when they were defeated by Emperor Alexius. Alexius still needed to rebuild his armies, and sought to increase his military forces by hiring mercenaries. The Byzantine envoys to Piacenza in March 1095 likely were more concerned to secure mercenaries for Alexius' armies and may have exaggerated the dangers facing the Eastern Empire in order to secure the needed troops.

Council of Clermont

Main article: Council of Clermont

Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, given a late Gothic setting in this illumination from the Livre des Passages d'Outre-mer, of c 1490 (Bibliothèque National)

In 1095 Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus sent envoys to the west requesting military assistance against the Seljuk Turks. The message was received by Pope Urban II at the Council of Piacenza. In November of that year Urban called the Council of Clermont to discuss the matter further urging the bishops and abbots whom he addressed directly, to bring with them the prominent lords in their provinces. The Council lasted from November 19 to November 28 attended by nearly 300 clerics from throughout France. Urban discussed Cluniac reforms of the Church and extended the excommunication of Philip I of France. Urban spoke for the first time On November 27 about the problems in the east, promoting Western Christians' fight against the Muslims who had occupied the Holy Land and were attacking the Eastern Roman Empire. There are six main sources of information about this: the anonymous Gesta Francorum ("The Deeds of the Franks" dated c. 1100/1101), which influenced all versions of the speech except that by Fulcher of Chartres, who was present at the council; Robert the Monk, who may have been present; Baldric, archbishop of Dol; and Guibert de Nogent, who were not present at the council. All the accounts were written much later following different literary traditions and differ widely. More important than these five sources coloured by the authors' own views of crusading, is a letter that was written by Urban himself in December of 1095 referring to the council.^{[citation needed]}

Robert the Monk in Historia Iherosolimitana written in 1106/7 reports Urban called for orthodoxy, reform and submission to the Church. Robert records that the pope asked western Christians, poor and rich, to come to the aid of the Greeks in the east because "Deus vult," ("God wills it"). Robert records that Urban promised remission of sins for those who went to the east, although the 'Liber Lamberti', a source based on the notes of Bishop Lambert of Arras, who attended the Council, indicates that Urban offered the remission of all penance due from sins, what later came to be called an indulgence. Robert makes Urban deliver a classical battle speech; he emphasizes reconquering the Holy Land more than aiding the Greeks; the intervening decades, and the events of the First Crusade had certainly shifted the emphasis. According to Robert, Urban listed various gruesome offenses of the Muslims. and more alleged atrocities expressed in inflammatory images that were derived from hagiography. Perhaps with the wisdom of hindsight, Robert makes Urban advise that none but knights should go, not the old and feeble, nor priests without the permission of their bishops, "for such are more of a hindrance than aid, more of a burden than advantage... nor ought women to set out at all, without their husbands or brothers or legal guardians". A later version by Baldrick, archbishop of Dol, reported the sermon focusing on the offenses of the Muslims and the reconquest of the Holy Land and that Urban deplored the violence of the Christian knights of Gaul. The violence of knights he wanted to see ennobled in the service of Christ, defending the churches of the East as if defending a mother. Guibert, abbot of Nogent also made that Urban emphasize the reconquest of the Holy Land more than help to the Greeks or other Christians there. This may, as in the case of Robert and Baldric, be due to the influence of the Gesta Francorum's account of Jerusalem's reconquest. Urban's speech, in Guibert's version, emphasized the sanctity of the Holy Land, which must be in Christian possession so that prophecies about the end of the world could be fulfilled.^{[citation needed]}

A general call was sent out to the knights and nobles of France. Urban apparently knew in advance of the day that Raymond IV of Toulouse was prepared to take up arms. Urban himself spent a few months preaching the Crusade in France, while papal legates spread the word in the south of Italy, during which time the focus presumably turned from helping Alexius to taking Jerusalem. Upon hearing the thee general population probably understood this to be the point of the Crusade in the first place.^{[citation needed]}

Urban's letter to the faithful "waiting in Flanders," laments that Turks, in addition to ravaging the "churches of God in the eastern regions," have seized "the Holy City of Christ, embellished by his passion and resurrection—and blasphemy to say it—have sold her and her churches into abominable slavery." Yet he does not explicitly call for the reconquest of Jerusulem. Rather he explicitly calls for the military "liberation" of the Eastern Churches, and appoints Adhemar of Le Puy to lead the Crusade, to set out on the day of the Assumption of Mary, August 15. Pope Urban's speech ranks as one of the most influential speeches ever launching holy wars that occupied the minds and forces of western Europe for 200 years before ultimate failure.

Preaching and preparation

Crusaders, 11–13th centuries

Urban's appeal gathered a large number of noblemen and other soldiers together. Among the leaders of the First Crusade were Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert Curthose – son of William the Conqueror and eldest brother of the then King of England, William II of England, Hugh of Vermandois – brother of King Philip I of France, and Stephen, Count of Blois – brother-in-law of Robert Curthose. The French King was excommunicated and thus unable to go. The German Emperor, Henry IV, was still embroiled in the Investiture Crisis and would not have supported papal initiatives. The various leaders left at different times, with Hugh of Vermandois departing first and the bulk of the army dividing into four parts which travelled separately to Constantinople. In all, the western forces may have totaled as much as 100,000 persons counting both combatants and non-combatants.

