History of the Crusades

The word "crusade" emerged from the Romance languages of Europe, especially French and Spanish, during the Middle Ages—the era in Europe roughly from the years 500 to 1500, often called the medieval period. (These languages are called Romance languages not because they are "romantic" but because they evolved from southern Europe and the region around Rome.) The Old French word crois and the Spanish cruz mean "cross." From these words came the French croisée and the Spanish cruzada. Both of these words mean something like "to take up the cross," and the connotation (intended significance) of both was that the cross was that on which Christ was crucified. The English word "crusade" developed from these words.

That is "crusade" with a small "c." With a capital "C," the term "Crusades" has a more specific meaning. Historians use it to refer to the series of military campaigns launched by the Christian countries of western Europe beginning in the late eleventh century. During these campaigns tens of thousands of men, and even some women, "took up the cross" for the church. As a sign of their vow to their faith, they pledged to wear a large Christian
cross embroidered on their armor and shields. Their goal was to recapture Palestine from the hands of the Muslims and restore it to Christian control. The chief focus of the Crusaders was the Holy City of Jerusalem (see Chapter 2 on the Holy City of Jerusalem), but the impact of the Crusades was felt throughout that region of the world as well as throughout Europe.

Historians conventionally number the Crusades. The First Crusade was launched in late 1095 and ended with the capture of Jerusalem in 1099. The last, or the Seventh, Crusade ended in 1250, although the Crusader presence in the region did not end until the fall of the last Christian outpost, Acre, in 1291. Historians identify seven separate Crusades, but the Crusades were a single extended conflict that was fought in waves or stages over nearly two centuries.

The sermon at Clermont

Pope Urban II's first step after receiving the Byzantine emperor Alexius's appeal for help in liberating the Holy Land (see "A Cry for Help" in Chapter 4) was to plan a church council in Clermont, a city in the south-central French province of Auvergne. The council took place in November 1095. Late in the day on November 27, a crowd began to assemble in a field outside Clermont. Many of those in the crowd were bishops, barons (noblemen), and Frankish knights (that is, knights from the Frankish empire, or France). Many others were simple townsfolk and people from the surrounding countryside.

The pope ascended a large elevated platform and began to preach a sermon. Playing expertly on his listeners' emotions, Urban told them about bloodshed in the East, about atrocities (acts of violence) committed by Muslims against Christians. He inflamed his audience by pointing out that these evils were committed not only against Eastern Orthodox Christians (members of the eastern branch of Christianity) but also against pilgrims from the West who were visiting the Holy Land. He painted a picture of the holy city of Jerusalem in the hands of infidels (unbelievers), who were desecrating, or violating and damaging, places sacred to all Christians. Most important, he called on his listeners, especially the Frankish knights, to come to the aid of their Christian brothers and free the city of Jerusalem, including the tomb of Christ, from the infidel. The crowd responded enthusiastically, chanting "God wills it!" The knights and nobles fell to their knees. They proclaimed their allegiance to the pope and vowed to fight in his holy cause. "God wills it!" became a battle cry during the Crusades.

On that chilly afternoon in Clermont, the First Crusade began. For the next nine months, Urban traveled across France, preaching the Crusade. His appeal met with overwhelming popular approval. All through Europe—but especially in France, Germany, and Italy—priests, monks, and bishops signed up recruits, who saw in the pope's appeal a chance to win salvation for their souls. A kind of religious frenzy affected many people of Europe. Warfare came to be seen as a way to serve God.

The First Crusade

From August through October 1096 groups of trained troops, each under the command of a noble, departed from Europe. Most were from France, although significant numbers were from Germany and Italy. The first group, under the command of a noble named Hugh of Vermandois, arrived at Constantinople in October. This group was followed by others through the winter and into the spring of 1097, including those led by the brothers Godfrey, Eustace, and Baldwin from France and a contingent from Italy led by Bohemond of Taranto.

The road to Jerusalem

The relationship between the western knights and the Byzantines was tense. The Byzantines had already had to deal with the People's Crusade (see "Religious Hysteria" in Chapter 4) and were inclined to think of the westerners as crude, ignorant barbarians. For their part, the western knights regarded the Byzantines as soft. Despite these tensions, the European and Byzantine forces cooperated, at least for a while. The combined army of Crusaders and Greeks, numbering perhaps sixty thousand, stood assembled at the extreme western edge of Asia Minor in Anatolia (a region in western Turkey). Its first objective was Nicaea, a strategically valuable city located just across the Bosphorus Strait from Constantinople. Nicaea was a Turkish sultanate (a region or country ruled by a Muslim sultan, or king) under the command of Kilij Arslan. Arslan was the commander who had destroyed the People's Crusade.

The Crusaders suffered heavy casualties in a battle with Arslan's forces, but their formations held, and the Turks had to withdraw. In May the Crusaders and Byzantines laid siege to Nicaea, which surrendered to Alexius on June 19, 1097. Flushed with success, the Crusaders, now about 700 miles (1,127 kilometers) from the Holy Land and expecting to get there in six weeks, turned their attention to the next city on the route, Dorylaeum. Arslan, though, had different ideas and planned an ambush along their way. Again, despite heavy losses, the Crusader formations held, and the Turks withdrew. The road to Jerusalem seemed clear.

The siege of Antioch

The Crusaders set out for Antioch, a city on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Antioch was a large city that controlled the overland route into Syria and thus to Jerusalem, so it was a key objective for the Crusaders.

The Crusaders arrived at Antioch in October and laid siege to the heavily fortified city. (To "lay siege" means to surround a fortified city or castle, cut off supplies from the outside, and hope to starve those inside into surrendering.) The task was daunting, for the city was surrounded by 25 miles (40 kilometers) of walls and 400 towers. As weeks turned into months, the Crusaders ran out of money and food. Many of the poorer Crusaders died of starvation. Convinced that the situation was hopeless, the few Byzantine troops who had remained with the Crusaders returned to Constantinople. Many of the Crusaders deserted, often fleeing under cover of night. On June 3, 1098, after seven months, the siege finally succeeded after Bohemond discovered a corrupt, discontented guard who secretly admitted the Crusaders to the city.

