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C h a p te r s ( h tt p s : //co l o r s t a te .g r l co n te n t .co m /we s te r n c i v p re m o d e r n /pa g e /c h a p te r s ) C h a p te r 9 : I s l a m a n d t h e L a t i n We s t I I ( h tt p s : //co l o r s t a te .g r l co n te n t .co m /we s te r n c i v p re m o d e r n /pa g e /c h9 ) C h a p te r 9 : T h e C r u s a d e s , 1 0 9 5 — 1 2 0 4 ( h tt p s : //co l o r s t a te .g r l co n te n t .co m /we s te r n c i v p re m o d e r n /pa g e /c h9 p g 4 )

The Crusades, 1095—1204

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns involving armies from the Latin West

whose purpose was to wrest Jerusalem and other areas of the Holy Land from Muslim

control. They began in the context of the political, religious, and cultural developments

described above. The papacy’s growing power made Pope Urban II’s speech at Clermont

a compelling summons to holy war, while the Peace and Truce of God movements had

helped promote the idea that medieval knights and soldiers could use their fighting skills

for legitimate ends. For many people, Urban II’s promise that their sins would be

forgiven through participation in the First Crusade appealed to popular piety, especially

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because Jerusalem represented an important pilgrimage site for Christians.

Monasticism also became entwined with the Crusades, as new religious orders were

established to protect Christian pilgrims and defend the areas which the Crusaders

sought to govern. The most famous of these new religious orders was the Knights

Templar, who took their name from the area near the Temple in Jerusalem where they

lived. Finally, the First Crusade offered the younger sons of feudal lords, and indeed

many poor and struggling people in medieval European society, the chance to seek

riches, power, and glory in the East.

Map of th e First Crusa de, 1095–1099.

Not surprisingly, then, the First Crusade (1095–1099) drew thousands of knights,

attendants, servants, and others who traveled across western Europe to

Constantinople. Alexius I Comnenus, ruler of the Byzantine Empire at the time, helped

supply the Crusader army for their journey across the Mediterranean, in return for the

Crusaders’ promise to give political control over the lands they conquered to the

Byzantine state. Another army made up of peasants, laborers, artisans, and other

commoners and led by Peter the Hermit, a lay preacher from France, also arrived.

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Anna Comnena, The Alexiad, Book 10 (pp. 249–250) (https: //www.fordham. edu/halsall/basis/Anna Comnena- Alexiad10.asp)

Inspired by Peter the Hermit’s preaching about the impending Day of Judgment and

religious fervor against non-Christians, this army had attacked Jewish communities in

the Rhineland and pillaged several towns in Hungary on their way to Constantinople.

Unlike the Crusaders led by barons and noblemen such as Stephen (Count of Blois) and

Bohemond (Prince of Taranto), Peter the Hermit’s followers appeared to be an

undisciplined rabble. Alexius’ daughter Anna Comnena (1083–c. 1148), whose chronicle

The Alexiad offered a history of her father’s reign, described them as follows:

The arrival of these multitudes did not take place at the same

time nor by the same road . . . Some first, some next, others after

them and thus successively all accomplished the transit, and

then marched through the Continent. Each army was preceded,

as we said, by an unspeakable number of locusts; and all who

saw this more than once recognized them as forerunners of the

Frankish armies.

The peasants who joined the “People’s Crusade” were

mostly slaughtered by Muslim Turks after Byzantine

ships transported them to Asia Minor. But the

barons’ Crusader army won control of Antioch,

Tripoli, and Jerusalem itself by 1099. Having

accomplished their goal, the Crusade’s leaders

ignored their agreement with the Byzantine emperor

and divided the conquered territories into four principalities: the Kingdom of Jerusalem,

the County of Edessa, the County of Tripoli, and the Principality of Antioch.

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Map of th e Crusa der States.

Governing and defending these Crusader states became the responsibility of the small

number of western Europeans who remained in the region, while much of the Crusader

army disbanded and returned home. Meanwhile, the Muslim forces who had been

expelled from the area regrouped and attacked the Crusaders’ strongholds, winning

control of Edessa in 1144. During the next sixty years, western European popes, kings,

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Crusades,

1204: A Concise Over view

Students (https: //www.youtube.com/watch? v=XQUMaWgumkU)

and knights launched two unsuccessful Crusades intended to strengthen their hold on

the narrow strip of territory where the Crusader states were located. This mission

became more urgent after Muslim armies led by Saladin (1138–1193) regained

possession of Jerusalem in 1187. Saladin (Al-Nasir Salah ad-Din) had emerged as the

political and military leader of Muslims in Egypt and Syria, and he harried the Crusader

states’ borders with increasing success. His conquest of Jerusalem prompted Pope

Innocent III (ruled 1198–1216) to summon another crusade.

Map of th e Crusa des, 1095–1204 .

The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204), however, was perhaps the most disastrous of these

campaigns. Pope Innocent III’s call produced only a small army of knights and soldiers.

When the crusade’s leaders could not pay for the army’s transport by Venetian ships

across the Mediterranean, the Venetians persuaded the Crusaders to attack the

Christian city of Zara, one of Venice’s commercial rivals. The Crusaders then turned to

Constantinople, which they besieged for a year until the city’s defenses fell in April

1204. The city’s inhabitants were slaughtered, its churches and palaces were destroyed,

and its religious relics were desecrated, as recounted by one Greek chronicler, Nicetas

Choniates (1155–c. 1215):

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Crusades: Crescent and Cross (https: //www.youtube.com/watch? v=gqLyqUwfBs8)

The Sack of Constantinople, 1204 (https: //sourcebooks.f ordham.edu/Halsall/so urce/choniates1.asp)

“The Crusades, 1095– 1291,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art (essay and images of artworks, sculptures, and artifacts) (https: //www.metmus eum.org/toah/hd/crus/ hd_crus.htm)

. . . How shall I begin to tell of the deeds wrought by these

nefarious men! Alas, the images, which ought to have been

adored, were trodden under foot! Alas, the relics of the holy

martyrs were thrown into unclean places! . . . They snatched the

precious reliquaries, thrust into their bosoms the ornaments

which these contained, and used the broken remnants for pans

and drinking cups . . .

Constantinople would remain under the control of

western European rulers until 1261, when Michael

Paleologus and his forces regained possession of the

city, restoring it to a

. The Fourth

Crusade thus represented a complete reversal of the

First Crusade’s success: the goal of recapturing

Jerusalem was never achieved, and the Crusaders

brutally sacked a Christian city (albeit one associated

with the Eastern Christian Church). Although the

Crusades would be celebrated in literature, art, and

poetry for centuries, their legacy for relations among

the Latin West, the Byzantine Empire, and Islamic

civilization was one of hostility and loss.

Review Questions

B y z a n t i n e i m p e r i a l d y n a s t y

( / w e s t e r n c i v p r e m o d e r n /p a g e /c h 8 )

Why did thousands of people join the First Crusade?

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