Anti-Semitism

See also: Persecution of Jews in the First Crusade

On a popular level, the preaching of the First Crusade unleashed a wave of impassioned, personally felt pious Christian fury that was expressed in the massacres of Jews that accompanied and preceded the movement of the crusaders through Europe, as well as the violent treatment of the "schismatic" Orthodox Christians of the east.

Reconquista

Main article: Reconquista

The Reconquista, 790-1300

Although the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from Muslims began around 100 years before the preaching of the First Crusade in 1095, with a notable success being the recapture of Toledo in 1085, Urban II also tied in the ongoing wars in Iberia in the preaching of the First Crusade and the crusading effort. It was through a papal encyclical of 1123 by Pope Calixtus II that these wars attained the status of crusades. After this, the papacy declared Iberian crusades in 1147, 1193, 1197, 1210, 1212, 1221 and 1229. Crusading privileges were also given to those helping the military orders – both the traditional Templars and Hospitallers as well as the specifically Iberian orders that were founded and eventually merged into two main orders – that of the Order of Calatrava and the Order of Santiago. From 1212 to 1265, the Iberian kingdoms drove the Muslims into the far south of the Iberian Peninsula, confining them to a small emirate of Granada. In 1492, this remnant was conquered and Muslims and Jews expelled from the peninsula.

Chronology

People’s Crusade

Main article: People’s Crusade

Urban inspired the preaching of Peter the Hermit who eventually led perhaps as many as 20,000 people, mostly lower class, towards the Holy Land just after Easter 1096. When they reached the Byzantine Empire, Alexios urged them to wait for the western nobles, but the "army" insisted on proceeding and was ambushed outside Nicaea by the Turks, with only about 3000 people escaping the ambush.

First (1095–1099) and Immediate Aftermath

Main articles: First Crusade, Siege of Jerusalem (1099), Crusade of 1101, Norwegian Crusade, and Bohemond I of Antioch#Wars between Antioch and the Byzantine Empire

Route of the First Crusade through Asia

The official crusader armies set off from France and Italy in August and September 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 main army, mostly French and Norman knights under baronial leadership—Godfrey of Bouillon, Baldwin of Bouillon, Tancred de Hauteville, Raymond of Toulouse, Robert Curthose, Stephen of Blois, Bohemond of Taranto, and Robert II, Count of Flanders-marched south through Anatolia.

The crusader states after the First Crusade

The Crusader armies fought the Turks, at first at the lengthy Siege of Antioch that began in October 1097 and lasted until June 1098. Once inside the city, as was standard military practice when an enemy had refused to surrender, the Crusaders massacred the Muslim inhabitants and pillaged the city. However, a large Muslim relief army under Kerbogha immediately besieged the victorious Crusaders within Antioch. Bohemond of Taranto led a successful rally of the crusader army and defeated Kerbogha's army on 28 June. While Bohemond and his men retained control of Antioch, in spite of his pledge to the Byzantine emperor. Most of the surviving 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.

After the successful siege of Jerusalem in 1099, Godfrey of Bouillon, leader of the First Crusade, became the first ruler 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. They proceeded to massacre the remaining Jewish and Muslim civilians and pillaged or destroyed mosques and the city itself. As a result of the First Crusade, four main Crusader states were created: the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli and Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Following this crusade there was a second, less successful wave of crusaders, known as the Crusade of 1101, in which Turks led by Kilij Arslan defeated the Crusaders in three separate battles in a response to the First Crusade.Sigurd I of Norway was the first European king who to visit the Crusading states, as well as the first European king to take part in a crusading campaign, although his expedition was as much pilgrimage as crusade. His fleet helped at the Siege of Sidon. Also in 1107, Bohemond I of Antioch attacked the Byzantines at Avlona and Dyrrachium, in what is occasionally called Bohemond's Crusade, which ended in September 1108 with a defeat for Bohemond and his retiring to Italy.

The Battle of Ager Sanguinis, 1119 miniature

Further efforts in the 1120s included a crusade preached by Pope Calixtus II around 1120 which became the Venetian Crusade of 1122–1124, a pilgrimage of Count Fulk V of Anjou in 1120, an effort by Conrad III of Germany in 1124 of which little details are known, and the Damascus Crusade of 1129 by Fulk V which resulted in the recognition of the Knights Templar by Pope Honorius II in January 1129. Some historians have seen Pope Innocent II's grant in 1135 of the same crusading indulgences to those who opposed papal enemies as the first of the politically motivated crusades against papal opponents, but other historians do not agree.

Initially, Muslims did very little about the Crusader states due to internal conflicts.^{[citation needed]} Eventually, the Muslims began to reunite under the leadership of Imad ad-Din Zengi, who was appointed governor of Mosul in 1127. He began to retake territory from the Christians, beginning with Aleppo in 1128. He retook Edessa in 1144. These defeats led Pope Eugenius III to call for another crusade on 1 March 1145.

Second (1147–1149)

Main article: Second Crusade

Europe and the Christian States in the East in 1142

The 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. 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. A detachment from this group of crusaders helped Count Raymond Berenguer IV of Barcelona conquer the city of Tortosa the following year. In the Holy Land by 1150, both the kings of France and Germany had returned to their countries without any result. 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. A followup to this crusade was the pilgrimage of Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, in 1172 that is sometimes labeled a crusade.

