A History of the Crusades

Starting in the year 1096, Christian kingdoms and the Latin Church united to retake religious sites in the Holy Land. This war was known as a crusade. This was just the first in a series of nine official and several other unofficial crusades over a span of about 200 years. These crusades impacted the kingdoms that took part, the Eastern and Western Christian churches, and relations between Muslims, Christians, and Jews, in some ways that can still be felt today.

Learn more about the Crusades, the reason for them, and how they affected the world on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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The Crusades were not a singular event. Multiple Crusades took place over roughly two centuries, and there were even more of them if you expand the definition of what a Crusade was. My goal for this episode is to try to provide an overview of the motivations and reasons for the Crusades, as well as a brief description of all nine of the formal Crusades that were launched, as well as some of the non-sanctioned Crusades.

The Crusades tend to be thought of in very simplistic terms today, but there were a host of reasons why the Crusades were called and why all the various kingdoms in Western Europe bothered to take part. While I want to describe each of the individual crusades at least briefly, I have to give the most attention to the crusade that started it all, the First Crusade.

By the 11th century, Islam was on a roll. It had conquered and converted large parts of the Middle East and North Africa, which had once been Christian for centuries. Almost all of this had been at the expense of the Byzantine Empire, which was the center of Eastern Christianity. Although there had been Islamic conquests in the Iberian Peninsula as well, which I've talked about in previous episodes.

During the rise of Islam, Christians were mostly tolerated in Muslim lands. In particular, for the purpose of this episode, Christian holy sites in Jerusalem were allowed to remain in Christian control. In particular, the most important Christian site in Jerusalem, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the church that houses the site where it's believed Jesus died and was buried, and I previously did an episode on the subject.

Several major things happened in the 11th century which upset the status quo. First, in the year 1009, the caliph of the Fatimid Caliphate, al-Hakim, ordered the destruction of all churches and synagogues in his empire, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. El-Hakim is actually a really interesting historical character who will be the subject of a future episode. In 1042, the church was rebuilt and paid for by the Byzantine emperor.

In 1054, the Eastern and Western Christian churches split in what became known as the Great Schism. In 1072, a Turkic warlord named Atziz ibn Uwak took Jerusalem and later massacred the population there after a revolt before the city was taken over by Seljuk Turks, who fought over it for several years. This was also the year the Seljuk dynasty defeated the Byzantine Empire at the Battle of Manzikert, taking much of Anatolia, or what is today modern Turkey.

And I should briefly mention that the Seljuks were a dynasty of Turkic Muslim people who came from Central Asia, as opposed to the previous caliphates who had ruled the region for the past 400 years, which were Arab, Berber, or Persians. This was the environment when in March of 1095, the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Commonos asked officials from the Latin Church for help who were convened at the Council of Piacenza.

On November 27, 1095, while speaking at the Council of Clermont in France, Pope Urban II called for a crusade to take back the holy site. Moreover, he promised an indulgence to anyone who took part in the crusade, which meant that anybody who took part would have their sins forgiven. After the council, Urban went on a tour in France, preaching to crowds, encouraging participation in the crusade.

There are two big questions surrounding Urban's call for a crusade. Why did he do it, and why did he do it when he did it? The reason why he called it isn't as simple as most people make it out to be. Obviously, there were religious reasons for it. Christianity had been taking it on the chin from Islam for several centuries now, and the Pope wanted to highlight the threat posed by Islam, not just in the Holy Land, but also in places like Sicily and Spain.

Second, he was possibly angling to repair the schism with the Eastern Church, which had taken place a few decades earlier. If the Latin Church could establish a foothold in the Middle East, the former heartland of Eastern Christianity, then perhaps the churches could unify with the Bishop of Rome at its head, above even the Patriarch of Constantinople. A third reason might have been to try to stop the constant infighting between kingdoms in Western Europe.

