Crusades

For other uses, see Crusade (disambiguation) and Crusader (disambiguation).

The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were intended to recover Jerusalem and its surrounding area from Islamic rule. Concurrent military activities in the Iberian Peninsula against the Moors (the Reconquista) and in northern Europe against pagan Slavic tribes (the Northern Crusades) also became known as crusades. Through the 15th century, other church-sanctioned crusades were fought against heretical Christian sects, against the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, to combat paganism and heresy, and for political reasons. Unsanctioned by the church, Popular Crusades of ordinary citizens were also frequent. Beginning with the First Crusade which resulted in the recovery of Jerusalem in 1099, dozens of Crusades were fought, providing a focal point of European history for centuries.

In 1095, Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont. He encouraged military support for Byzantine emperor Alexios I against the Seljuk Turks and called for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Across all social strata in western Europe, there was an enthusiastic popular response. The first Crusaders had a variety of motivations, including religious salvation, satisfying feudal obligations, opportunities for renown, and economic or political advantage. Later crusades were generally conducted by more organized armies, sometimes led by a king. All were granted papal indulgences. Initial successes established four Crusader states: the County of Edessa; the Principality of Antioch; the Kingdom of Jerusalem; and the County of Tripoli. The Crusader presence remained in the region in some form until the fall of Acre in 1291. After this, there were no further crusades to recover the Holy Land.

Proclaimed a crusade in 1123, the struggle between the Christians and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula was called the Reconquista by Christians, and only ended in 1492 with the fall of the Muslim Emirate of Granada. From 1147 campaigns in Northern Europe against pagan tribes were considered crusades. In 1199 Pope Innocent III began the practice of proclaiming political crusades against Christian heretics. In the 13th century, crusading was used against the Cathars in Languedoc and against Bosnia; this practice continued against the Waldensians in Savoy and the Hussites in Bohemia in the 15th century and against Protestants in the 16th. From the mid-14th century, crusading rhetoric was used in response to the rise of the Ottoman Empire, only ending in 1699 with the War of the Holy League.

14th-century miniature from William of Tyre's Histoire d'Outremer of a battle during the Second Crusade, National Library of France, Department of Manuscripts, French 22495 fol. 154^V

Terminology

The term "crusade" first referred to military expeditions undertaken by European Christians in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries to the Holy Land. The conflicts to which the term is applied has been extended to include other campaigns initiated, supported and sometimes directed by the Roman Catholic Church against pagans, heretics or for alleged religious ends. These differed from other Christian religious wars in that they were considered a penitential exercise, and so earned participants forgiveness for all confessed sins. The term's usage can be misleading, particularly regarding the early Crusades, and the definition remains a matter of debate among contemporary historians.

At the time of the First Crusade, iter, "journey", and peregrinatio, "pilgrimage" were used to describe the campaign. Crusader terminology remained largely indistinguishable from that of Christian pilgrimage during the 12th century. Only at the end of the century was a specific language of Crusading adopted in the form of crucesignatus—"one signed by the cross"—for a Crusader. This led to the French croisade—the way of the cross. By the mid 13th century the cross became the major descriptor of the Crusades with crux transmarina—"the cross overseas"—used for crusades in the eastern Mediterranean, and crux cismarina—"the cross this side of the sea"—for those in Europe. The modern English "crusade" dates to the 17th century, with the work of Louis Malmbourg.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem contains, according to traditions dating back to at least the 4th century, the two holiest sites in Christianity.

The terms "Franks" (Franj) and "Latins" were used by the peoples of the Near East during the crusades for western Europeans, distinguishing them from the Byzantine Christians who were known as "Greeks". Saracen was used for an Arab Muslim, derived from a Greek and Roman name for the nomadic peoples of the Syro-Arabian desert. Crusader sources used the term "Syrians" to describe Arabic speaking Christians who were members of the Greek Orthodox Church, and "Jacobites" for those who were members of the Syrian Orthodox Church. The Crusader states of Syria and Palestine were known as the "Outremer" from the French outre-mer, or "the land beyond the sea".