Third (1187–1192)

Main article: Third Crusade

A statue of king Richard I of England (Richard the Lionheart), outside the Palace of Westminster in London.

The Muslims had long fought among themselves, but they were finally united by Saladin, who created a single powerful state. Following his victory at the Battle of Hattin he easily overwhelmed the disunited crusaders in 1187 and retook Jerusalem on 29 September 1187 breached the walls. Terms were arranged and the city surrendered, with Saladin entering the city on 2 October 1187.

Saladin's victories shocked Europe. On hearing news of the Siege of Jerusalem (1187), Pope Urban III died of a heart attack on 19 October 1187. On 29 October Pope Gregory VIII issued a papal bull Audita tremendi, proposing the Third Crusade. To reverse this disaster Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa (r. 1152–1190) of Germany, King Philip II of France, (r. 1180–1223), and King Richard I (r. 1189–1199) of England all organized forces for the crusade. Frederick died en route and few of his men reached the Holy Land. The other two armies arrived but were beset by political quarrels. Philip returned to France, but left most of his forces behind. Richard captured the island of Cyprus from the Byzantines in 1191. After a long siege, Richard recaptured the city of Acre. The Crusader army headed south along the Mediterranean coast. They defeated the Muslims near Arsuf, recaptured the port city of Jaffa, and were in sight of Jerusalem, but supply problems prevented them from taking the city and the crusade ended without the taking of Jerusalem. Richard left the following year after negotiating a treaty with Saladin. The treaty allowed trade for merchants and unarmed Christian pilgrims to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem, while it remained under Muslim control.

A followup to the Third Crusade was the German Crusade of 1197, which began when the Emperor Henry VI took the cross in 1195. Henry's health did not allow him to lead the forces in person, and leadership devolved on Conrad of Wittelsbach, the Archbishop of Mainz. The forces landed at Acre in September 1197 and captured some towns, including Sidon and Beirut, but Henry's death in late 1197 meant that most of the crusaders returned to Germany in the middle of 1198.

Fourth (1202–1204)

Main article: Fourth Crusade

The Latin Empire and the Partition of the Byzantine Empire after the Fourth Crusade. (c. 1204)

Recruitment for the Fourth Crusade was initiated in 1200 by Pope Innocent III, with preaching taking place in France, England, and Germany, although the bulk of the efforts were in France. Because the Crusaders lacked the funds to pay for the fleet and provisions that they had contracted from the Venetians, the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo enlisted the crusaders to restore the Christian city of Zara to obedience, which surrendered to the crusaders on 24 November 1202. Innocent was appalled and excommunicated the crusaders. 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 on 13 April 1204. The crusaders established the so-called Latin Empire and a series of other Crusader states throughout the territories of the Greek Byzantine Empire. While deploring the means, the papacy initially supported this apparent forced reunion between the Eastern and Western churches.

Albigensian Crusade

Main article: Albigensian Crusade

Pope Innocent III excommunicating the Albigensians (left), Massacre against the Albigensians by the crusaders (right)

The Albigensian Crusade was launched in 1208 to eliminate the heretical Cathars of Occitania (southern modern-day France). It was a decades-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, the Cathars were driven underground and the independence of southern France was eliminated. Pope Honorius III called a crusade against supposed Cathar heretics in Bosnia. There were rumors that there was an anti-pope of the Cathars named Nicetas, although whether such a figure ever existed is unclear. Hungarian forces responded to the papal calls in two efforts in 1234 and 1241, with the second one ending because of the Mongol invasion of Hungary in 1241. The Bosnian church was Catholic in theology but continued in schism with the Roman Catholic Church well past the end of the Middle Ages.

Children's (1212)

Main article: Children's Crusade

Less formal and less historically certain was a movement in France and Germany in 1212 which attracted large numbers of peasant teenagers and young people, with few under age 15, who were convinced they could succeed where older and more sinful crusaders had failed: the miraculous power of their faith would triumph where the force of arms had not. Many parish priests and parents encouraged such religious fervor and urged them on. The pope and bishops opposed the attempt but failed to stop it entirely. A band of several thousand youth and young men led by a German named Nicholas set out for Italy. About a third survived the march over the Alps and got as far as Genoa; another group came to Marseilles. The luckier ones eventually managed to get safely home, but many others were sold as lifetime slaves on the auction blocks of Marseilles slave dealers.

Fifth (1217–1221)

Main article: Fifth Crusade

Pope Innocent III declared a new crusade to begin commence in 1217, along with his summoning of the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215. The majority of the crusaders came from Germany, Flanders, and Frisia, along with a large army from Hungary led by King Andrew II and other forces led by Duke Leopold VI. The forces of Andrew and Leopold arrived in Acre in October 1217 but little was accomplished and Andrew returned to Hungary in January 1218. After the arrival of more crusaders, Leopold and the king of Jerusalem, John of Brienne, laid siege to Damietta in Egypt, which they captured finally in November 1219. Further efforts by the papal legate, Pelagius, to invade further into Egypt led to no gains. Blocked by forces of the Ayyubid Sultan Al-Kamil, the crusaders were forced to surrender. Al-Kamil forced the return of Damietta and agreed to an eight-year truce and the crusaders left Egypt.