One reason the Latin church responded so poorly to Islamic incursions into Europe was that everyone was so worried about fighting their own petty wars that they couldn't focus on the big picture. The reason as to why a crusade was called when it was had more to do with opportunism than some great emergency. The Holy Land had been under Islamic control for centuries. This wasn't anything new.

Even the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher took place almost a century earlier and didn't evoke this sort of response.

The First Crusade was extremely popular. The people who the crusade attracted was not what the popular perception of a crusader is. There were really two crusades in the First Crusade. The first of them was known as the People's Crusade. The People's Crusade was literally a mass movement of mostly poor civilians who were led by a charismatic religious leader known as Peter the Hermit.

I'll go more in-depth on this in a future episode, but the People's Crusade was a total disaster. Tens of thousands of people joined, and about 20,000 of them were massacred in a battle with the Seljuks in Turkey. The other notable crusade was the Princess Crusade, which was aimed at knights and nobility. This is the crusade that most people think of as a crusade.

Just as there were multiple motivations for the Pope to call for a crusade, so too were there multiple reasons for people to respond to the call. The first, obviously, was religious, which was a big motivation for many of those in the People's Crusade. Some knights were motivated by religion, but there was also a lot more. Some were simply looking for glory and adventure, which were prized in the chivalric code.

Some were looking for land, especially younger sons of nobles who were not in line to inherit property. Not surprisingly, one of the biggest motivators was money. War meant spoils, and given the region, the possibility of lucrative trade routes that they could control. The First Crusade did capture Jerusalem in 1099 after a long siege and a massacre of the city's Muslim and Jewish inhabitants.

In 1147, the Second Crusade was initiated in response to the Muslim recapture of the strategically crucial County of Edessa, one of the first Crusader states established during the First Crusade and today located in northern Syria and southern Turkey. Pope Eugene III, with preaching from the influential Bernard of Clairvaux, called for a new crusade to reinforce the Christian states in the Holy Land.

Led by King Louis VII of France and Emperor Conrad III of Germany, the Crusade faced organizational and logistical challenges from the very start. Both monarchs chose different routes to the Holy Land, and their forces suffered significant losses through Anatolia due to harsh terrain, poor planning, and Turkish attacks.

The crusade culminated in a disjointed and unsuccessful siege of Damascus in 1148, which not only failed, but also weakened the Christian-Muslim alliances and ultimately led to increased Muslim unity under leaders like Nur ad-Din and later Saladin, setting the stage for further conflict in the region. The Third Crusade, also known as the King's Crusade, was launched in 1189 and was a response to the capture of Jerusalem in 1187 by the Muslim leader Saladin.

It was led by three of Europe's most powerful monarchs, Frederick I Barbarossa of the Holy Roman Empire, Philip II Augustus of France, and Richard I the Lionhearted of England. The Crusade saw various amounts of success. Frederick drowned in rout, causing a significant portion of his army to simply disband. But at the same time, Philip and Richard managed to capture the important city of Acre after a prolonged siege.

Despite their success at Acre, the crusade failed to recapture Jerusalem. However, Richard negotiated a treaty with the Muslim general Saladin, who allowed unarmed Christian pilgrims to visit the city, maintaining a fragile peace in the Holy Land. The Fourth Crusade launched in 1202, and it completely deviated from all its religious objectives, culminating in the sacking of Constantinople, a Christian city, rather than targeting the Muslim-held Holy Land.

Initiated by Pope Innocent III to reclaim Jerusalem, the crusade was diverted due to a complex series of financial and political entanglements with the Venetians, who provided all the naval transport. Under the leadership of Enrico Dandolo, the Doge of Venice, the Crusaders became involved in local Byzantine conflicts, leading to the siege and eventual sack of Constantinople in 1204.

The sinking of Constantinople by Crusaders dramatically weakened the Byzantine Empire and led to the establishment of the short-lived Latin Empire in its place. It also significantly altered the course of both Christian and Byzantine history, deepening the rift between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.