Background

Battles between Byzantine and Seljuk troops for the control of Anatolia in the 1070s.

The period of Islamic Arab territorial expansion had been over since the 8th century. Syria and Palestine's remoteness from the focus of Islamic power struggles enabled relative peace and prosperity. Only in the Iberian Peninsula was Muslim-Western European contact more than minimal. Byzantine emperor Basil II extended the empire's territorial recovery to its furthest extent in 1025, with frontiers stretching east to Iran. It controlled Bulgaria, much of southern Italy and suppressed piracy in the Mediterranean Sea. The empire's relationships with its Islamic neighbours were no more quarrelsome than its relationships with the Slavs and the Western Christians. The Normans in Italy, to the north Pechenegs, Serbs and Cumans, and Seljuk Turks in the east all competed with the empire.

The political situation in the Middle East was changed by waves of Turkish migration—in particular, the arrival of the Seljuk Turks in the 10th century. Previously a minor ruling clan from Transoxania, they were recent converts to Islam who migrated into Iran to seek their fortune. In two decades, they conquered Iran, Iraq, and the Near East.

Byzantium's attempted confrontation in 1071 to suppress the Seljuks' sporadic raiding led to the defeat at the battle of Manzikert. In the same year, Jerusalem was taken from the Fatimids by the Turkish warlord Atsiz, who seized most of Syria and Palestine as part of the expansion of the Seljuks throughout the Middle East. The Seljuk hold on the city resulting in pilgrims reported difficulties and the oppression of Christians. The result was the First Crusade.

Crusades and the Holy Land, 1095–1291

See also: Timeline of the Kingdom of Jerusalem

The Crusades to the Holy Land are the best known of the religious wars discussed here, beginning in 1095 and lasting some two centuries. These Crusades began with the fervent desire to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims, and ran through eight major numbered crusades and dozens of minor crusades over two centuries.

First Crusade

Main article: First Crusade

Miniature of Peter the Hermit leading the People's Crusade (Egerton 1500, Avignon, 14th century)

Pope Urban II hosted the Council of Clermont in November 1095 that resulted in the mobilization of Western Europe to go to the Holy Land. Immediately after Urban's proclamation, the French priest Peter the Hermit led thousands of mostly poor Christians out of Europe in what became known as the People's Crusade. In transit through Germany, these Crusaders spawned German bands who massacred Jewish communities in what became known as the Rhineland massacres. They were destroyed in 1096 when the main body of Crusaders was annihilated at the battle of Civetot.

In response to Urban's call, members of the high aristocracy from Europe took the cross. Foremost amongst these was the elder statesman Raymond IV of Toulouse, who with bishop Adhemar of Le Puy commanded southern French forces. Other armies included one led by Godfrey of Bouillon and his brother Baldwin of Boulogne; forces led by Bohemond of Taranto and his nephew Tancred; and contingents under Robert Curthose, Stephen of Blois, Hugh of Vermandois, and Robert II of Flanders. The armies travelled to Byzantium where they were cautiously welcomed by the emperor.

Alexios persuaded many of the princes to pledge allegiance to him. He also convinced them their first objective should be Nicaea, Buoyed by their success at Civetot, the over-confident Seljuks left the city unprotected, thus enabling its capture after the siege of Nicaea in May–June 1097. The first experience of Turkish tactics occurred when a force led by Bohemond and Robert was ambushed at battle of Dorylaeum in July 1097. The Normans resisted for hours before the arrival of the main army caused a Turkish withdrawal.