A followup to this crusade was the effort by King Theobald I of Navarre in 1239 and 1240 that had originally been called in 1234 by Pope Gregory IX to assemble in July 1239 at the end of a truce. Besides Theobald, Peter of Dreux and Hugh, Duke of Burgundy and other French nobles took part. They arrived in Acre in September 1239 and after a defeat in November, Theobald arranged a treaty with the Muslims that returned territory to the crusading states, but caused much disaffection within the crusaders. Theobald returned to Europe in September 1240. Also in 1240, Richard of Cornwall, younger brother of King Henry III of England, took the cross and arrived in Acre in October. He then secured the ratification of Theobald's treaty and left the Holy Land in May 1241 for Europe.

Sixth (1228–1229)

Main article: Sixth Crusade

Dirham struck by Christians between 1216 and 1241 with Arabic inscriptions.

Emperor Frederick II (left) meets al-Kamil (right), from a manuscript of the Nuova Cronica by Giovanni Villani

Emperor Frederick II had repeatedly vowed a crusade but failed to live up to his words, for which he was excommunicated by Gregory IX in 1228. He nonetheless set sail from Brindisi in June 1228 and landed at Saint-Jean d'Acre in September 1228, after a stopover in Cyprus. There were no battles as Frederick made a peace treaty with Al-Kamil, the ruler of Egypt. This treaty allowed Christians to rule over most of Jerusalem and a strip of territory from Acre to Jerusalem, while the Muslims were given control of their sacred areas in Jerusalem. In return, Frederick pledged to protect Al-Kamil against all his enemies, even if they were Christian.

Seventh (1248–1254)

Main article: Seventh Crusade

In the summer of 1244 a Khwarezmian force summoned by the son of al-Kamil, al-Salih Ayyub, stormed Jerusalem and took it. The Franks allied with Ayyub's uncle Ismail and the emir of Homs and the combined forces were drawn into battle at La Forbie in Gaza. The crusader army and its allies were completely defeated within forty-eight hours by the Khwarezmian tribesmen.

King Louis IX of France organized a crusade after taking the cross in December 1244, with preaching and recruitment taking up the time between 1245 and 1248. Louis' forces set sail from France in May 1249 and landed near Damietta in Egypt on 5 June 1249. Waiting until the end of the Nile flood, the army marched into the interior in November and by February were near El Manusra. But they were defeated near there and King Louis was captured on the retreat towards Damietta that resulted. Louis was ransomed for 800,000 bezants and a ten-year truce was agreed. Louis then went to Syria where he remained until 1254, working to solidify the kingdom of Jerusalem and constructing fortifications.

Eighth (1270)

Main article: Eighth Crusade

Ignoring his advisers, in 1270 Louis IX again attacked the Arabs in Tunis in North Africa. He picked the hottest season of the year for campaigning and his army was devastated by disease. The king himself died, ending the last major attempt to take the Holy Land.

Ninth (1271–1272)

Main article: Ninth Crusade

Christian states in the Levant

The future Edward I of England undertook to crusade with Louis IX, but was delayed and did not arrive in North Africa until November 1270. After the death of Louis, Edward went to Sicily, but then went on to Acre in May 1271. His forces were too small to make much difference, and he was upset at the conclusion of a truce between the king of Jerusalem, Hugh, and Baibars. Although Edward learned of his father's death and his succession to the throne in December 1272, he did not return to England until 1274, although he accomplished little in the Holy Land.

Aftermath in the Middle East and North Africa

The Mamluks, led by Baibars, eventually drove the Franks from the Holy Land. During 1265 through 1271, he had driven the Franks to a few small coastal outposts. With the fall of Tripoli in 1289, and Acre in 1291, the mainland Crusading states disappeared.

Further crusading efforts lingered into the 14th century. 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. It succeeded in capturing and sacking Alexandria, although the crusaders did not stay in Alexandria. The Mahdian Crusade of Summer 1390 was a French-Genoese enterprise against Muslim pirates in North Africa and their main base at Mahdia led by Louis II, Duke of Bourbon. After a ten week siege, the crusaders lifted their siege with the signing of a ten-year truce.

Political Crusades

In November 1199 Pope Innocent III declared a crusade against his political opponent Markward of Anweiler in Sicily. Only a few people took part, and the need for the crusade ended in 1202 when Markward died. This is generally considered the first of the "political crusades" Between 1232 and 1234, there was a crusade against the Stedingers. It was proclaimed against peasants who refused to pay tithes to the Archbishop of Bremen. The archbishop excommunicated them, and Pope Gregory IX declared a crusade in 1232. The peasants lost the Battle of Altenesch on 27 May 1234 and were destroyed.

Emperor Frederick II was the object of several political crusades called by a number of popes. The first occurred in 1240 when Pope Gregory IX deposed and preached a crusade against Frederick, who was the papacy's opponent in Italy. A further crusade against Frederick was called in 1248 by Pope Innocent IV. This crusade was transferred in 1250 to Frederick's son, Conrad IV, with Frederick's death, although little was accomplished with this effort. Further crusades were called against Frederick's illegitimate son Manfred, King of Sicily, from 1255 through 1266. The papacy again preached a crusade against Conrad's son, Conradin, in 1268 with the urging of Charles of Anjou.