The miracle at Antioch

Word had reached the Crusaders that a massive Turkish army was approaching Antioch to come to its defense. The situation seemed desperate. After seven months of siege, little food was left in the city. The Crusaders, now themselves trapped inside the city's walls, were nearly delirious with starvation and despair.

When matters stood at their most desperate, a common foot soldier by the name of Peter Bartholomew met with Raymond of Toulouse, one of the leaders of the First Crusade, and Pope Urban's representative, the bishop of Le Puy, and claimed that he had had a vision in which Saint Andrew revealed to him the location of the Holy Lance. This was the lance that a Roman soldier named Longinus had used to pierce Christ's side as he hung on the cross—and it was buried, said Peter, under Saint Peter's Cathedral in Antioch. Raymond was doubtful, but on June 15 he ordered his men to excavate, or dig, under the cathedral. Nothing was found until Peter leaped into the pit and emerged with an iron lance. The Crusaders, inspired by their belief that the Holy Lance had been found, recovered their strength and were ready to do battle against the Turks.

Events took an even stranger twist as the Crusaders marched out of the city behind the Holy Lance and priests bearing crosses. As they approached the Turkish army, all on white horses and carrying white banners, the Turks mysteriously turned and fled. To the weakened eyes of the starving Crusaders, they seemed almost to melt away, like ghosts. The Crusaders believed that God looked on their cause with favor and had come to their aid with a miracle. The reality, though, was that many of the Turkish troops suspected that their commander was fighting not to defend Islam but to seize land for himself. So at the critical moment, they decided simply not to fight and withdrew from the field.

The Holy Lance

The discovery of the Holy Lance in Antioch during the First Crusade was almost certainly a hoax. What may be the true lance has been in the hands of various leaders, including the Roman emperor Constantine; Charlemagne ("Charles the Great"), the legendary Frankish king of the late eighth and early ninth centuries; the French emperor Napoleon in the nineteenth century; and the German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in the twentieth century. These and other rulers believed that the lance was a source of mystical power. After World War II (1939–45), American forces located the lance and returned it to a museum in Vienna, Austria, where it is housed today. Experts using the tools of modern science continue to investigate whether it could indeed be the actual lance that pierced Christ's side.

Onward to the holy city

Bohemond and Raymond quarreled over who was going to take charge of Antioch. Bohemond wanted it for himself, but Raymond remained true to his oath to Alexius and insisted that the city be turned over to the Byzantines. Food was still in short supply, and some of the Crusaders may have resorted to cannibalism (eating their comrades).

Perhaps the most ironic turn of events was that the Fatimids, the Egyptian Muslim dynasty that had controlled Jerusalem since 638, had regained control of the city the previous year. This was a key event, for it undermined the very foundation of the Crusades. With the Fatimids back in control, the threat to Christian pilgrims from the Seljuks, the Turkish Muslim clan that had overrun Palestine and seized Jerusalem, no longer existed. Christians again had ready access to the holy city.

The Crusades should have ended with the capture of Antioch, but a kind of unreason had taken hold of the remaining Crusaders. They had lived with their dream for so long that they could not give it up. They were driven by a passion for what they believed was a holy cause; a need to fulfill their Crusader vows; and a lust for Muslim blood, the spoils of war, and territory.

Over the next six months the Crusaders made their way south toward Jerusalem, now just 300 miles (483 kilometers) away. They met with little resistance along the way. Further quarrels erupted over who among the Crusaders would take control of such cities as Tripoli and Arqa. Finally, though, the Crusaders—about twenty thousand survivors—mounted a hill called Montjoie. They reached the top of the hill, and before them lay their goal. After three years of hardship and toil, of disease, thirst, hunger, and death, they set up their camps outside the holy city of Jerusalem. The date was June 7, 1099.

The siege of Jerusalem

The Egyptian sultan in control of Jerusalem was not overly concerned by the arrival of the Crusaders. Just the year before, he had taken the city from the Turks. He had at his command forty catapults that could rain death and destruction on anyone who tried to breach the city's walls (see "Siege Warfare" in Chapter 10). He knew that the Crusaders did not have any siege machinery of their own and that they could not build any, for he had ordered every tree within miles cut down. He also knew that they had little food and almost no water—because he had had all the wells outside the city poisoned. He was concerned about the lack of manpower at his command, but Egypt promised to send more troops by the end of July if he could hold out until then.

Once again, a seeming miracle gave a boost to the Crusaders. One day, a Norman knight named Tancred was leading an expedition searching for food and supplies when he happened across the mouth of a cave. Inside, to his astonishment, he found four hundred large abandoned timbers. The Crusaders quickly gathered the timbers and began to assemble towers for scaling the walls. Morale flagged under the searing heat of the summer, but it again was boosted when the priests led a barefoot procession around the city as the Crusaders sang and blew trumpets. The scorn and insults heaped down by the Muslims from the top of the city walls steeled the resolve (determination) of the Crusaders, who completed the towers just five days later.

On the night of July 14, 1099, the Crusaders began to move the towers into place, often while ducking arrows and firebombs from above. On the morning of July 15, Godfrey and his men had their tower in place against the north wall of the city. By noon they had constructed a bridge to the top of the wall. The first Crusaders leaped across and entered the city. They and their men opened the gates of the city, and the Crusaders rushed inside.

The massacre

What followed cannot be explained. Certain it is, though, that the Crusaders abandoned any adherence to the knight's code of chivalry, or gallantry (see Chapter 9 on knights and the traditions of chivalry). As they stormed the city, they were overtaken by sheer blood lust. They rampaged through the city, killing everyone in sight, including women and children. As many as twenty thousand people lay dead at the end of the invasion. They stormed al-Aqsa Mosque and slaughtered the Muslims who had taken refuge there. They set fire to the synagogue (Jewish house of worship) in which the city's Jews had taken refuge. They seized homes and any personal property on which they could lay their hands. Within days the stench of dead bodies had become so great that the few surviving Muslims were ordered to pile the bodies outside the city walls, where they were burned. It was God's will, the Crusaders believed, that they cleanse the holy city of unbelievers. When their thirst for blood was satisfied, they gathered in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to pray.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem

The first task that lay before the Crusaders was to establish a purely Latin Christian kingdom in Jerusalem and the surrounding area. They elected Godfrey as the city's ruler, but Godfrey declined to take the title of king, saying that he could not wear a crown in the city where Christ had been forced to wear a crown of thorns during his Crucifixion. He took instead the title Defender (or sometimes Advocate) of the Holy Sepulchre. In this role he was to rule over what the French came to call Outremer, meaning "the land overseas." Outremer encompassed not only Jerusalem but also the other cities the Crusaders had captured. These Crusader states included the kingdoms of Antioch, Edessa, and later Tripoli—all under the authority of Jerusalem.