The Crusader army marched to the former Byzantine city of Antioch that had been in Muslim control since 1084. The Crusaders began the siege of Antioch in October 1097 and fought for eight months to a stalemate. Finally, Bohemond persuaded a guard in the city to open a gate. The Crusaders entered, massacring the Muslim inhabitants as well as many Christians. A force to recapture the city was raised by Mosul. The discovery of the Holy Lance may have boosted the morale of the Crusaders. The Byzantines did not march to the assistance of the Crusaders. Instead Alexius retreated from Philomelium. The Greeks were never truly forgiven for this perceived betrayal. The Crusaders attempted to negotiate surrender but were rejected. Bohemond recognised that the only remaining option was open combat and launched a counterattack. Despite superior numbers, the Muslims retreated and abandoned the siege.

News arrived that the Fatimids had taken Jerusalem from the Seljuks, making it imperative to attack. Bohemond remained in Antioch, retaining the city, despite his pledge to return it to Byzantine control, while Raymond led the remaining Crusader army rapidly south along the coast to Jerusalem. An initial attack on the city failed, and the siege of Jerusalem of 1099 became a stalemate, until they breached the walls on 15 July 1099. For two days the Crusaders massacred the inhabitants and pillaged the city. Godfrey further secured the Frankish position by defeating an Egyptian relief force at the battle of Ascalon in August 1099.

The Crusader States in 1135

The First Crusade led to the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem under Godfrey of Bouillon. The newly formed kingdom quickly faced major challenges, both internally and externally. Most of the Crusaders had gone home, leaving few seasoned fighters to protect the realm. A leadership crisis, with the death of Godfrey and continued push by the clergy against secular rule, was immediately seen. Neither the Seljuks to the north and west nor the Fatimids to the south were not content with the presence of the Western Christians, leading to further conflict. Conflicts that followed include the Crusade of 1101, the Norwegian Crusade from 1107–1110, the Venetian Crusade conducted from 1122 to 1124, and the Crusade of 1129.

Second Crusade

Main article: Second Crusade

The first of the Crusader states––Edessa––was also the first to fall after the first siege of Edessa, arriving on 28 November 1144. Calls for a Second Crusade were immediate, and was the first led by European kings. The disastrous performance of this campaign in the Holy Land damaged the standing of the papacy, soured relations between the Christians of the kingdom and the West for many years, and encouraged the Muslims of Syria to even greater efforts to defeat the Franks. The dismal failures of this Crusade then set the stage for the fall of Jerusalem, leading to the Third Crusade. Concurrent campaigns as part of the Reconquista and Northern Crusades are also sometimes associated with this Crusade

Eugene III, recently elected pope, issued the bull Quantum praedecessores on 1 December 1145, the first such papal bull issued calling for a new crusade, meant to be more organized and centrally controlled than the First. The armies would be led by the strongest kings of Europe and a route that would be pre-planned. The French contingent departed in June 1147. The French met the remnants of Conrad's army in northern Turkey, and Conrad joined Louis' force. They fended off a Seljuk attack at the battle of Ephesus on 24 December 1147. A few days later, they were again victorious at the battle of the Meander, late in 1147. Louis was not as lucky at the battle of Mount Cadmus on 6 January 1148, where the Seljuk army inflicted heavy losses on the Crusaders. The army sailed for Antioch in January, almost totally destroyed by battle and sickness.

The Crusader army arrived at Antioch on 19 March 1148 with the intent on moving to retake Edessa, but the objective was changed to Damascus. Bad luck and poor tactics led to the disastrous five-day siege of Damascus from 24 to 28 July 1148. The barons of Jerusalem withdrew support and the Crusaders retreated before the arrival of a relief army of the Muslims. The French and German forces felt betrayed by the other, lingering for a generation due to the defeat, to the ruin of the Christian kingdoms in the Holy Land.

In the spring of 1147, Eugene authorized the expansion of his mission into the Iberian peninsula, equating these campaigns against the Moors with the rest of the Second Crusade. The successful siege of Lisbon, from 1 July to 25 October 1147, was followed by the six-month siege of Tortosa, ending on 30 December 1148 with a defeat for the Moors. In the north, some Germans were reluctant to fight in the Holy Land while the pagan Wends were a more immediate problem. The resulting Wendish Crusade of 1147 was partially successful but failed to convert the pagans to Christianity.