Two crusades appear to have been called against political opponents of King Henry III of England – one from 1215 to 1217 and the other from 1263 to 1265. The first episode enjoyed the same privileges as those given to crusaders on the Fifth Crusade. The second episode got as far as having papal legates being dispatched to England with the power to declare crusade against Simon de Montfort, but Montfort's death in 1265 ended this crusading effort. Another English crusade was the Norwich Crusade of 1383, also called Despenser's crusade, which was a military expedition led by Henry le Despenser, Bishop of Norwich, that aimed to assist the city of Ghent in their struggle against the supporters of Antipope Clement VII. It is regarded in hindsight as an extension of the Hundred Years War, rather than a purely religious enterprise.

Further political crusades took place against the Byzantines who had been expelled from Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade. With their recapture of the city in 1261, crusades were called by the papacy from 1262 through 1281 to drive the Greeks back out of Constantinople, with little result. The Aragonese Crusade, or Crusade of Aragón, was declared by Pope Martin IV against King Peter III of Aragon, in 1284 and 1285. Peter was supporting the anti-Angevin forces in Sicily following the Sicilian Vespers, and the papacy supported Charles of Anjou. Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed a crusade against Frederick, the younger brother of Peter, in 1298, but was unable to prevent Frederick's crowning and recognition as King of Sicily.

Hussite Crusade

Main article: Hussite Wars

The battle between the Hussite warriors and the Crusaders, Jena Codex, 15th century

The Hussite Crusade(s), also known as the "Hussite Wars," or the "Bohemian Wars," involved the military actions against the followers of Jan Hus in Bohemia in the period 1420 to around 1431. Crusades were declared five times in that period – in 1420, 1421, 1422, 1427 and in 1431. The net effect of these expeditions was to force the Hussite forces, which disagreed on many doctrinal points, to unite to drive out the invaders. The wars were brought to a conclusion in 1436 with the ratification of the Compactata of Iglau by the Church. In April 1487, Pope Innocent VIII called a crusade against the Waldensian heretics of Savoy, the Piedmont, and the Dauphiné in southern France and northern Italy. The only efforts actually undertaken were against heretics in the Dauphiné, and resulted in little change.

Popular lower class crusades

Main article: Shepherds' Crusade

Three crusading efforts among the peasants appeared in the middle 1250s and again in the early 1300s. The first, in 1251, was preached in northern France and after meeting with Blanche of Castile became disorganized and had to be disbanded by the government. The second, in 1309, occurred in England, northeastern France, and Germany, and had as many as 30,000 peasants arriving at Avignon before being disbanded. The last one, in 1320, had similar origins as the first shepherds' crusade, but quickly turned into a series of attacks on clergy and Jews, and was forcibly dispersed.

In the Balkans

To counter the expanding Ottoman Empire, several crusades were launched in the 15th century. The earliest was the Crusade of Nicopolis in 1396 organized by Sigismund of Luxemburg, king of Hungary. Many French nobles joined Sigismund's forces, including John the Fearless, son of the Duke of Burgundy, who was appointed the military leader of the crusade. Although Sigismund advised the crusaders to adopt a defensive posture once they reached the Danube, the crusaders instead besieged the city of Nicopolis. The Ottomans met the crusaders in the Battle of Nicopolis on 25 September 1396, defeating the Christian forces and capturing 3,000 prisoners.

Execution of Christian prisoners after the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396.

A further Balkan crusade was the Crusade of Varna in 1444 led by the Polish-Hungarian king, Władysław Warneńczyk. The crusading force invaded Ottoman territory and reached Belgrade in January 1444. Negotiations over a truce eventually led to an agreement, that was repudiated by Sultan Murad II within days of its ratification. Further efforts by the crusaders ended in the Battle of Varna on 10 November 1444 which, although resulting in a draw between the two forces, led to the crusaders withdrawing. This withdrawal led to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, as it was the last Western attempt to help the Byzantine Empire. Yet another crusade was that of 1456 organized to lift the Siege of Belgrade. It was led by John Hunyadi and Giovanni da Capistrano and resulting in the lifting of the Ottoman siege of Belgrade.

Northern crusades

Main article: Northern Crusades

Wendish

Contemporaneous with the Second Crusade, Saxons and Danes fought against Polabian Slavs in the 1147 Wendish Crusade, sometimes called the First Northern Crusade. The Wends defeated the Danes and the Saxons did not contribute much to the crusade. The Wends did acknowledge the overlordship of the Saxon ruler, Henry the Lion. Further crusading actions continued although no papal bulls were issued calling new crusades. Efforts to conquer the Wends began again in 1160 under Henry the Lion, continuing until 1162, when the Wends were defeated at the Battle of Demmin.

Baltic Sea crusades

Livonian Brothers of the Sword

A German religious and military order originally founded (1190) during the siege of Acre in the Third Crusade and modeled after the Knights Templar and Hospitalers, the Teutonic Knights moved to eastern Europe early in the 13th century.^{[citation needed]} Besides the Teutonic Knights, other orders were founded to crusade in Northern Europe, including the Livonian Sword Brothers, who were founded in 1202. The Livonian Crusade was proclaimed by Pope Innocent III against the Livonians who were mostly still pagan. The Livonians were conquered and converted between 1202 and 1209. A crusade against the Prussians was called by Pope Honorius III in 1217.

