Third Crusade (1189-1192)
Third Crusade (1189-1192)
Three Kings. The loss of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187 came as quite a shock to all Christians in Europe. Immediately, a new Crusade was called. The Third Crusade attracted not only a large army, but also three kings: Frederick I (Frederick Barbarossa) of Germany, Philip II (Philip Augustus) of France, and Richard I (the Lionhearted) of England. Frederick left in 1189 via an overland route, but his force, decimated by disease, never reached the Holy Land. (The aged Frederick himself died when he fell off his horse into the Salaph River in Asia Minor and drowned.) The other two kings traveled by ship and arrived safely, but, once having arrived, they began to quarrel over their respective roles in the fighting.
Lack of Unity. Although they did succeed in retaking Acre and Jaffa in 1191, moving within sight of Jerusalem, Richard I and Philip II could never achieve the unified attack that was necessary to recapture that city. Finally, in October 1191, Philip II returned to France and began attacking Richard I’s territory there. A year later, in October 1192, Richard I also returned to Europe, but on his route home he was captured, imprisoned, and held for ransom by Leopold, the duke of Austria, whose banners he had insulted at the siege of Acre. The Third Crusade failed to accomplish almost everything it set out to do, although it included the best and brightest that the warrior class of Europe could provide.
Tenuous Hold. The failure of the Third Crusade sounded the death knell for the remaining Crusader States.
The resident Crusaders there still held onto these kingdoms, but their hold was tenuous at best. The arguments between Philip II and Richard I had caused quite a scandal in Europe, where the populace had become quite cynical of further crusading efforts. Although the rhetoric continued, in reality the Crusades were dead. Trade with the Muslims resumed, and those who were able to take advantage of that trade, most notably the Genoese and Pisans, profited greatly from it. The papacy, too, had lost face. Unable to deliver a victory in more than one hundred years, in 1197 papal control over the Crusades even became threatened by the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI, who prepared to lead an army to the Holy Land on his own without permission of the pope, Celestine III, and to declare all that he gained there as his own kingdom. However, he died suddenly before he was able to undertake the journey.
Sources
Hans Eberhard Mayer, The Crusades, translated by John Gillingham (London: Oxford University Press, 1972).
Jean Richard, The Crusades, c. 1071-c. 1291, translated by Jean Birrell (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A Short History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987).
Riley-Smith, ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, three volumes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951-1954).
R. C. Smail, Crusading Warfare, 1097-1193 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956).