The Near East, c. 1190, at the inception of the Third Crusade

Third Crusade

Main article: Third Crusade

The years following the founding of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were met with multiple disasters. The Second Crusade did not achieve its goals, and left the Muslim East in a stronger position with the rise of Saladin. A united Egypt–Syria led to the loss of Jerusalem itself, and Western Europe had no choice but to launch the Third Crusade, this time led by the kings of Europe.

The news of the disastrous defeat at the battle of Hattin and subsequent fall of Jerusalem gradually reached Western Europe. Urban III died shortly after hearing the news, and his successor Gregory VIII issued the bull Audita tremendi on 29 October 1187 describing the events in the East and urging all Christians to take up arms and go to the aid of those in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, calling for a new crusade to the Holy Land––the Third Crusade––to be led by Frederick Barbarossa and Richard I of England.

Richard the Lionheart on his way to Jerusalem, James William Glass (1850)

Frederick took the cross in March 1188. Frederick sent an ultimatum to Saladin, demanding the return of Palestine and challenging him to battle and in May 1189, Frederick's host departed for Byzantium. In March 1190, Frederick embarked to Asia Minor. The armies coming from western Europe pushed on through Anatolia, defeating the Turks and reaching as far as Cilician Armenia. On 10 June 1190, Frederick drowned near Silifke Castle. His death caused several thousand German soldiers to leave the force and return home. The remaining German army moved under the command of the English and French forces that arrived shortly thereafter.

Richard the Lionheart had already taken the cross as the Count of Poitou in 1187. His father Henry II of England and Philip II of France had done so on 21 January 1188 after receiving news of the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin. After Richard became king, he and Philip agreed to go on the Third Crusade, since each feared that during his absence the other might usurp his territories.

Richard I and Philip II of France agreed to go on the Crusade in January 1188. Arriving in the Holy Land, Richard led his support to the stalemated siege of Acre. The Muslim defenders surrendered on 12 July 1191. Richard remained in sole command of the Crusader force after the departure of Philip II on 31 July 1191. On 20 August 1191, Richard had the more than 2000 prisoners beheaded at the so-called massacre of Ayyadieh. Saladin subsequently ordered the execution of his Christian prisoners in retaliation.

Richard moved south, defeating Saladin's forces at the battle of Arsuf on 7 September 1191. Three days later, Richard took Jaffa, held by Saladin since 1187, and advanced inland towards Jerusalem. On 12 December 1191 Saladin disbanded the greater part of his army. Learning this, Richard pushed his army forward, to within 12 miles from Jerusalem before retreating back to the coast. The Crusaders made another advance on Jerusalem, coming within sight of the city in June before being forced to retreat again. Hugh III of Burgundy, leader of the Franks, was adamant that a direct attack on Jerusalem should be made. This split the Crusader army into two factions, and neither was strong enough to achieve its objective. Without a united command the army had little choice but to retreat back to the coast.

On 27 July 1192, Saladin's army began the battle of Jaffa, capturing the city. Richard's forces stormed Jaffa from the sea and the Muslims were driven from the city. Attempts to retake Jaffa failed and Saladin was forced to retreat. On 2 September 1192 Richard and Saladin entered into the Treaty of Jaffa, providing that Jerusalem would remain under Muslim control, while allowing unarmed Christian pilgrims and traders to freely visit the city. This treaty ended the Third Crusade.

Three years later, Henry VI launched the Crusade of 1197. While his forces were en route to the Holy Land, Henry VI died in Messina on 28 September 1197. The nobles that remained captured the Levant coast between Tyre and Tripoli before returning to Germany. The Crusade ended on 1 July 1198 after capturing Sidon and Beirut.