Konrad of Masovia gave Chelmno to the Teutonic Knights in 1226 to serve the knights as a base for crusades against the Prussians, In 1236 the Livonian Sword Brothers were defeated by the Lithuanians at Saule, and in 1237 Pope Gregory IX merged the remaining Sword Brothers into the Teutonic Knights. In 1240 the Battle of the Neva was fought, where the Swedes, attempting to extend the northern crusades to the Russians, were defeated. By 1249, the Teutonic Knights had completed their conquest of the Prussians, which they ruled as a fief of the German emperor. The Knights then moved on to conquer and convert the pagan Lithuanians, a process that lasted into the 1380s.

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.

Swedish

Swedish crusaders in Finland

National-romanticist Swedish and Finnish historians in the nineteenth century gave the name "crusades" to military expeditions which resulted in the Swedish conquest of Finland. The First Swedish Crusade, considered mythical by some historians, may have taken place around 1155. It resulted in the conversion of the Suomi peoples of southern Finland. The Second Swedish Crusade was proclaimed by Pope Gregory IX in 1237 and took place between 1238 and 1239 under the leadership of Birger Jarl. Another crusade, against the Karelians, was authorized by Pope Alexander VI, but came to nothing. The Third Swedish Crusade was led by Torgils Knutsson and was against Novgorod.

General

Role of women

Women were intricately connected with the crusades, aiding the recruitment of crusading men, taking on responsibility in their absence and providing financial and moral support. Historians argue the most significant role that women played in the West during the crusades was maintaining the status quo. Landholders left for the Holy Land leaving control of their estates with regents, often wives or mothers. The Church recognised that risk to families and estates might discourage crusaders so special papal protection formed part of the crusading privilege. A few women took the cross themselves to go on the crusade. For example, Eleanor of Aquitaine joined her husband, Louis VII and some non-aristocratic women were involved in tasks considered feminine like washerwoman. More controversial was women taking an active part, which threatened their femininity with accounts of women fighting coming mostly from Muslim historians with the aim to portray Christian women as barbaric and ungodly because of their acts of killing. Christian accounts portray women fighting only in emergency situations for the preservation of their camps and lives.

Criticism

Elements of the Crusades were criticised by some contemporaries. 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." Nevertheless the movement was widely supported in Europe long after the fall of Acre in 1291. 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 that "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". Against this, historian Thomas F. Madden has argued that the Crusades were "the West's belated response to the Muslim conquest of fully two-thirds of the Christian world".

One aspect of the crusades that shocked some easterners was the formation in the west of military religious orders. This violated canon law.^{[citation needed]} The Byzantines also complained that the Crusaders broke their promise to return lands that had once belonged to Byzantium, but failed to do so. In the Enlightenment historians criticized the misdirection of the crusading movement. In particular they pointed to the Fourth Crusade which instead of attacking Islam attacked another Christian power – the (Eastern) Roman Empire. David Nicolle says the Fourth Crusade has always been controversial in terms of the "betrayal" of Byzantium.

Legacy

Historiography

Main article: Historiography of the Crusades

During the Reformation and Counter-Reformation of the 16th centuries, historians saw the Crusades through the prism of their own religious beliefs. Protestants saw the crusades as a manifestation of the evils of the papacy, while Catholics viewed the crusading movement as a force for good. During the Enlightenment, historians tended to view both the Crusades and the entire Middle Ages as the efforts of barbarian cultures driven by fanaticism. By the 19th century, with the dawning of Romanticism, this harsh view of the Crusades and its time period was mitigated somewhat, with later 19th century crusade scholarship focusing on increasing specialization of study and more detailed works on subjects. The 20th century saw three important works covering the entire history of the crusades – those of Rene Grousset, Steven Runciman, and the multi-author work edited by K. M. Stetton. The 20th century also saw the development of the pluralist view of crusading, that saw the Crusades as not just confined to the Holy Land but inclusive of all papal-led efforts whether in the Middle East or in Europe.

Politics and culture

20th century depiction of a victorious Saladin

The Crusades influenced the attitude of the western Church and people towards warfare. The frequent calling of crusades habituated the clergy to the use of violence. The crusades also sparked debate about the legitimacy of taking lands and possessions from pagans on purely religious grounds that would arise again in the 15th and 16th centuries with the Age of Discovery. The needs of crusading warfare also stimulated secular governmental developments, although this was not always a totally positive development. The resources collected for crusading could have been used by the developing states for local and regional needs instead of in far away lands. The crusades impacted the papacy in a number of ways. Although they did raise the prestige of the papacy, the sheer effort required to support the crusaders took away resources that might have been better employed elsewhere. The crusades did increase the control of the papal curia over the entire western Church, by extending the system of papal taxation throughout the whole ecclesiastical structure of the west. The crusades also stimulated the development of the indulgence system that grew greatly in extent in late medieval Europe, later to spark the Protestant Reformation in the early 1500s.