The second task was to deal with the Egyptian army that Cairo had sent but that had not arrived in time to save Jerusalem. This army, which greatly outnumbered that of the Crusaders, camped at the nearby town of Ascalon. Before the Egyptians could begin an assault, the Crusaders marched out and launched a surprise attack at sunrise on August 12. They decisively defeated the Egyptians, putting an end to any further Muslim resistance.

Godfrey died just a year later, and the kingship went to his brother Baldwin, who was crowned king of Jerusalem on Christmas Day 1100. By this time, most of the Crusaders had returned home. As time went on, many who remained in the East adopted Middle Eastern dress and customs. Some even learned to speak bits of the Arabic language. The Europeans and their descendants began to establish business relationships and occasionally even personal friendships with the Jews, Greeks, and Muslims in the area. They undertook a massive building and renovation program (see Chapter 2 about the Holy City of Jerusalem). A French writer named Fulcher of Chartres, who chronicled the early years of the Crusades, wrote in A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095–1127: "We who were Occidentals [westerners] have now become Orientals. He who was a Roman or a Frank has in this land been made into a Galilean or a Palestinian.… We have already forgotten the places of our birth.… He who was born an alien has become as a native."

In time, an air of normality settled over the area, although Jerusalem and the other kingdoms were weakened by infighting. This state of affairs would last for about four decades. Then, in a development that startled all of Europe, Edessa fell to a Muslim Turk.

The Second Crusade

The few thousand Europeans who remained in Jerusalem and the other Crusader states—Antioch, Edessa, and Tripoli—knew that they were vulnerable to attack. But for nearly four decades, no one seemed prepared to step forward and lead the Muslims in an effort to expel the colonists from their land. Inspiration finally came from a Turkish leader named Imad al-Din Zengi, who in 1137 struck with full force at Tripoli, besieged the Frankish garrison (occupying force) that had taken refuge in a nearby castle, and gained control of the city.

In 1144 Zengi set his sights on Edessa, which was the weakest of the Christian kingdoms because of political infighting and a lack of manpower. He besieged Edessa for four weeks, finally entering on Christmas Eve after his men dug tunnels beneath the city's massive walls and set the timbers supporting the walls on fire. In a scene reminiscent of that in Jerusalem forty-five years earlier, Zengi's men slaughtered thousands of men, women, and children. Zengi, though, made it clear that his goal was to drive out the Franks. He ordered that the city's native Eastern Orthodox Christians be spared.

News of Zengi's triumph spread throughout Europe and the Middle East. This was the first time that the Muslims had reclaimed a city from the Franks. It inspired Muslims and terrified leaders both in the West and in Jerusalem. Jerusalem appealed to Europe and the pope for help. The driving force behind the Second Crusade was a monk named Bernard, the abbot of the monastery at Clairvaux in France. Bernard was known throughout Europe as a charismatic (magnetic and captivating) and persuasive speaker. Wherever he went, massive crowds gathered to hear him. Bernard believed that the fall of Edessa was a blessing in disguise. It would give a new generation of Crusaders an opportunity to win salvation by rescuing the Holy Land.

Bernard launched the Second Crusade on March 31, 1146. In a field outside Vézelay, France, he mounted a platform and delivered a stirring Crusade sermon. The large crowd was fired with enthusiasm, mobbing the platform to take the cross. Before long, two massive armies were assembled. The first, led by Conrad III, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, departed for the Holy Land in May 1146. The other, led by Louis VII of France, left in June. Their journey was not easy. When Conrad's Germans reached the area around Nicaea, Kilij Arslan's son attacked, wanting to avenge his father's defeat on nearly the same spot a half century earlier. By this time, the Germans were tired and desperately thirsty, and in the short battle that followed nearly nine out of ten soldiers lost their lives.

The remnants of the German army escaped to Nicaea. There they met up with the Franks, who themselves had suffered heavy losses at the hands of the Turks as they crossed Asia Minor. The combined forces then started to make their way to Jerusalem.

The fiasco at Damascus

The Second Crusade was a military and political disaster. Eager to engage the Muslims, any Muslims, the Crusaders turned on Damascus in Syria. Their goal was to strengthen the eastern borders of the Crusader states by seizing control of the city. This was a blunder so monumental that it has no explanation. Damascus itself had recently been threatened by Zengi's forces. It was the Christians' only Muslim ally. For its own protection, it had actually formed an alliance with Jerusalem to repel Zengi. By attacking Damascus, the Crusaders foolishly managed to make an enemy of the one Muslim city in the region that was inclined to be friendly toward the Franks.

The Crusaders left Jerusalem for Damascus on May 25, 1148. As the Christian army approached the city, the betrayed Muslim leaders there made an appeal to Zengi's son, Nur al-Din, a zealous proponent of jihad, or holy war, against the Christians. Even though al-Din himself had been threatening Damascus, the ruler of the city concluded that his only choice was to try to join forces with al-Din to drive off the Crusaders (see "Zengi, Nur al-Din, and Saladin" in Chapter 7).

Oddly, the chief protection that Damascus enjoyed was provided not by harsh terrain or other natural barriers but by groves of fruit trees. These groves stretched for up to 5 miles (8 kilometers) away from the city. The trees were planted close together, and each grove was enclosed by high walls of mud. The Crusaders were picked off singly or in small groups by archers on towers in the middle of the groves or foot soldiers armed with lances lurking behind the walls. The Crusaders persisted, though, and drove the Damascenes back behind the city walls.

Then the Crusaders committed a second blunder. Rather than holding the groves, they suddenly moved their forces to an open plain east of the city. The Damascenes, by now reinforced with refugees and soldiers pouring in from the north, retook the groves. Meanwhile, the Crusaders quickly discovered that there was no water on the plain.