Fourth Crusade

Main articles: Fourth Crusade and Sack of Constantinople

Conquest of the Orthodox city of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 (BNF Arsenal MS 5090, 15th century)

In 1198, the recently elected Pope Innocent III announced a new crusade, organised by three Frenchmen: Theobald of Champagne; Louis of Blois; and Baldwin of Flanders. After Theobald's premature death, the Italian Boniface of Montferrat replaced him as the new commander of the campaign. They contracted with the Republic of Venice for the transportation of 30,000 crusaders at a cost of 85,000 marks. However, many chose other embarkation ports and only around 15,000 arrived in Venice. The Doge of Venice Enrico Dandolo proposed that Venice would be repaid with the profits of future conquests beginning with the seizure of the Christian city of Zara. Pope Innocent III's role was ambivalent. He only condemned the attack when the siege started. He withdrew his legate to disassociate from the attack but seemed to have accepted it as inevitable. Historians question whether for him, the papal desire to salvage the crusade may have outweighed the moral consideration of shedding Christian blood. The crusade was joined by King Philip of Swabia, who intended to use the Crusade to install his exiled brother-in-law, Alexios IV Angelos, as Emperor. This required the overthrow of Alexios III Angelos, the uncle of Alexios IV. Alexios IV offered the crusade 10,000 troops, 200,000 marks and the reunion of the Greek Church with Rome if they toppled his uncle Emperor Alexios III.

When the crusade entered Constantinople, Alexios III fled and was replaced by his nephew. The Greek resistance prompted Alexios IV to seek continued support from the crusade until he could fulfil his commitments. This ended with his murder in a violent anti-Latin revolt. The crusaders were without ships, supplies or food, leaving them with little option other than to take by force what Alexios had promised. The Sack of Constantinople involved three days of pillaging churches and killing much of the Greek Orthodox Christian populace. While not unusual behaviour for the time, contemporaries such as Innocent III and Ali ibn al-Athir saw it as an atrocity against centuries of classical and Christian civilisation.

Struggle for Recovery: Fifth and Sixth Crusades

Main articles: Fifth Crusade and Sixth Crusade

The Kingdom of Jerusalem revived in a period of peace after 1205. Saladin's brother al-Adil supplanted Saladin's sons in the Ayyubid succession, but lacked the authority required to unite the Muslim world of his brother. In 1213, Innocent III called for another Crusade at the Fourth Lateran Council. In the papal bull Quia maior he codified existing practice in preaching, recruitment and financing the Crusades.

A force—primarily raised from Hungary, Germany, Flanders—led by King Andrew II of Hungary and Leopold VI, Duke of Austria achieved little in what is categorised as the Fifth Crusade. The strategy was to attack Egypt because it was isolated from the other Islamic power centres, it would be easier to defend and was self-sufficient in food. Leopold and John of Brienne besieged and captured Damietta, but an army advancing into Egypt was compelled to surrender. Damietta was returned, and an eight-year truce agreed.

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (left) meets al-Kamil (right), illumination from Giovanni Villani's Nuova Cronica (Vatican Library ms. Chigiano L VIII 296, 14th century).

Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II was excommunicated for frequently breaking an obligation to the pope to join the crusade. In 1227 he embarked on crusade but was forced to abandon it due to illness but in 1228 he finally reached Acre. Culturally, Frederick was the Christian monarch most empathetic to the Muslim world, having grown up in Sicily, with a Muslim bodyguard and even a harem. Despite his excommunication by Pope Gregory IX, his diplomatic skills meant the Sixth Crusade was largely a negotiation supported by force. A peace treaty granted Latin Christians most of Jerusalem and a strip of territory that linked the city to Acre. The Muslims controlled their sacred sites and an alliance was made with Al-Kamil, Sultan of Egypt, against all his enemies of whatever religion. This treaty, and suspicions about Frederick's ambitions in the region, made him unpopular, and when Pope Gregory IX attacked his Italian domains he was compelled to return and defend them.

