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The Crusades were military campaigns sanctioned by the Latin Roman Catholic Church during theHigh Middle Ages and Late Middle Ages. In 1095 Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade with the stated goal of restoring Christian access to holy places in and near Jerusalem. Many historians and some of those involved at the time, like Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, give equal precedence to other papal-sanctioned military campaigns undertaken for a variety of religious, economic, and political reasons, such as the Albigensian Crusade, the Aragonese Crusade, the Reconquista, and the Northern Crusades.[1] Following the First Crusade there was an intermittent 200-year struggle for control of the Holy Land, with six more major crusades and numerous minor ones. In 1291, the conflict ended in failure with the fall of the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land at Acre, after which Roman Catholic Europe mounted no further coherent response in the east.
Some historians see the Crusades as part of a purely defensive war against Islamic conquest; some see them as part of long-running conflict at the frontiers of Europe; and others see them as confident, aggressive, papal-led expansion attempts by Western Christendom. Crusading attracted men and women of all classes. The massacres involved were mainly attributed as being caused by disorder, an epidemic of ergotism and economic distress.[2] The Byzantine Empire was unable to recover territory lost during the initial Muslim conquests under the expansionist Rashidun and Umayyadcaliphs in the Arab–Byzantine Wars and the Byzantine–Seljuq Wars; these conquests culminated in the loss of fertile farmlands[3] and vast grazing areas ofAnatolia[4] in 1071, after a sound victory by the occupying armies of Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert. Urban II sought to reunite the Christian church under his leadership by providing Emperor Alexios I with military support.
Several hundred thousand Roman Catholic Christians became crusaders by taking a public vow and receiving plenary indulgences from the church.[5][6]These crusaders were Christians from all over Western Europe under feudal rather than unified command, and the politics were often complicated to the point of intra-faith competition leading to alliances between combatants of different faiths against their coreligionists, such as the Christian alliance with the Islamic Sultanate of Rûm during the Fifth Crusade.
The impact of the crusades was profound, and judgment of the conduct of crusaders has varied widely from laudatory to highly critical. Jonathan Riley-Smithidentifies the independent states established, such as the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Crusader States, as the first experiments in "Europe Overseas". These ventures reopened the Mediterranean to trade and travel, enabling Genoa and Venice to flourish. Crusading armies would engage in commerce with the local populations while on the march, with Orthodox Byzantine emperors often organizing markets for Crusader forces moving through their territory. The crusading movement consolidated the collective identity of the Latin Church under the Pope’s leadership and was the source of heroism, chivalry, and medieval piety. This in turn spawned medieval romance, philosophy, and literature.[7] However, the crusades reinforced the connection between Western Christendom, feudalism, and militarism that ran counter to the Peace and Truce of God that Urban had promoted.
The crusaders often pillaged the countries through which they travelled in the typical medieval manner of supplying an army on the move. Nobles often retained much of the territory gained rather than returning it to the Byzantines as they had sworn to do.[8][9] The Peoples' Crusade prompted Rhineland massacres and the murder of thousands of Jews. In the late 19th century this episode was used by Jewish historians to support Zionism.[10] The Fourth Crusade resulted in the sack of Constantinople by the Roman Catholics, effectively ending the chance of reuniting the Christian church by reconciling theEast–West Schism and leading to the weakening and eventual fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans. Nevertheless, some crusaders were merely poor people trying to escape the hardships of medieval life in an armed pilgrimage leading to Apotheosis at Jerusalem.[11]
The First Crusade (1096–1099) started as a widespread pilgrimage (France and Germany) and ended as a military expedition by Roman Catholic Europe to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquests of the Levant (632–661), ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem in 1099. It was launched on 27 November 1095 by Pope Urban II with the primary goal of responding to an appeal from Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who requested that western volunteers come to his aid and help to repel the invading Seljuq Turks from Anatolia. An additional goal soon became the principal objective—the Christian reconquest of the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land and the freeing of the Eastern Christians from Muslim rule.
During the crusade, knights, peasants and serfs from many nations of Western Europe travelled over land and by sea, first to Constantinople and then on towards Jerusalem. The Crusaders arrived at Jerusalem, launched an assault on the city, and captured it in July 1099, massacring many of the city's Muslim, Christian, and Jewish inhabitants. They also established the crusader states of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Edessa.
Because the First Crusade was largely concerned with Jerusalem, a city which had not been under Christian dominion for 461 years, and the crusader army had refused to return the land to the control of the Byzantine Empire, the status of the First Crusade as defensive or as aggressive in nature remains controversial.