At this point, under the merciless heat of the summer sun, they concluded that the odds of winning were bleak. So they packed up and began a humiliating retreat to Jerusalem. In all, the fighting had lasted about a week. Thus ended the Second Crusade, in stark contrast to the First Crusade. The Crusaders had succeeded only in weakening the Christian kingdoms, making an enemy of Damascus, and strengthening al-Din, who continued to march against Frankish territory in the Middle East.

The Christian response

Nur al-Din continued to nibble at Frankish territory, but he became preoccupied with fighting the Egyptian Muslims. Egypt was wealthy, but its politics were chaotic. The Crusaders were ready to take advantage of this weakness in the Egyptian dynasty. They turned their attention southward to Ascalon, a city that stood between the kingdom of Jerusalem and Egypt and the only city along the Mediterranean coast that had never fallen to the Franks. In 1153 the Crusaders launched a four-month siege of the city, which finally fell in July. The capture of Ascalon was a great triumph, the last one the Crusaders would ever know. For the next century after the capture of Ascalon, the history of the Crusades, from a western perspective, would be a story largely of defeat.

Meanwhile, al-Din was gaining his own triumphs. Damascus fell to his forces without a fight in April 1154. Suddenly, he found himself commander of a large strip of territory on the eastern border of the remaining Crusader states. He might have been the one who drove the Franks out of Muslim lands, but once again he became preoccupied with fighting the Turks to the north and then Egypt. By this time he was growing old and frail. Rather than leading troops in the field, he was spending most of his time in Damascus. He turned his authority over to his successor, Saladin. Saladin proved to be the most fearsome Muslim warrior the Crusaders ever faced. It was to counter Saladin that the Third Crusade was called.

The Third Crusade

Saladin is the common name given to Salah al-Din Yusuf (1137–1193), who by this time had surrounded the Crusader states as sultan of Syria and Egypt. During the Third Crusade and the centuries that followed, his was perhaps the one name of a Muslim warrior that became widely known in other parts of the world, inspiring a mixture of fear and respect.

The fall of Jerusalem

The Crusaders were in disarray throughout these years, roughly the 1170s and early 1180s. Internal divisions, infighting, and disputes over succession to the throne of Jerusalem weakened the Crusader states. At one point, civil war threatened the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Only one thing could hold the Kingdom together: an attack by Saladin, which would require the factions, or divided groups, to put aside their differences to preserve the kingdom. But at this point, a state of truce existed between Jerusalem and Saladin. The only thing to do, then, was to break the truce and provoke Saladin. This task fell to the Christian ruler of Antioch, a corrupt man named Reynald of Châtillon. After Reynald attacked a Muslim caravan, Saladin assembled an army of about thirty thousand regular troops and a large number of volunteers and declared war on the Crusaders.

Saladin struck first on July 1, 1187, at the town of Tiberias, located near the Sea of Galilee. Meanwhile, the king of Jerusalem, having learned of Saladin's intentions, had gathered his forces to come to the city's defense and was already on the march. On July 3 they made camp in the desert near the Horns of Hattin, two hills outside Tiberias. On the night of July 3, Saladin's men encircled the camp and set fire to all of the surrounding brush. The following morning, they attacked. Desperately thirsty and with smoke in their eyes, the Franks could put up little resistance, and most were killed or fled.

Saladin's victory at the Battle of Hattin was a turning point in the history of the Crusades. Saladin had just wiped out almost the entire army of Jerusalem, which now stood unprotected to the southwest. Meeting little resistance, he seized nearly every town along the route to the holy city, except for Tripoli, Antioch, and Tyre. Jerusalem fell without a fight on October 2, 1187. In contrast to the scene nearly nine decades earlier in the holy city, no massacre took place, although many of the city's Christians were sold into slavery.

Once again, western Christians were shocked by news from the Levant (the countries on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean). Pope Gregory VIII called for a Third Crusade, which met with an enthusiastic response from the people of Europe. Even before a Crusade was organized, volunteers were arriving by boat in Tyre and Tripoli from England, Flanders, France, Germany, Hungary, and Denmark.

The first organized European force left for the Holy Land on May 11, 1189. It was led by Frederick Barbarossa ("Red Beard"), the Holy Roman Emperor, who believed that the Third Crusade would be the pinnacle, or peak, of his long career as ruler of an empire that dominated central Europe. But once again, crossing Asia Minor proved to be a major stumbling block. The Germans were harassed continuously by the Turks, and they were dying by the thousands of hunger and thirst. When they arrived at the banks of a cool river in Asia Minor, Frederick could not resist plunging in, where he drowned. The German Crusade thus came to an abrupt end, as most of the remnants of Frederick's leaderless forces turned around and went home.

Saladin

King Guy and Reynald of Châtillon were both taken prisoner and delivered to Saladin at his tent after the Battle of Hattin. There, Saladin behaved in a way that contributed to his reputation. Gracious in victory, he offered the parched king a drink of water, which Guy gratefully accepted. When Guy tried to offer the goblet to Reynald, Saladin stopped him. Having extended refreshment to Guy, Saladin, by the rules of Arabic hospitality, was obligated to offer him personal protection. But Saladin had no inclination to offer the same protection to the treacherous Reynald. Reynald was taken from the tent, where, moments later, Saladin drew his sword and beheaded him. This type of act was typical of Saladin, who could be noble and generous one moment, and rash and violent the next.

This left the Third Crusade in the hands of two other European kings, Philip II of France and the newly crowned Richard I of England. Richard was born at a time when France and England were almost constantly at war, largely because of England's occupation of western France. When he came of age, he was knighted by the French king Louis, and he actually learned the arts of war fighting against the forces of his own father. After ascending to the throne of England, Richard
was now in the odd position of having to turn and fight the French, because half of the country was part of his domain. But he had been raised in the French court, where he had learned to think of the English as backward bumpkins.

Popular support for the Crusade was demanding that Richard and Philip put aside their differences to fight Saladin. Each knew that if he left his country to join the Crusade, the other would attack. The only choice the two kings had was to join forces to fight the common foe. To that end, they levied a special tax, called the "Saladin tithe" (tithe means "tenth" and refers to the custom of Christians of contributing a tenth of their income to the church), to finance what promised to be an expensive expedition.