The conflict between the Holy Roman Empire and the papacy meant that the responsibility for the campaigns in the Crusader states often fell to secular, rather than papal, leadership. What is known as the Barons' Crusade was led first by Count Theobald I of Navarre and when he returned to Europe, by the king of England's brother, Richard of Cornwall. The death of sultan al-Kamil and resulting succession conflict in Egypt and Syria allowed the crusaders to follow Frederick's tactics of combining forceful diplomacy with playing rival factions off against each other. Jerusalem was sparsely populated but in Christian hands and the kingdom's territorial reach was the same as before the 1187 disaster at Hattin. This brief renaissance for Frankish Jerusalem was illusory. The Jerusalem nobility rejected the succession of the Emperor's son to the kingdom's throne. The kingdom could no longer rely on the resources of the Holy Roman Empire and was left dependent on Ayyubid division, the crusading orders and other western aid for survival.

Crusades of Saint Louis and Edward I

Main articles: Seventh Crusade, Eighth Crusade, and Ninth Crusade

Politics in the 13th-century eastern Mediterranean were complex, with numerous powerful and interested parties. The French were led by the very devout Louis IX of France and his ambitiously expansionist brother Charles I of Naples. Communication with the Mongols was hindered by the enormous distances involved. Louis sent an embassy to the Mongols in Iran in 1249 seeking a Franco-Mongol alliance. When the reply found him in Palestine in 1251 it was again only a demand for tribute. Louis organised a new crusade, called the Seventh Crusade, to attack Egypt, arriving in 1249. He was defeated at Mansura and captured as he retreated to Damietta. Another ten-year truce was agreed. Louis and his nobles were ransomed while the other prisoners were given a choice between conversion to Islam or beheading. He remained in Syria until 1254 to consolidate the crusader states. A brutal power struggle developed in Egypt between various Mamluk leaders and the remaining weak Ayyubid rulers. The Mamluks were slave soldiers that had been used by Muslim rulers for centuries. Most of them were Turks from the Eurasian Steppe or Christians from Anatolia; kidnapped as boys, converted to Islam and given military training. The threat presented by an invasion by the Mongols led to Qutuz seizing the sultanate in 1259 and uniting with another faction led by Baibars to defeat the Mongols at Ain Jalut. The Mamluks then quickly gained control of Damascus and Aleppo before Qutuz was assassinated, most probably by Baibers.

Between 1265 and 1271, Sultan Baibars drove the Franks to a few small coastal outposts. Baibars had three key objectives: to prevent an alliance between the Latins and the Mongols, to cause dissension among the Mongols (particularly between the Golden Horde and the Persian Ilkhanate), and to maintain access to a supply of slave recruits from the Russian steppes. He supported King Manfred of Sicily's failed resistance to the attack of Charles and the papacy. Dissention in the crusader states led to conflicts such as the War of Saint Sabas. Venice drove the Genoese from Acre to Tyre where they continued to trade with Baibars' Egypt. Indeed, Baibars negotiated free passage for the Genoese with Michael VIII Palaiologos, Emperor of Nicaea, the newly restored ruler of Constantinople. In 1270 Charles turned his brother King Louis IX's crusade, known as the Eighth, to his own advantage by persuading him to attack his rebel Arab vassals in Tunis. The crusader army was devastated by disease, and Louis himself died at Tunis on 25 August. The fleet returned to France.

The Lord Edward, the future king of England, and a small retinue arrived too late for the conflict but continued to the Holy Land in what is known as the Ninth Crusade. Edward survived an assassination attempt, negotiated a ten-year truce, and then returned to manage his affairs in England. This ended the last significant crusading effort in the eastern Mediterranean.

Fall of the Crusader States

Miniature of the Siege of Acre (1291) (Estoire d'Oultre-Mer, BNF fr. 2825, fol 361v, ca. 1300)

The mainland Crusader states were finally extinguished with the fall of Tripoli in 1289 and the siege of Acre in 1291. It is reported that many Latin Christians evacuated to Cyprus by boat, were killed or enslaved.

