The Crusades: The First Crusade

The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II in response to a call for aid by the Byzantines. The resulting army swept through Asia Minor and into the Near East conquering several cities along the way. Upon the successful conquering of the region, the crusaders divide the land among themselves forming four crusader states: County of Edessa, Principality of Antioch, County of Tripoli, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. This takeover and dividing of territory is incredibly similar to what occurs in the fourth crusade. Upon conquering Constantinople in April of 1204, the crusaders proceed to divide the land among themselves much like they did earlier. They divided the land

The beginning of this Crusade was marked by the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin. He was a proponent leader that led with his hatred of people that were considered unbelievers, but he also had kindness and some would even say compassion towards some people. He was born in 1138 and died in 1193 at the age of 55. After Saladin had captured The Holy Land in 1187 the Christians once again made it their mission to recapture it. The Christians of the West did once again fail to retake the city of Jerusalem; their main goal in this whole endeavour. They were however able to capture the city of Jaffa and the city of Acre. What happened next was very interesting, after realizing that they wouldn’t be able to capture Jerusalem Richard “The Lion Heart” and Saladin signed a peace treaty of sorts, it was called the Treaty of Ramla. The peace treaty stated that Jerusalem would remain under the control of the Muslims but Christian visitors, pilgrims, merchants, etc were allowed to visit so long as they were

There were eight significant Crusades, which were sparked for many different reasons by many different people that left a lasting effect to the world. These years of bloodshed were led by men of power in order to gain control over Jerusalem at the expenses of others. Throughout the 11th to 13th century, nine significant crusades occurred. There were many other small crusades throughout this period, which continued into the 16th century, until the Renaissance and Reformation when political and religious climate of Europe was drastically different than that of the middle ages (CBN). The most successful of the rebellion was that of the First Crusade. After taking Nicea, the Anatolian capital of the Seljuks, the Crusaders captured Antoich in Syria and Jerusalem in 1099 (history bits). The success of these missions allowed Crusaders to establish permanent settlements

The Christian had a weak hold on the holy land for nearly a century when Saladin began uniting the Muslim armies. When the Christians and Muslims met at the battle of Hattin, the Muslims were able to win because of Saladin. This was the turning point for the crusades because three months later the Muslims conquered the city of Jerusalem.

It all started with Alexius Comnenus the Byzantine emperor, sending letters and an embassy to the West requesting military aid to combat the Turkish threat in Asia Minor. Alexius had inherited a weakened empire in 1081 Byzantium was under siege from all sides, primarily by the Seljuk Turks. Alexius tried everything including making peaceful negotiations with the Turks that involved giving up pieces of land in exchange for peace. However, despite his attempts the

The Crusades were a series of holy wars that began in 1095 CE. These wars were fought between Christians and Muslims to gain control over the sacred land. The Turks moved into the middle east during the early part of the 11th century CE. Most of the Turks served the Islamic armies and would invade land rapidly using combat forces. This alarmed the Greek emperor and caused him to seek out Pope Urban II and ask for mercenary troops to confront the Turks. The Pope called a council and had 300 attendees to show up. During this council, the Pope made a plea to free the Holy Land, which received an enthusiastic response. After this, Pope Urban II promptly waged war against the Muslims and took armies of Christians to Jerusalem to try and

Going against modern day religious beliefs, in 1095AD the Christians went to war to claim the holy city of Jerusalem, massacring the Muslims in a bloody attempt to worship their God. Pope Urban II’s speech at Clermont inspired by claims made by the Byzantium Emperor encouraged the Christians to partake in the First Crusade in an attempt to liberate Jerusalem. The religious and economic factors were the most relevant to cause this crusade, with some influence from desired political gain and little from social factors unrelated to religion. The immediate consequences were positive for the Christians and negative for the Muslims, but the First Crusade launched an ongoing conflict between the Christians and Muslims which had positive and negative consequences for both sides. There are a number of relevant modern sources which examine the causes and consequences of the First Crusade, but, while there are many medieval sources, they do not explicitly discuss the causes and consequences of the war. In order to fully comprehend the First Crusade, it is necessary to analyse the religious, economic, and political factors, as well as the short-term, long-term, and modern consequences.

7. The third crusade did not achieve very much, but was led by emperor Frederick Barbarossa of Germany, King Phillip II of France, and Richard the Lionheart of England. Along the way Barabossa died, Phillip returned to England, and Richard the Lionheart never captured Jerusalem. In the end Richard the Lionheart made a truce between Saladin, Saladin kept Jerusalem and granted Christians the right to visit the city and their

The First Crusade took place from 1096 to 1099. When the Byzantine army was defeated by the Seljuk Turks at the battle of Manzikirt, this created an outburst of chaos and civil war within themselves. When Alexius Comnemus took the throne, she decided to send Pope Urban II a letter asking for help. Pope Urban made a speech declaring the call for a Crusade to fight against the Seljuk Turks. Urban asked Christians to join forces to work to free the Holy Land from Muslim invaders.