The two kings met at Vézelay, France, where they assembled their armies. Rather than following the overland route that had defeated Frederick and others before him, they agreed to travel through southern Italy, Sicily, and Cyprus and arrive in the Holy Land by boat. By this time, Guy of Jerusalem had won his freedom from Saladin. He assembled a small army and joined the siege of the city of Acre, which had been going on for nearly two years as Christian forces tried to gain control of it from the Turks. Philip joined him first, followed by Richard, who landed at Acre on June 8, 1191.

Richard, Saladin, and Chivalry

A number of legends grew up around Saladin and his willingness to extend the hand of chivalry (courtesy) to Richard. In one battle Richard's horse was killed. Saladin believed that a king, any king, should not have to suffer the indignity of fighting on foot, so he called a truce and had two horses delivered to the English king.

On another occasion, Richard fell ill with a fever. Saladin, not wanting to defeat any other than Europe's best, sent his personal physician to Richard, as well as gifts of fruit and even snow from the top of Mount Ascalon to cool him. The physician's potion apparently worked, and Richard returned to the field of battle.

These stories may or may not be true, but they became part of the legend of Saladin and his relationship with Richard. They made Saladin almost as much of a hero in the West as he was in the Middle East.

Saladin hoped that quarrels would break out among the Crusaders, weakening their resolve. His hope was partially realized. After the city fell to the Crusaders on July 12, 1191, the question arose as to who was going to raise his banner over the city. At one point, Leopold, the duke of Austria, who commanded the handful of Frederick's troops still in the field, planted his banner in the city. Richard tore it down and threw it into a moat, an impulsive act he would come to regret later. Meanwhile, factions (dissenting groups) quarreled over who would rule the city.

At this point Philip, always more of a politician than a warrior, felt that he had done his duty to his church. After promising Richard that he would not attack western France, he returned home. He had been a reluctant Crusader from the start and took part only because he was pressured to do so by his nobles and popular opinion. The duke of Austria, as well as several other minor nobles from various European countries, also left, annoyed by Richard's impulsiveness and high-handedness. The Third Crusade was now entirely in the hands of Richard I, known as "the Lionheart."

Richard and Saladin

Richard departed for Jerusalem on August 22, 1191. He had trouble getting his forces to cooperate, for Acre was a lively city, and recently an entire boatload of prostitutes had arrived. Imposing tight discipline in the summer heat, he first approached the city of Arsuf, where Saladin launched an assault. Richard was able to maintain discipline, keep his troops in formation, and cut down the Muslim attackers. As a result, Saladin withdrew, badly beaten.

After the Battle of Arsuf, Richard easily took the nearby coastal city of Jaffa. He knew, though, that Jerusalem would be harder to capture. Further, he had received word that his brother John was causing unrest in England and that the country seemed headed toward civil war. Just as disturbing was news that Philip, going back on his word, was threatening to invade Normandy. Richard concluded that he needed to negotiate a peace treaty with Saladin.

Saladin responded by sending his brother, al-Malik al-Adil, to bargain with Richard. The terms of the treaty Richard proposed were extraordinary, and utterly at odds with the purpose of the Third Crusade, the recapture of Jerusalem. Under the treaty, al-Adil would marry Richard's sister Joanna. Joanna and al-Adil would jointly rule Jerusalem. Richard and Saladin would withdraw their forces and go home. Joanna, though, refused to marry a Muslim, and when al-Adil declined to convert to Christianity, the negotiations broke down.

For his part, Saladin, too, needed a treaty. His defeat at Arsuf had tarnished his reputation for invincibility. His troops were exhausted. Many of the emirs (Muslim rulers) who had joined him were growing discontented, and even the ambitious al-Adil was giving indications that he was open to negotiations with Richard. Saladin's coalition, based on religious zeal and popular resentment of the Franks, seemed to be falling apart.

Accordingly, the two reached an agreement in March 1192. Under the terms of the treaty, Saladin would retain control over Jerusalem, with the provision that any Christian pilgrim would be allowed to visit the holy city. A piece of the Holy Cross on which Christ had been crucified, which was in Muslim possession in the city, would be turned over to the Franks. The Franks, in turn, retained a ribbon of territory along the coast extending from Tyre to Jaffa. Holding on to these cities was important, for Europeans could then still pursue their commercial interests in the Middle East.

Richard was about to go home and had returned to Acre to begin preparations when Saladin's army inexplicably attacked and recaptured Jaffa. Richard immediately boarded ship with what knights he could muster (gather) and set sail for Jaffa. Some days after he and his forces made camp outside the city, Saladin and his army attacked. Richard and his small army successfully repelled the attack against seemingly overwhelming odds. It was this battle, perhaps, that cemented Richard's reputation as a brave and heroic commander. Finally, on September 2, 1192, Richard and Saladin signed the treaty that had been negotiated in March. On October 9, Richard left the Holy Land for England.

The Third Crusade had a postscript. As he was returning home, Richard was shipwrecked and had to take the overland route. His journey took him through the domains of the duke of Austria, the same duke whose banner he had thrown into a moat at Acre. Richard tried to disguise himself, but he was recognized at an inn in Vienna. The duke seized him on a charge of murder and turned him over to the Holy Roman Emperor, who held him for ransom (payment for release). Richard remained a prisoner for a year and was released only after a huge ransom was paid.

Richard believed that the Third Crusade had been a success. He strengthened the Frankish hold on the coast and ensured Christians safe passage to the Holy Land. Pope Innocent III, though, took a different view. Richard had failed to reclaim the holy city of Jerusalem. Thus, in 1198 the pope called a new Crusade.

The Fourth Crusade

At the time of the Fourth Crusade, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was ruled by a court in exile at the port city of Acre. The kingdom the court ruled was a small strip of land, at its widest about 10 miles (16 kilometers), that ran from Jaffa to Tyre. This holding, along with Antioch and Tripoli, represented the tattered remnants of the original Crusader states. Jerusalem, meanwhile, was under the control of Saladin's brother, al-Adil. On the throne in Rome at this time was Pope Innocent III, who believed that the pope, as God's representative on earth, should rule over God's entire earthly kingdom. He bullied and threatened the kings of Europe. He called for the submission of the Eastern Orthodox Church to Rome. And he became obsessed with the reconquest of Jerusalem.