Other crusades

The military expeditions undertaken by European Christians in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries to recover the Holy Land from Muslims provided a template for warfare in other areas that also interested the Latin Church. These included the 12th and 13th century conquest of Muslim Al-Andalus by Spanish Christian kingdoms; 12th to 15th century German Northern Crusades expansion into the pagan Baltic region; the suppression of non-conformity, particularly in Languedoc during what has become called the Albigensian Crusade and for the Papacy's temporal advantage in Italy and Germany that are now known as political crusades. In the 13th and 14th centuries there were also unsanctioned, but related popular uprisings to recover Jerusalem known variously as Shepherds' or Children's crusades.

Map of the branches of the Teutonic Order in Europe around 1300. Shaded area is sovereign territory.

Urban II equated the crusades for Jerusalem with the ongoing Catholic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula and crusades were preached in 1114 and 1118, but it was Pope Callixtus II who proposed dual fronts in Spain and the Middle East in 1122. By the time of the Second Crusade the three Spanish kingdoms were powerful enough to conquer Islamic territory—Castile, Aragon and Portugal. In 1212 the Spanish were victorious at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa with the support of 70,000 foreign fighters responding to the preaching of Innocent III. Many of these deserted because of the Spanish tolerance of the defeated Muslims, for whom the Reconquista was a war of domination rather than extermination. In contrast the Christians formerly living under Muslim rule called Mozarabs had the Roman Rite relentlessly imposed on them and were absorbed into mainstream Catholicism. Al-Andalus, Islamic Spain, was completely suppressed in 1492 when the Emirate of Granada surrendered.

In 1147, Pope Eugene III extended Calixtus's idea by authorising a crusade on the German north-eastern frontier against the pagan Wends from what was primarily economic conflict. From the early 13th century, there was significant involvement of military orders, such as the Livonian Brothers of the Sword and the Order of Dobrzyń. The Teutonic Knights diverted efforts from the Holy Land, absorbed these orders and established the State of the Teutonic Order. This evolved the Duchy of Prussia and Duchy of Courland and Semigallia in 1525 and 1562, respectively.

Miniatures showing Pope Innocent III excommunicating, and the crusaders massacring, Cathars (BL Royal 16 G VI, fol. 374v, 14th century)

By the beginning of the 13th century Papal reticence in applying crusades against the papacy's political opponents and those considered heretics. Innocent III proclaimed a crusade against Catharism that failed to suppress the heresy itself but ruined the culture the Languedoc. This set a precedent that was followed in 1212 with pressure exerted on the city of Milan for tolerating Catharism, in 1234 against the Stedinger peasants of north-western Germany, in 1234 and 1241 Hungarian crusades against Bosnian heretics. The historian Norman Housley notes the connection between heterodoxy and anti-papalism in Italy. Indulgence was offered to anti-heretical groups such as the Militia of Jesus Christ and the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Innocent III declared the first political crusade against Frederick II's regent, Markward von Annweiler, and when Frederick later threatened Rome in 1240, Gregory IX used crusading terminology to raise support against him. On Frederick II's death the focus moved to Sicily. In 1263, Pope Urban IV offered crusading indulgences to Charles of Anjou in return for Sicily's conquest. However, these wars had no clear objectives or limitations, making them unsuitable for crusading. The 1281 election of a French pope, Martin IV, brought the power of the papacy behind Charles. Charles's preparations for a crusade against Constantinople were foiled by the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, who instigated an uprising called the Sicilian Vespers. Instead, Peter III of Aragon was proclaimed king of Sicily, despite his excommunication and an unsuccessful Aragonese Crusade. Political crusading continued against Venice over Ferrara; Louis IV, King of Germany when he marched to Rome for his imperial coronation; and the free companies of mercenaries.