The Fifth Crusade, launched in 1217, primarily focused on Egypt as a new strategic target to secure the Holy Land, and was marked by some initial success, but ultimately it too was a failure. Pope Haniorus III orchestrated this crusade, emphasizing that controlling Egypt would be a pivotal step towards regaining Jerusalem.

The Crusaders, under the leadership of people like King Andrew II of Hungary and Duke Leopold VI of Austria, managed to capture the well-fortified city of Damietta in 1219 with little resistance owing to the Nile's flooding, which hindered Muslim defenses. However, internal disagreements and delays between the Crusaders compromised their position, allowing the Muslim forces under the command of al-Khamil, the Sultan of Egypt, to regroup.

In 1221, the Crusaders advanced towards Cairo, but were trapped by the Nile's receding floodwaters and ultimately leading to their surrender. The Sixth Crusade, which began in 1228, led by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, stands out for its diplomatic rather than military approach to securing control over Jerusalem. Frederick embarked on the crusade despite being excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX due to disputes over his failure to participate in previous crusades.

Using his political acumen and negotiations rather than outright conflict, Frederick brokered a landmark treaty with the previously mentioned Muslim ruler Al-Khamil, Sultan of Egypt. This treaty resulted in the peaceful handover of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth to Christian control, while Muslims retained control over the sacred Islamic sites within Jerusalem. His diplomatic success was unusual for the era, and especially for the Crusade.

The lack of military action and Frederick's excommunication from the church diminished his prestige amongst many crusaders and Christian leaders, making his achievements controversial, despite the fact that they worked extremely well. The Seventh Crusade, launched in 1248 and led by King Louis IX of France, also known as St. Louis, was an ambitious attempt to conquer Egypt as a strategic approach to securing the Holy Land.

Motivated by a very deep religious fervor, Louis IX launched a crusade with a well-equipped army, landing in Egypt and successfully capturing the port city of Damietta in 1249. However, the subsequent advance towards Cairo was a disaster. The Crusaders were bogged down by the Niles floods and eventually were defeated at the Battle of Al-Mansura.

Captured by forces of the Ayyubid dynasty, Louis and his remaining forces were ransomed for a large sum of money and had to return the port city of Damietta. This defeat not only led to significant losses, but also highlighted the growing difficulties and diminishing returns of Crusader efforts in the entire region. The Eighth Crusade, launched in 1270, was also led by Louis IX of France. His Second Crusade targeted the city of Tunis in North Africa.

The choice of Tunis was influenced by Louis' brother Charles of Anjou, who saw opportunity to expand his influence in the region and possibly convert the Tunisian ruler to Christianity. However, the campaign was doomed from the start. Shortly after their arrival, the crusading army was devastated by an outbreak of dysentery and other diseases. Louis himself succumbed to illness and then died in Tunis, effectively ending the crusade.

The Ninth Crusade, which launched in 1271 and is often considered to be the last major medieval crusade to the Holy Land, was launched by Prince Edward, later King Edward I of England. This crusade occurred in the broader context of failing crusader sites and aimed to reinforce the remaining Christian territories in the face of the rising Malamook power under the Sultan Baibars.

Edward's campaign, which began in Acre, saw limited military engagements, including skirmishes around the area and a significant but inconclusive battle in the city of Nazareth. Despite these efforts, the crusade achieved little in the way of territorial gains or lasting impact. And it ended when Edward returned to England following the news of his father's ill health and subsequent death.

These are the only crusades that are considered major formal crusades by historians. There were several other lesser or informal crusades, such as the Children's Crusade, and some actions that used the term crusade, but otherwise were nothing like the ones I just mentioned. And you may have noticed that many of the Crusades had nothing directly to do with the Holy Land, and many were wildly unsuccessful. And some of them weren't even military campaigns.

Nonetheless, these campaigns that we call the Crusades had a lasting impact on the world that in many places can still be felt today. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiever. I want to give a big shout out to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon, including the show's producers. Your support helps me put out a show every single day.

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