The First Crusade was part of the Christian response to the Muslim conquests, and was followed by the Second to the Ninth Crusades, but the gains made lasted for less than 200 years. It was also the first major step towards reopening international trade in the West since the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
The Second Crusade (1145–1149) was the second major crusade launched from Europe. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa the previous year to the forces of Zengi. The county had been founded during the First Crusade (1096–1099) by Baldwin of Boulogne in 1098. While it was the first Crusader state to be founded, it was also the first to fall.
The Second Crusade was announced by Pope Eugene III, and was the first of the crusades to be led by European kings, namely Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, with help from a number of other European nobles. The armies of the two kings marched separately across Europe. After crossingByzantine territory into Anatolia, both armies were separately defeated by the Seljuq Turks. The main Western Christian source, Odo of Deuil, and Syriac Christian sources claim that the Byzantine emperorManuel I Comnenus secretly hindered the crusaders' progress, particularly in Anatolia where he is alleged to have deliberately ordered Turks to attack them. Louis and Conrad and the remnants of their armies reached Jerusalem and, in 1148, participated in an ill-advised attack on Damascus. The crusade in the east was a failure for the crusaders and a great victory for the Muslims. It would ultimately have a key influence on the fall of Jerusalem and give rise to the Third Crusade at the end of the 12th century.
The only success of the Second Crusade came to a combined force of 13,000 Flemish, Frisian, Norman, English, Scottish, and German crusaders in 1147. Travelling from England, by ship, to theHoly Land, the army stopped and helped the smaller (7,000) Portuguese army in the capture of Lisbon, expelling its Moorish occupants.
The Third Crusade (1189–1192), also known as the Kings' Crusade, was an attempt by European leaders to reconquer the Holy Land from Saladin (Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb). The campaign was largely successful, capturing the important cities of Acre, Jaffa, and reversing most of Saladin's conquests, but it failed to capture Jerusalem, the emotional and spiritual motivation of the Crusade.
After the failure of the Second Crusade, the Zengid dynasty controlled a unified Syria and engaged in a conflict with the Fatimid rulers of Egypt. The Egyptian and Syrian forces were ultimately unified under Saladin, who employed them to reduce the Christian states and recapture Jerusalem in 1187. Spurred by religious zeal, King Henry II of England and King Philip II of France ended their conflict with each other to lead a new crusade. The death of Henry in 1189, however, meant the English contingent came under the command of his successor, King Richard I of England (known as Richard the Lionheart, in French Cœur de Lion). The elderly Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa also responded to the call to arms, leading a massive army across Anatolia, but he drowned in a river in Asia Minor on 10 June 1190 before reaching the Holy Land. His death caused tremendous grief among the German Crusaders, and most of his troops returned home.
After the Crusaders drove the Muslims from Acre, Philip and Frederick's successor, Leopold V of Austria, left the Holy Land in August 1191. Saladin failed to defeat Richard in any military engagements, and Richard secured several more key coastal cities. Nevertheless, on 2 September 1192, Richard and Saladin finalized a treaty granting Muslim control over Jerusalem but allowing unarmed Christian pilgrims and merchants to visit the city. Richard departed the Holy Land on 2 October. The successes of the Third Crusade allowed the Crusaders to maintain a considerable kingdom based in Cyprus and on the Syrian coast. The failure to recapture Jerusalem, however, would lead to the Fourth Crusade.
The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was originally intended to conquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, in April 1204, the Crusaders of Western Europe invaded and sacked the Orthodox Christian city of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. This is seen as one of the final acts in the Great Schism between the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church, and a key turning point in the decline of the empire and of Christianity in the Near East.
The crusaders established the short-lived Latin Empire (1204–1261) and other "Latin" states in the Byzantine lands they conquered. Byzantine resistance in unconquered sections of the empire such asNicaea, Trebizond, and Epirus ultimately liberated the capital and overthrew the crusader states. The Fourth Crusade is considered to be the last major campaign of the Crusades, and marked an end to any further serious attempts at reconquering the Holy Land.
Crusades of the 14th and 15th centuries[edit]
Main article: Ottoman Wars in Europe
Further information: Crusade of Nicopolis
Various crusades were launched in the 14th and 15th centuries to counter the expanding Ottoman Empire starting in 1396 with 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 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.[186]
Further information: Hussite Wars
The Hussite Crusade(s), also known as the "Hussite Wars," or the "Bohemian Wars," involved the military actions against the followers of Jan Hus inBohemia 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.[187] In April 1487, Pope Innocent VIII called a crusade against the Waldensian heretics of Savoy, thePiedmont, 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.[188]
Further information: Crusade of Varna
The Polish-Hungarian king, Władysław Warneńczyk invaded the recently conquered 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, which was a decisive Ottoman victory, 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.
Further information: Siege of Belgrade (1456)
In 1456 John Hunyadi and Giovanni da Capistrano organized a crusade to lift the Ottomon siege of Belgrade