The Latin states established were a fragile patchwork of petty realms threatened by Byzantine successor states—the Despotate of Epirus, the Empire of Nicaea and the Empire of Trebizond. Thessaloniki fell to Epirus in 1224, and Constantinople to Nicaea in 1261. Achaea and Athens survived under the French after the Treaty of Viterbo. The Venetians endured a long-standing conflict with the Ottoman Empire until the final possessions were lost in the Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War in the 18th century. This period of Greek history is known as the Frankokratia or Latinokratia ("Frankish or Latin rule") and designates a period when western European Catholics ruled Orthodox Byzantine Greeks.

The threat of the expanding Ottoman Empire prompted further campaigns. In 1389, the Ottomans defeated the Serbs at the Kosovo, won control of the Balkans from the Danube to the Gulf of Corinth, in 1396 defeated French crusaders and King Sigismund of Hungary at the Nicopolis, in 1444 destroyed a crusading Polish and Hungarian force at Varna, four years later again defeated the Hungarians at Kosovo and in 1453 captured Constantinople. The 16th century saw growing rapprochement. The Habsburgs, French, Spanish and Venetians and Ottomans all signed treaties. Francis I of France allied with all quarters, including from German Protestant princes and Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Anti-Christian crusading declined in the 15th century, the exceptions were the six failed crusades against the religiously radical Hussites in Bohemia and attacks on the Waldensians in Savoy. Crusading became a financial exercise; precedence was given to the commercial and political objectives. The military threat presented by the Ottoman Turks diminished, making anti-Ottoman crusading obsolete in 1699 with the final Holy League.

Historiography

Main article: Historiography of the Crusades

William of Tyre writing his history, from a 13th-century Old French translation, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, MS 2631, f.1r.

The historiography of the Crusades is concerned with how historians have studied the military campaigns discussed above using particular sources, techniques, and theoretical approaches. Originally, medieval understanding of the crusades was narrowly focussed on a limited set of interrelated texts, most notably Gesta Francorum from 1099. The Gesta was reworked by Robert of Rheims who created a papalist, northern French template for later works. These all demonstrated a degree of martial advocacy that attributed both success and failure to God's will. This clerical view was soon challenged by vernacular adventure stories based on the work of Albert of Aachen. William of Tyre expanded on Albert's writing in his Historia. Completed by 1184, William's work describes the warrior state that Outremer had become through the tensions between divine providence and humankind.

The secondary sources of the Crusades began in the 16th century, with the first use of the term crusades was by 17th century French historian Louis Maimbourg in his Histoire des Croisades pour la délivrance de la Terre Sainte. These histories have provided evolving views of the Crusades as discussed in detail in the Historiography writeup in Crusading movement.

In a 2001 article—"The Historiography of the Crusades"—Giles Constable attempted to categorise what is meant by "Crusade" into four areas of contemporary crusade study. His view was that Traditionalists are concerned with where the crusades were aimed, Pluralists concentrate on how the crusades were organised, Popularists including Paul Alphandery and Etienne Delaruelle focus on the popular groundswells of religious fervour, and Generalists, such as Ernst-Dieter Hehl, focus on the phenomenon of Latin holy wars. The historian Thomas F. Madden argues that modern tensions are the result of a constructed view of the crusades created by colonial powers in the 19th century and transmitted into Arab nationalism. For him the crusades are a medieval phenomenon in which the crusaders were engaged in a defensive war on behalf of their co-religionists.

Bibliography

• Asbridge, Thomas (2004). The First Crusade: A New History. Oxford. ISBN 0-19-517823-8.
• Asbridge, Thomas (2012). The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-84983-688-3.
• Housley, Norman (1982). The Italian Crusades: The Papal-Angevin Alliance and the Crusades Against Christian Lay Powers, 1254-1343. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198219255.
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• Jotischky, Andrew (2004). Crusading and the Crusader States (1st ed.). Pearson Longman. ISBN 978-0-582-41851-6.
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See also

• Crusader states
• Crusading movement
• History of Christianity
• List of Crusades to Europe and the Holy Land
• Military history of the Crusader states