Innocent's call for a new Crusade did not meet with the same enthusiasm that Urban II's call had. The nobles had seen how ruinously expensive earlier Crusades had been. To entice them, the pope devised a new way to finance the Crusade, a tax levied on all the clergy. The tax made it possible for a noble to earn a profit on the expedition. This potential for profit would entirely undermine the Fourth Crusade. Unlike the first three, which had been fought at least in part out of religious motives, the Fourth Crusade turned into a scramble for money and was the most corrupt of any of the campaigns to the Holy Land, which the Crusaders never even reached.

Enter the Venetians

In November 1199 the first Crusaders arrived in Champagne, France. From there, the leaders dispatched envoys (people sent on missions to represent the interests of someone else) to the great merchant city of Venice, Italy, to arrange transportation. Venice was ruled by the aging and blind, but still crafty, doge (or duke) Enrico Dandolo. For a hefty payment, Dandolo agreed to transport the Crusaders. He also agreed to provide fifty armed ships as escorts. In addition to a flat fee per person, based on an estimated number of men, the Crusaders were to pay to Venice half of everything they seized, whether land, money, or personal property. These terms were steep, but the envoys approved the arrangement and returned to France.

The Crusaders left France for Venice in June 1202. When they arrived, they were short on the price they had agreed to pay, primarily because not as many Crusaders were participating as had been anticipated. Early projections were that about thirty-three thousand men would join; in fact, only about eleven thousand arrived in Venice. Since the doge's price was based on the early estimate of the number of men, this meant that each of the Crusaders had to pay three times as much as he had expected to pay. The barons tried to make up the difference by selling off many of their personal goods, but they were still more than a third short.

The attack on Zara

To make up the difference, the doge offered a proposition. In the Adriatic Sea, not far from Venice, was an island town called Zara. Zara had long belonged to Venice but had recently pledged its allegiance to the king of Hungary. If the Crusaders would attack Zara and reclaim it for Venice, they could pay the money they still owed from any booty they seized in the city.

At first, the Crusaders were hesitant; Zara was a Christian city, and the king of Hungary supported the pope. Faced with little choice and running out of provisions, however, the Crusaders reluctantly agreed, and in November 1202 they attacked Zara. The inhabitants of the town hung banners with crosses over the city walls, trying to persuade the Crusaders to abandon their plan. Their efforts failed, however. The town offered little resistance and fell in just five days. The Crusaders plundered the city and divided half of the spoils.

Onward to Byzantium

On the day after Easter in 1203, the Crusaders, aboard Dandolo's ships, set sail to the east. Rather than heading toward Palestine, the fleet set a course for the coast of the Byzantine Empire and its capital city of Constantinople. Behind this change of plans was the doge. Just as the pope was obsessed with Jerusalem, the doge was obsessed with Constantinople and the trading profits that could be earned there.

Byzantium had been in decline since the death of the emperor Manuel in 1180. Ongoing warfare with the Seljuks had weakened the realm. One of Manuel's successors was a bumbling figure named Isaac Angelus, who was imprisoned by his brother, known as Emperor Alexius III. Alexius III annoyed the Dandolo, for he was giving more favorable trading terms to the merchants of Pisa and Genoa than to Venice.

Imprisoned with Angelus was his son, also named Alexius. In 1201 Prince Alexius escaped and fled to Venice, where he pleaded with the doge and the Crusaders to liberate
Constantinople from Alexius III. In return, he offered the doge a large sum of money. To tempt the Crusaders, young Alexius promised that the Eastern Orthodox Church would pledge its allegiance to the pope.

The Crusaders, their heads filled with visions of the loot they could carry away from the city, sailed to the port city of Scutari, just on the outskirts of Constantinople. As they invaded the city, its defenders fled, along with Alexius III. The doge released Isaac Angelus from prison and decreed that Isaac and his son would rule jointly. On August 1, 1203, the son was crowned Alexius IV. But the empire was almost bankrupt. Popular resentment was rising over the large sums of money Alexius had pledged to the doge and to the Crusaders, which he now had to collect from his subjects. Both the clergy and the people resisted Alexius's call for submission to the Latin church (the Roman Catholic Church in the West).

Meanwhile, a fire broke out that burned for eight days and destroyed a large part of the city. The population was incensed (angry), but the object of their ire (hatred) was Alexius, for bringing the Venetian fleet to their city. The people rose up in revolt; one of Alexius's most trusted advisers seized the emperor in his sleep and had him strangled to death. A few days later Isaac died. To the satisfaction of the citizenry, the adviser proclaimed himself Emperor Alexius V.

The sack of Constantinople

The Crusaders, though, refused to recognize Alexius V as the new emperor, regarding him as a usurper (someone who had seized power by force and without any right to it) to the throne. So on April 8, 1204, the Crusaders attacked the city. The Byzantines held out for a few days, but on April 12 the Crusaders breached the walls, Alexius V fled, and the Crusaders rushed the city. The scene was utter chaos as drunken Crusaders rampaged through the city, taking everything they could get their hands on.

The Crusaders were overwhelmed by the richness of the booty that surrounded them. Although the empire itself was nearly bankrupt, the church and the people held enormous wealth, and the empire had gathered treasures from every part of the known world. At the Cathedral of Santa Sophia (often called the Hagia Sophia), the Crusaders took columns of silver from the choir stalls, as well as more golden chalices (drinking cups) and silver candelabra (branched candlesticks) than they could carry. Throughout the city, they seized vases, utensils, and other objects made of gold and silver as well as precious stones, furs, silks, and money. They looted holy relics, remnants of objects that were held sacred because of their association with saints, and ransacked the emperor's sumptuous five-hundred-room palace. Much of this loot was still on display in Venice in the early twenty-first century. Visitors to the Cathedral of San Marco could see there, over the cathedral's entrance, the most famous piece of booty the doge took: the Quadriga, four magnificent bronze horses that Emperor Constantine had brought back from Egypt nine centuries earlier.

On May 16, 1204, Count Baldwin of Flanders was crowned emperor in a lavish ceremony at the Cathedral of Santa Sophia. Thus began what historians call the Latin Empire of the East, but the new empire was not destined to last for long, just fifty-seven years. Baldwin's subjects were resentful of his efforts to impose Latin Christianity on the realm, and the empire soon began to crumble.

