When did the Crusades begin?
17416992#1
The Seljuk–Crusader War began when the First Crusade wrested territory from the Seljuk Turks during the Siege of Nicaea in 1097 and lasted until 1128 when Zengi became atabeg of Aleppo. At the latter date, the chief threat to the Crusaders from the east and north became the Zengids. The conflict was generally fought between European Crusaders and the Seljuk Turks and their vassals. The Muslim Syrian emirates occasionally allied themselves with the Christians against rival states.
Military history of the Crusader states
4412145#4
The term "crusade" used in modern historiography at first referred to the wars in the Holy Land beginning in 1095, but the range of events to which the term has been applied has been greatly extended, so that its use can create a misleading impression of coherence, particularly regarding the early Crusades. The term used for the campaign of the First Crusade was "iter" "journey" or "peregrinatio" "pilgrimage". The terminology of crusading remained largely indistinguishable from that of pilgrimage during the 12th century, reflecting the reality of the first century of crusading where not all armed pilgrims fought, and not all who fought had taken the cross. It was not until the late 12th to early 13th centuries that a more specific "language of crusading" emerged. Pope Innocent III used the term "negotium crucis" "affair of the cross" for the Eastern Mediterranean crusade, but was reluctant to apply crusading terminology to the Albigensian crusade. The "Song of the Albigensian Crusade" from about 1213 contains the first recorded vernacular use of the Occitan "crozada". This term was later adopted into French as "croisade" and in English as "crusade". The modern spelling "crusade" dates to c. 1760. Sinibaldo Fieschi (the future pope Innocent IV) used the terms "crux transmarina" for crusades in Outremer against Muslims and "crux cismarina" for crusades in Europe against other enemies of the church. Medieval Armenian term for Crusades — xacˇ‘e˘nkalk‘.
Crusades
185953#12
The Crusades arose as European expansion was growing at the peak of unified Islamic dominance. As the Crusades marked the beginning of conflict between the Christian countries and Islamic countries, some say that the so-called war on terror is a continuation of the Crusades. On September 16, 2001, in a speech, President Bush referred to the War on terror as a crusade. He said:
Perpetual war
10384511#13
Beginning in 1174, the Crusades Campaign is set several years prior to the outbreak of the Third Crusade, continuing into the Fourth Crusade and beyond. It follows the Kingdom of Jerusalem led by Richard the Lionheart and the Principality of Antioch led by Philip Augustus as they attempt to strengthen the presence of Christendom in the Holy Lands, whilst the Zengid Emirate led by Nur ad-Din Zangi and the Ayyubid Sultanate led by Saladin attempt to drive them out. Meanwhile, the Byzantine Empire led by Emperor Manuel Komnenos slowly moves into the middle east to regain its lost glory, and attempts to drive back the armies of the Turks as well as deal with the rebels and the Venetians that harass them in the west.Generals in the Crusades campaign have the ability to construct permanent forts that remain even after vacated by troops.
Medieval II: Total War: Kingdoms
17680947#20
It was in the 12th century that the passing Crusaders wrought havoc upon the Jewish communities of Byzantium, in a foretaste of what the later Latin occupation would bring upon the Byzantine Christians. Although most crusading bands did not adopt a policy of violence or forced conversion against the Jews, the First Crusade certainly undertook an anti-Jewish face in certain communities. Because the Crusade was undertaken with the goal of "subjugating all non-believers to the faith," many crusaders compelled Jews to convert on pain of death, and there is a large number of recorded cases of mass suicides within Jewish communities—particularly among Jewish maidens—in order to avoid such conversions.
History of the Jews in the Byzantine Empire
106128#34
Subsequently, upon the Crusaders' arrival, the city was subjected to a lengthy siege, and when Arslan had word of it he rushed back to Nicaea and attacked the crusader army on 16 May. He was driven back by the unexpectedly large crusader force, with heavy losses being suffered on both sides in the ensuing battle. The siege continued, but the crusaders had little success as they found they could not blockade the lake, which the city was situated on, and from which it could be provisioned. To break the city, Alexios sent the Crusaders' ships rolled over land on logs, and at the sight of them the Turkish garrison finally surrendered on 18 June. The city was handed over to the Byzantine troops, which has often been depicted as a source of conflict between the Empire and the crusaders; Byzantine standards flew from the walls while the crusaders were forbidden from looting the city or even entering it except in small escorted bands.
First Crusade
106128#24
At a local level, the preaching of the First Crusade ignited the Rhineland massacres perpetrated against Jews, which some historians have deemed "the first Holocaust". At the end of 1095 and beginning of 1096, months before the departure of the official crusade in August, there were attacks on Jewish communities in France and Germany. In May 1096, Emicho of Flonheim (sometimes incorrectly known as Emicho of Leiningen) attacked the Jews at Speyer and Worms. Other unofficial crusaders from Swabia, led by Hartmann of Dillingen, along with French, English, Lotharingian and Flemish volunteers, led by Drogo of Nesle and William the Carpenter, as well as many locals, joined Emicho in the destruction of the Jewish community of Mainz at the end of May. In Mainz, one Jewish woman killed her children rather than see them killed; the chief rabbi, Kalonymus Ben Meshullam, committed suicide in anticipation of being killed.
Emicho's company then went on to Cologne, and others continued on to Trier, Metz, and other cities. Peter the Hermit may have been involved in violence against the Jews, and an army led by a priest named Folkmar also attacked Jews further east in Bohemia. Emicho's army eventually continued into Hungary but was defeated by the army of Coloman of Hungary. His followers dispersed; some eventually joined the main armies, although Emicho himself went home.