The First Crusades was a military group that was started by Christians in Europe who wanted to gain back the Holy Land that was being occupied by the Muslims. Pope Urban II preached a sermon at Clermont Ferrand on November 1095. Most histories consider this speech to be the spark the fueled a wave of military campaigns to gain back the Holy Land. This speech was meant to unite the Europeans and to gain back what was taken from them. The holy land was a small area on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The First Crusades was a very successful military expedition that was driven by religious faith to reclaim Jerusalem and other holy places that fell under Muslim control. driven by religious faith. They wanted to gain back the Holy Land that was once theirs. Arabs and the Muslim Turks otherwise known as the Seljuk Turks were the Muslims that invaded and conquered land rightfully occupied by the Christian’s. Many European men, women, and children joined the Crusades and fought in the Middle East. Pope Urban II granted forgiveness of all sins to those who died in battle thus assuring them ascendancy into heaven. Which gave those who volunteered to fight assurance. Nobles and peasants responded in great numbers to the call and marched across Europe to the capital of the Byzantine empire. Having the support of the Byzantine emperor helped make them a stronger army. The Crusaders took over many of the cities on the Mediterranean coast and built a large number of fortified castles across the Holy Land to protect their newly established territories. Soon after seizing power the Seljuks face a very different challenge to Islamic civilization. It came from Christian Crusaders. Knights from western Europe who were determined to capture portions of the Islamic world that made up the holy land of biblical times. Muslim political division and element of surprise made the first of the Crusaders assaults, between 1096 and 1099, by far the most successful. Much of

Patrick Geary’s “Readings in Medieval History” contains four accounts of the invasion of the Middle East by the Europeans in 1095 A.D. These accounts all cite different motives for the first crusade, and all the accounts are from the perspective of different sides of the war. The accounts all serve to widen our perspective, we hear from the Christian and Middle Eastern side of the conflict. Fulcher of Chartres claims, Pope Urban the Second urged all Christians to intervene in the “East” at the council of Claremont, saying it was a sign of “Strength of good will”. (Readings in Medieval History, Geary, page 396).

By this time most of the crusaders had left to go home, and those who remained ad built four settlements. The purpose of these four settlements were to guard and govern conquered territory. These Crusader states were Jerusalem, Edessa, Antioch and Tripoli. However, the Muslim forces began gaining ground around 1130, and in 1144 Zangi who was the Seljuk general captured Edessa (northern Crusader states. By this time Pope Eugene III called for a second crusade, his call was answered by King Louis VIII and his wife Eleanor. Louis was a very religious man and he wanted to honor the first crusaders and his goal was to take the cross and expand the Crusader kingdoms. Unfortunately, Louis had very little military experience, but he still set out with more than 30,000 crusaders to recapture the holy land. This journey took five months because they traveled through France to Asia Minor. This wasn’t a good strategy because by doing this they would pass through Turkish lands and therefore put themselves in danger. The Turks took advantage of this situation by attacking Louis’s group (there were two groups traveling). Louis and his wife were able to survive but there were thousands of crusaders that were killed. Louis decided that best approach would be to abandon his army to look for a new route. His original route was Edessa but he took the way of Damascus (Palestine) because it was closer to Jerusalem. Nur Al-Din who was the son of Zangi (Turkish General), went to unite all of the Muslims in preparation for the war. Even though Nur Al-Din was determined to take back Jerusalem it was Louis who made the first move in 1148. Nur Al-Din had a choice to take Damascus and if he did so he would have more power, (Aleppo and Damascus were the eastern part of the Crusader states. The results of the battle was that there were thousands of Muslims that were dead, the Damascus ruler begged Nur Al-Din to send his army. Louis had to make a

The genesis of the first Crusade was a justifiable defense of the Byzantine empire when Alexius I Comnenus requested aid from the west to help push back the invading Seljuk Turks that have been applying relentless pressure during the late eleventh century.

In 1187 the muslim leader Saladin reconquered the city of Jerusalem. Then Frederick of europe, Barbarossa of Germany, Philip of France and Richard I mounted a campaign to rescue the city. This is when the third crusade was under way. The main reason the campaign was so successful was the capture of the port city of Acre. King richard got there on June 1191 to find a city under siege by a christian army. This is where Saladin came in his army was too weak to overwhelm the designers and too strong to be dislodged (remove from a position of power or authority) so Richard and the French King Philip slowly broke the city's walls to weaken the city's defences while simultaneously (at the same time)

It was Pope Eugene III who lead the second Holy crusade war against Islam. Establishment of the four-counties are the result in the first Crusade war; the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. On Christmas Eve, 1144, Zengi's troops took the capital of the County of Edessa and destroyed the oldest Crusader state. The fall of Edessa was because the county was weak, their population was low and they were frequent to attacks. The West reacted strongly to this disaster, and the result was the Second Crusade, preached by St. Bernard of Clairvaux and led by King Louis VII of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II. It was Pope Eugenius III that responded to this invasion of Edessa