The Fourth Crusade thus came to an inglorious end. Nothing further was said about the infidel, the holy city, or the tomb of Christ. The Crusaders returned home, many of them laden with riches. A few remained in the empire and ruled over small parts of it. The aged doge had increased his wealth and the power of Venice immeasurably. The last portion of the thousand-plus-year-old Roman Empire was no more. And the Saracens (the Europeans' word for Middle Eastern Muslims) still controlled Jerusalem.

The Fifth Crusade

Nothing would change with the Fifth Crusade, which was fated to be yet another disaster for Christians in the East. Jerusalem had signed a treaty with al-Adil, the Syrian chief who controlled the city, and for fifteen years peace reigned in the region. With the treaty due to expire in 1215, the king of Jerusalem appealed to the pope for a new Crusade.

The Lateran Palace

At the time of Pope Innocent III, the Lateran Palace (rather than the modern-day Vatican) was the pope's residence and the seat of the church. It is part of a complex of courtyards, chapels, and halls and includes a magnificent basilica.

The Lateran buildings are built on Lateran Hill. During the reign of the Roman emperor Nero, a strange legend developed about the origin of the name Lateran. It said that the name came from the Latin expression latitans rana, which means "runaway frog." Nero was insane, so insane that he once decided that he wanted to be the mother of a baby, and he ordered his doctors to make him pregnant. The doctors, whose only alternative was being put to death, made the emperor swallow a tadpole, which, they claimed, would make him "pregnant" with a frog growing in his stomach. The doctors then pretended to "bring forth" the frog in birth by administering a purgative (a substance that induces vomiting). Nero was so proud of the frog that he formed an elaborate procession to show it off through the streets of Rome. But when the procession reached the banks of a nearby river, the frog jumped into the water and swam away. Angered, Nero killed the frog's nurse.

Pope Innocent III was happy to oblige. He wanted to keep the crusading spirit alive, because doing so would keep the people under the control of the church. He called for a church council at the Lateran Palace in Rome, the first such general council in the history of the church. There, with hundreds of the highest-ranking clerics in attendance, he established rules for a new Crusade. The Crusade was scheduled to depart for the Holy Land on June 1, 1217. Innocent, though, failed to see his dream realized, for he died in 1216.

In the spring of 1218 hundreds of ships from Germany and France arrived at Acre, where King John was already planning the Fifth Crusade. He had concluded that the best course of action was to attack Egypt, the richest country in the region. He had been urged to take this course by Italian traders and merchants, who hoped to accomplish in Egypt what the Fourth Crusade had accomplished in Constantinople. They convinced John that if the Saracens could be driven out of Egypt, the Crusaders would be able to attack Jerusalem from the south, while other troops would be able to attack from Acre. John was never a very firm leader, so he went along with this ill-advised plan. Once again, a Crusade would be fought for commercial interests rather than for religious purposes.

The siege of Damietta

The first goal was the port city of Damietta. Seize Damietta, and the Crusaders would have control of the Nile River and all of Egypt. The Crusader fleet departed for Damietta in May and sailed up the Nile in August 1218. When they arrived at Damietta, they found a heavily fortified city, so they laid a siege that lasted until November 1219, when the city finally fell.

The siege at Damietta turned into yet another error in the series of blunders the Christians committed. The pope sent a personal representative, a cardinal (the highest-ranking cleric, or member of the clergy, other than the pope) named Pelagius from Portugal. Pelagius was a ruthless, severe man who had no interest in negotiating with the Saracens. His single-minded goal was to fight them. He believed that as long as any were left, they would continue to be a threat. His stubbornness would doom the Fifth Crusade.

As it was becoming clear to the Egyptian sultan that he could not hold Damietta, much less all of Egypt, he offered peace terms to the Crusaders. His terms were nothing short of astounding. If the Crusaders would pack up and leave, he would turn over the relic of the True Cross, and his brother, the ruler of Syria, would give the Crusaders all of Palestine, including Jerusalem. In return, all he asked was that trade routes between Egypt and Syria remain open.

The goal for which the Crusaders had been fighting for decades was within their grasp. All they had to do was to agree to al-Kamil's proposal and go home. But to the bewilderment of most of the Crusaders, Pelagius said no. In his refusal he was supported by the Italians, who had no use for Jerusalem. They wanted Damietta, one of the greatest port cities on the Mediterranean. A few days later, they got their wish when the city fell.

The Nile River

The Nile is the longest river in the world. Its principal source is Lake Victoria in east-central Africa. Flowing through Uganda, Sudan, and Egypt to the Mediterranean, it spans a distance of 3,470 miles (5,585 kilometers)—4,160 miles (6,695 kilometers) from its remotest headstream in Burundi. The river flows south to north, so traveling "up" the Nile means taking a southward route.

The Nile river basin covers an area of 1.1 million square miles (1.8 million square kilometers). While the Nile's waters in modern times are controlled by dams, at the time of the Crusades the entire basin would flood each year, leaving behind moist silt in which the next year's crops would be planted. It would be impossible to overestimate the economic importance of the Nile to the region and to Egypt, in particular. The only fertile lands in this otherwise desert country are found along the river basin, so it has always been a principal source of food and a major trade artery. The Egyptian pyramids and the Sphinx at Giza are located within view of the Nile.

In the summer of 1221 John and Pelagius set out from Damietta toward Cairo with a force of five thousand knights and forty thousand foot soldiers. On July 24 they found themselves confronted by the sultan's army. The Nile River was rising, and the sultan ordered his men to destroy one of the dikes holding it back. The rushing waters trapped the Crusaders in a sea of mud. As they stumbled about trying to escape, the sultan's cavalry cut them down by the thousands. Pelagius found a boat and made it back to Damietta, where he pleaded for peace. The sultan agreed to an eight-year truce if the Crusaders would leave. On September 8,
1221, the remnants of the Fifth Crusade left Damietta. Once again, the West had suffered a humiliating defeat without getting anywhere near the city of Jerusalem.

The Sixth Crusade

The Sixth Crusade won back Jerusalem without shedding a single drop of blood. Behind this remarkable achievement was the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, the grandson of Frederick Barbarossa. Frederick was the most powerful ruler in Europe at the time. He came to be known by the Latin expression Stupor Mundi, the "Wonder of the World." It was to him that Europe looked to finally win back Jerusalem.