Many of the attackers seem to have wanted to force the Jews to convert, although they were also interested in acquiring money from them. Physical violence against Jews was never part of the church hierarchy's official policy for crusading, and the Christian bishops, especially the Archbishop of Cologne, did their best to protect the Jews. A decade before, the Bishop of Speyer had taken the step of providing the Jews of that city with a walled ghetto to protect them from Christian violence and given their chief Rabbis the control of judicial matters in the quarter. Nevertheless, some also took money in return for their protection. The attacks may have originated in the belief that Jews and Muslims were equally enemies of Christ, and enemies were to be fought or converted to Christianity. Godfrey of Bouillon was rumoured to have extorted money from the Jews of Cologne and Mainz, and many of the Crusaders wondered why they should travel thousands of miles to fight non-believers when there were already non-believers closer to home. The attacks on the Jews were witnessed by Ekkehard of Aura and Albert of Aix; among the Jewish communities, the main contemporary witnesses were the Mainz Anonymous, Eliezer ben Nathan, and Solomon bar Simson.
First Crusade
16822#39
In the spring of 1218 the Fifth Crusade began in earnest when German crusader fleets landed at Acre. Along with King John, who was elected leader of the crusade, the fleets sailed to Egypt and besieged Damietta at the mouth of the Nile in May. The siege progressed slowly, and the Egyptian sultan al-Adil died in August 1218, supposedly of shock after the crusaders managed to capture one of Damietta's towers. He was succeeded by his son al-Kamil. In the autumn of 1218 reinforcements arrived from Europe, including the papal legate Pelagius of Albano. In the winter the crusaders were affected by floods and disease, and the siege dragged on throughout 1219, when Francis of Assisi arrived to attempt to negotiate a truce. Neither side could agree to terms, despite the Ayyubid offer of a thirty-year truce and the restoration of Jerusalem and most of the rest of the former kingdom. The crusaders finally managed to starve out the city and captured it in November. Al-Kamil retreated to the nearby fortress of al-Mansurah, but the crusaders remained in Damietta throughout 1219 and 1220, awaiting the arrival of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, while King John returned to Acre briefly to defend against al-Mu'azzam, who was raiding the kingdom from Damascus in John's absence. Still expecting the emperor's imminent arrival, in July 1221, the crusaders set off towards Cairo, but they were stopped by the rising Nile, which al-Kamil allowed to flood by breaking the dams along its course. The sultan easily defeated the trapped crusader army and regained Damietta. Emperor Frederick had, in fact, never left Europe at all.
Kingdom of Jerusalem
182917#13
Pope Innocent proclaimed the Fifth Crusade in 1213, with the "liberation of the Holy Land" (the reconquest of Jerusalem) its principal object. The first crusader troops, commanded by Leopold VI of Austria, landed at Acre in early September 1217. Andrew II of Hungary and his army followed that month, and Hugh I of Cyprus and Bohemond IV of Antioch soon joined the crusaders. However, hundreds of crusaders soon returned to Europe because of a famine following the previous year's poor harvest. A war council was held in the tent of Andrew II, who considered himself the supreme commander of the crusader army. Other leaders, particularly John, did not acknowledge Andrew's leadership. The crusaders raided nearby territory ruled by Al-Adil I for food and fodder, forcing the sultan to retreat in November 1217. In December John besieged the Ayyubid fortress on Mount Tabor, joined only by Bohemond IV of Antioch. He was unable to capture it, which "encouraged the infidel", according to the contemporary Jacques de Vitry.
John of Brienne
1197020#2
Pope Urban II planned the departure of the crusade for 15 August 1096; a number of unexpected bands of peasants and low-ranking knights organized and set off for Jerusalem on their own. The peasant population had been afflicted by drought, famine, and disease for many years before 1096, and some of them seem to have envisioned the crusade as an escape from these hardships. Spurring them on had been a number of meteorological occurrences beginning in 1095 that seemed to be a divine blessing for the movement: a meteor shower, aurorae, a lunar eclipse, and a comet, among other events. An outbreak of ergotism had also occurred just before the Council of Clermont. Millenarianism, the belief that the end of the world was imminent, popular in the early 11th century, experienced a resurgence in popularity. The response was beyond expectations: while Urban might have expected a few thousand knights, he ended up with a migration numbering up to 100,000 Crusaders of mostly unskilled fighters, including women and children.
People's Crusade
725516#16
During the time of the Crusades, some of those who fought in the name of God were recognized as the "Milites Christi", soldiers or knights of Christ.
The Crusades were a series of military campaigns that took place during the 11th through 13th centuries against the Muslim Conquests. Originally, the goal was to recapture Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the Muslims, and support the besieged Christian Byzantine Empire against the Muslim Seljuq expansion into Asia Minor and Europe proper. Later, Crusades were launched against other targets, either for religious reasons, such as the Albigensian Crusade, the Northern Crusades, or because of political conflict, such as the Aragonese Crusade. In 1095, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II raised the level of war from "bellum iustum" ("just war"), to "bellum sacrum" ("holy war"). In 16th-century France there was a succession of wars between Roman Catholics and Protestants (Hugenots primarily), known as the French Wars of Religion. In the first half of the 17th century, the German states, Scandinavia (Sweden, primarily) and Poland were beset by religious warfare in the Thirty Years War. Roman Catholicism and Protestantism figured in the opposing sides of this conflict, though Catholic France did take the side of the Protestants but purely for political reasons.
Religious war