The military experiences of the crusades had a limited degree of influence on European castle design; for example, Caernarfon Castle, in Wales, begun in 1283, directly reflects the style of fortresses Edward I had observed while fighting in the Crusades. The crusades otherwise seem to have had little effect on military tactics or organization, mainly because it was difficult to transfer the lessons that were learned in the Holy Land to the different terrain and fighting styles of Europe. 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.^{[citation needed]} The First Crusade ignited a long tradition of organized violence against Jews in European culture. The Albigensian Crusade was initiated by the Catholic Church to eliminate the Cathar heresy in Languedoc. The violence led to France's acquisition of lands with closer cultural and linguistic ties to Catalonia. The Albigensian Crusade also had a role in the creation and institutionalization of both the Dominican Order and the Medieval Inquisition.

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 gunpowder, oranges, apples, and other Asian crops, and many other products.

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]} The word "crusade" first appears in the L'Histoire des Croisades written by A. de Clermont and published in 1638. By 1750, the various forms of the word "crusade" had established themselves in English, French and German. The Oxford English Dictionary records its first use in English as occurring in 1757 by William Shenstone. 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).

See also

• History of the Jews and the Crusades
• List of Crusader castles
• Art of the Crusades
• Crusade cycle
• List of principal Crusaders

References

• Asbridge, Thomas (2011). The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land. Ecco. ISBN 978-0-06-078729-5. 
• Asbridge, Thomas (2005). The First Crusade: A New History: The Roots of Conflict between Christianity and Islam. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-518905-6. 
• Barber, Malcolm (1992). The Two Cities: Medieval Europe 1050–1320. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-09682-0. 
• Brand, Charles M. (April 1962). "The Byzantines and Saladin, 1185–1192: Opponents of the Third Crusade". Speculum 37 (2): 167–181. doi:10.2307/2849946. JSTOR 2849946. 
• Bréhier, Louis (1908). "Crusades". Catholic Encyclopedia 4. 
• Bull, Marcus (1999). "Origins". In Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Oxford History of the Crusades. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 15–34. ISBN 0-19-280312-3. 
• Dickson, Gary (2008). The Children's Crusade: Medieval History, Modern Mythistory. Palgrave Macmillan. 
• Edington, Susan B. and Lambert, Sarah (2002). Gendering the Crusades. New York: Columbia University Press. 
• Esposito, John L. What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam. 
• Hindley, Geoffrey. The Crusades: Islam and Christianity in the Struggle for World Supremacy. New York: Carrol & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-1344-5. 
• Hodgson, Natasha (2007). Women, Crusading and the Holy Land in Historical Narrative. Boydell. 
• Holt, P. M. (1983). "Saladin and His Admirers: A Biographical Reassessment". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 46 (2): 235–239. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00078824. JSTOR 615389. 
• Housley, Norman (2006). Contesting the Crusades. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1-4051-1189-5. 
• Jackson, Peter (2007). The Seventh Crusade, 1244–1254. 
• Kolbaba, T. M. (2000). The Byzantine Lists: Errors of the Latins. University of Illinois. 
• Lewis, Richard D. (2005). Finland: Cultural Lone Wolf. Intercultural Press. ISBN 978-1-931930-49-9. 
• Lock, Peter (2006). Routledge Companion to the Crusades. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-39312-4. 
• Madden, Thomas F. (2005). The New Concise History of the Crusades. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-3822-1. 
• Mayer, Hans Eberhard (1988). The Crusades (Second ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-873097-7. 
• Munro, Dana Carleton (January 1906). "The Speech of Pope Urban II at Clermont, 1095". American Historical Review 11 (2): 231–242. doi:10.2307/1834642. JSTOR 1834642. 
• Nelson, Laura N. The Byzantine Perspective of the First Crusade. 
• Nicholson, Helen (1997). "Women on the Third Crusade". Journal of Medieval History 23 (4): 335. doi:10.1016/S0304-4181(97)00013-4. 
• Nicolle, David (2007). Crusader Warfare Volume II: Muslims, Mongols and the Struggle against the Crusades. 
• Nicolle, David (2003). The First Crusade 1066–99: Conquest of the Holy Land. Campaign. Wellingborough, UK: Osprey. ISBN 1-84176-515-5. 
• Nicolle, David (2011). The Fourth Crusade 1202–04: The Betrayal of Byzantium. Osprey Publishing. 
• Pringle, Denys (1999). "Architecture in Latin East". In Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Oxford History of the Crusades. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 155–175. ISBN 0-19-280312-3. 
• Owen, Roy Douglas Davis (1993). Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen and Legend. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing. 
• Riley-Smith, Jonathan (1990). The Atlas of the Crusades. New York: Facts on File. ISBN 0-8160-2186-4. 
• Riley-Smith, Jonathan (2005). The Crusades: A Short History (Second ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-10128-7. 
• Riley-Smith, Jonathan (1997). The First Crusaders 1096–1131. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. 
• Rose, Karen (2009) "The Order of the Knights Templar"
• Runciman, Steven (1951). A History of the Crusades: The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades (reprinted 1987 ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Strayer, Joseph Reese (1992)). The Albigensian Crusades. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-06476-2. 
• Strayer, Joseph R. (1969). "The Crusades of Louis IX". In Wolff, R. L. and Hazard, H. W. The Later Crusades, 1189–1311. pp. 487–521. 
• Tyerman, Christopher (1988). England and the Crusades, 1095–1588. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-82013-0. 
• Tyerman, Christopher (2006). God's War: A New History of the Crusades. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. ISBN 978-067402387-1. 
• Vasilʹev, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich (1952). History of the Byzantine Empire: 324–1453. University of Wisconsin Press. 
• Villegas-Aristizábal, L. (2009). "Anglo-Norman involvement in the conquest of Tortosa and Settlement of Tortosa, 1148–1180". Crusades (8): 63–129. 
• Wickham, Chris (2009). The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400–1000. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-311742-1. 
• Zacour, Norman P. (1969). "The Children's Crusade". In Wolff, R. L. and Hazard, H. W. The Later Crusades, 1189–1311. pp. 325–342. 