Frederick had first taken the cross (made a vow to go to the Holy Land and free it) at his coronation in 1215, but for twelve years he did nothing. He wanted to lead a Crusade, but on his own terms and not out of submission to a pope. He had no interest in religious ideology (firmly held beliefs) or in defeating Islam. He wanted to extend his kingdom. For Frederick, adding Jerusalem to his realm would cement his place in history as the Wonder of the World.

Meanwhile, King John of Jerusalem was growing old. He knew that the throne would soon pass to his daughter, Isabella Yolanda. Like all the daughters of the Crusader kings, Isabella could inherit the crown but could not rule the Kingdom of Jerusalem herself. John had to find her a husband who would be suitable as king. The pope suggested a marriage between Isabella and Frederick, whose wife had recently died. Such a marriage, in a single stroke, would solve the succession problem, place a firm and skilled leader on the throne of Jerusalem, and likely persuade Frederick to honor his vow to lead a Crusade.

Everyone agreed with this plan, and in 1225 the wedding took place in Italy. Isabella, only fourteen at the time, was crowned queen, but the understanding was that her father would remain king until his death. Frederick, though, eager to seize power, backed out of the agreement and forced John to yield the crown to him. Frederick thus became king of Jerusalem without having set foot in the Holy Land.

Frederick's "reign" was short, for Isabella soon gave birth. Their son, Conrad, was now the king of Jerusalem, and Frederick could rule only as regent (a person who rules for a king or queen who is still a child). He knew the barons could elect someone else as regent whenever they wanted. He concluded that his only option was a show of overwhelming force that would bully the barons into submission. To that end, he first landed on the island of Cyprus, where he intimidated the nobles and even imprisoned the sons of the island's king. The king and his nobles, having little choice, agreed to support Frederick as regent for Conrad.

For years the emperor had been carrying on a correspondence with the sultan of Egypt, al-Malik al-Kamil. In these letters, many of them friendly exchanges about philosophy and literature, Frederick learned that al-Kamil had had a falling-out with the sultan of Damascus, his brother al-Mu'azzam Shams-al-Din Turan-Shah. Al-Mu'azzam was actually assembling an army to invade Egypt, and al-Kamil explored the possibility of forming an alliance with Frederick to prevent that from happening. Frederick's delay, though, almost lost him this potential ally, for al-Mu'azzam died, and al-Kamil did not see the new sultan of Damascus as a threat. By the time Frederick reached Acre, al-Kamil had lost interest in an alliance. But the new sultan of Damascus proved to be just as much of a threat to Egypt as al-Mu'azzam had been, so al-Kamil reopened negotiations with Frederick.

Al-Kamil, though, needed to save face with other Muslim leaders. Ever the skilled diplomat, Frederick agreed to help al-Kamil stage an elaborate charade. Frederick marched his army of three thousand knights in one direction, al-Kamil marched toward them, and when the two armies met, the two commanders sat down to "negotiate," though they had already agreed on terms.

On February 18, 1229, the two met in Jaffa and signed a treaty. Under the terms of the Treaty of Jaffa, al-Kamil agreed to hand over Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth, as well as a strip of land that would give Jerusalem access to the sea. In return, Muslims would be allowed free access to Jerusalem, and Muslim holy places in the city would remain in Muslim hands. With the stroke of a pen, Jerusalem was finally restored to Christians. It was one of the few occasions when diplomacy (negotiations) would replace the sword.

The treaty was condemned by all sides. Muslims throughout the region were angered that al-Kamil had given up Jerusalem without a fight. Some of the more bloodthirsty Crusaders were angry because they were denied the opportunity to kill Saracens. Frederick, however, brushed aside these objections. He was determined to be crowned king of Jerusalem, but when he entered the city on March 17, 1229, everyone ignored him. The next day, Frederick went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and declared himself king. The only people who witnessed the ceremony were his own troops.

Frederick returned to Acre, where he found that many of the barons were conspiring against him. Then word reached him that the pope had assembled an army to invade Frederick's territory in the south of Italy. Frederick knew that he had to go to defend his realm. After replacing the Franks who had ruled in the Crusader states for so long with as many Germans as he could, he departed from Acre on May 1, 1229. Scorned by most of Acre's population, he tried to sneak out early in the morning. As he passed through a section of the town called the Butcher's Quarter, the butchers recognized him and ran after him, pelting him with fish guts.

The Seventh Crusade

The Treaty of Jaffa called for ten years of peace, but the Franks spent those ten years in a state of near civil war, further weakening their hold on Outremer. Then, in 1244, another clan of Muslim Turks, the Khwarismians, attacked Jerusalem, leaving few Christian survivors. The desperate Franks tried to form an alliance with the Syrian Muslims to drive the Turks out, but the Turks, in concert with the Egyptians, decisively defeated them in the Battle of Harbiyah in October of that year.

The response in Europe was the Seventh Crusade, which was led by the extremely devout (religious) King Louis IX of France. Louis left Europe in the summer of 1248 and arrived in the Holy Land with his army in 1249. He easily recaptured Damietta in June. Then he marched south on the city of Mansurah. He laid siege to the city, but on February 8, 1250, the Egyptian forces attacked, cutting off the Crusaders' supply routes. Louis held out until April, but his troops were starving, and Louis himself was ill. The Crusaders tried to retreat, but the Egyptians pursued them until Louis was forced to surrender. Louis and his knights were taken captive, but eventually they were ransomed and returned to Europe. Louis ransomed himself by returning Damietta.

Once again, a Crusade to save the Holy Land had failed, and the Crusaders never came near their goal. Europe was growing sick of crusading, few western Christians remained in the region, and all that remained was for those last few to be driven out.

For More Information

Books

Billings, Malcolm. The Crusades: Five Centuries of Holy Wars. New York: Sterling, 1996.

Fulcher of Chartres. A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095–1127. Translated by Frances Rita Ryan. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1969.

Hamilton, Franklin. The Crusades. New York: Dial Press, 1965.

Jones, Terry, and Alan Ereira. Crusades. New York: Facts on File, 1995.

Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades: A Short History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987.

Runciman, Steven. A History of the Crusades. 3 vols. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1951–1954.

Web Sites

Madden, Thomas F. "The Real History of the Crusades." Catholic Educator'sResource Center.http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0055.html (accessed on August 11, 2004).