Further reading

Introductions

• Andrea, Alfred J. Encyclopedia of the Crusades. (2003)
• Asbridge, Thomas. The First Crusade: A New History: The Roots of Conflict between Christianity and Islam (2005)
• France, John. Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1000–1300 (1999)
• Hillenbrand, Carole. The Crusades, Islamic Perspectives. (2000)
• Holt, P.M. The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517. (1986)
• Phillips, Jonathan. Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades (2010)
• Riley-Smith, Jonathan, ed. The Atlas of the Crusades (1991)
• Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam (2011)

Specialized studies

• Boas, Adrian J. Jerusalem in the Time of the Crusades: Society, Landscape, and Art in the Holy City under Frankish Rule (2001)
• Bull, Marcus, and Norman Housley, eds. The Experience of Crusading Volume 1, Western Approaches. (2003)
• Edbury, Peter, and Jonathan Phillips, eds. The Experience of Crusading Volume 2, Defining the Crusader Kingdom. (2003)
• Florean, Dana. "East Meets West: Cultural Confrontation and Exchange after the First Crusade." Language & Intercultural Communication, 2007, Vol. 7 Issue 2, pp. 144–151
• Folda, Jaroslav. Crusader Art in the Holy Land, From the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre (2005)
• France, John. Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (1996)
• Harris, Jonathan. Byzantium and the Crusades. (2003)
• Hillenbrand, Car. The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (1999)
• Housley, Norman. The Later Crusades, 1274–1580: From Lyons to Alcazar (1992)
• James, Douglas. "Christians and the First Crusade." History Review (Dec 2005), Issue 53
• Kagay, Donald J., and L. J. Andrew Villalon, eds. Crusaders, Condottieri, and Cannon: Medieval Warfare in Societies around the Mediterranean. (2003)
• Maalouf, Amin. Crusades Through Arab Eyes (1989)
• Madden, Thomas F. et al., eds. Crusades Medieval Worlds in Conflict (2010)
• Peters, Edward. Christian Society and the Crusades, 1198–1229 (1971)
• Powell, James M. Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213–1221, (1986)
• Queller, Donald E., and Thomas F. Madden. The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople (2nd ed. 1999)
• Riley-Smith, Jonathan.The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading. (1986)
• Runciman, Steven. A History of the Crusades: Volume 2, The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East (1952) vol 2 online free; A History of the Crusades: Volume 3, The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades (1954); the classic 20th century history
• Setton, Kenneth ed., A History of the Crusades. (1969–1989), the standard scholarly history in six volumes, published by the University of Wisconsin Press

Includes: The first hundred years (2nd ed. 1969); The later Crusades, 1189–1311 (1969); The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (1975); The art and architecture of the crusader states (1977); The impact of the Crusades on the Near East (1985); The impact of the Crusades on Europe (1989)

• Smail, R. C. "Crusaders' Castles of the Twelfth Century" Cambridge Historical Journal Vol. 10, No. 2. (1951), pp. 133–149.
• Stark, Rodney. God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades (2010)
• Tyerman, Christopher. England and the Crusades, 1095–1588. (1988)

Historiography

• Constable, Giles. "The Historiography of the Crusades" in Angeliki E. Laiou, ed. The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World (2001) Extract online.
• Illston, James Michael. 'An Entirely Masculine Activity’? Women and War in the High and Late Middle Ages Reconsidered (MA thesis, University of Canterbury, 2009) full text online
• Madden, Thomas F. ed. The Crusades: The Essential Readings (2002)
• Maier, C.T. "The roles of women in the crusade movement: a survey" Journal of medieval history 2004.

Primary sources

• Barber, Malcolm, Bate, Keith (2010). Letters from the East: Crusaders, Pilgrims and Settlers in the 12th–13th Centuries (Crusade Texts in Translation Volume 18, Ashgate Publishing Ltd)
• Housley, Norman, ed. Documents on the Later Crusades, 1274–1580 (1996)
• Krey, August C. The First Crusade: The Accounts of Eye-Witnesses and Participants (1958)
• Shaw, M. R. B. ed.Chronicles of the Crusades (1963)
• Villehardouin, Geoffrey, and Jean de Joinville. Chronicles of the Crusades ed. by Sir Frank Marzials (2007)

External links

• The Crusades, a virtual college course through Boise State University ed. by E. L. Knox.
• Crusades: A Guide to Online Resources, Paul Crawford, 1999.
• The Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East—an international organization of professional Crusade scholars
• De Re Militari: The Society for Medieval Military History—contains articles and primary sources related to the Crusades
• Resources > Medieval Jewish History > The Crusades The Jewish History Resource Center – Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem