MAP88: The Crusader States with Nic Morton

Medieval Archives Podcast Episode 88 7 00:00:11,940 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary: Welcome

back to the Medieval Archives Podcast , the podcast for medieval news , history and entertainment . I'm your host , Gary , a.k.a. the Archivist . In today's lesson , we're going to talk about the Crusader states with Nicholas Morton . The Crusader states were founded during the First Crusade , and the Crusaders conquered the land and claimed it as their own .

There were four crusader states established the County of Edessa , the county of Tripoli , the principal of Antioch , and the Kingdom of Jerusalem . For almost 200 years , the crusade of states grew and thrived . Or did they ? Well , that's why we have Nick Morton on the show . His new book , The Crusader States and Their Neighbors . His book looks at the history of the Crusader states , their creation , how they were ruled over , and how outside forces led to their eventual demise .

The book is and technically new . It was published in 2020 , and now it's getting a reprinting in a paperback edition . Nick was on the show last year talking about his book The Mongols Storm . We had a great discussion about the rise of the Mongol Empire , their society and religion , and of course , their great military might .

If you haven't heard that interview , head over to medieval archives dot com slash 87 to listen to the interview and pick up a copy of the Mongol Storm while you're at it . Before we get into the interview , I want to thank Marc H who came out with a fantastic donation to start off the New year and I lean in . Also made a great donation . It helps the show keep running and helps keep the show ad free , which is good for everybody .

If you have questions or comments or want to suggest a topic for the show , send an email over to podcast head Medieval archives dot com . You can find the links to the Crusader states and all of NBC's social media and the show notes at Medial Archives dot com slash 88 . If you're using a new podcasting app that supports podcasting 2.0 . You can see all those links in the show notes on your phone . Let's get to our talk with Nick Morton and hear about the Crusader

states . 380 00:02:08,080 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary:

Today , we're joined again by Nick Morton , who is going to talk to us about the Crusader states . And he was on previously when we talked about the Mongols Storm . So , Nick , thanks again for joining the show . 419 00:02:18,930 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic: Well , thank you for having me . 426 00:02:20,040 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary: Okay . So your new book . It's a new book .

Your book out is Creator States of Their Neighbors , which was published in 2020 as a hardback , and now it's out as a paperback for everybody to buy . The Crusader states were set up after the Crusades . But before we get to that , let's just do a quick overview of how the Crusades began and then why those states were set up . So what led to the Crusades ? 504 00:02:42,060 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic: Yes , sure . So 508 00:02:43,320 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic:

the first crusade began in 1095 and scholars have debated for years why exactly the Pope launched a crusade . One major reason which is frequently discussed is the ongoing invasions of the Seljuk Turks , who had conquered much of the Middle East and were expanding into Anatolia , which at this time was part of the Byzantine Empire . And the appeals for help from Western Christendom sent by the Byzantine Empire .

That's one possible reason other historians have cited the Pope's desire to end infighting in Western Christendom and to divert warriors away from their internal quarrels into adventure . From the Pope's perspective , at least , was deemed to be a purposeful mission . Other factors have been suggested , including a desire to provide an outlet for violence , particularly because this is it's Christianity , of course .

This is the religion of turn the other cheek and do good to those that hate you . And it was deemed by the pope at the time or the church at the time that fighting amongst Christians was irredeemably sinful . But at least for the church in these years , fighting along Christendom borders against non-Christians would be much , much more acceptable . So there's that possible factor in the pope's thinking around this .

And underneath it all , perhaps the fact that Christendom was growing in population numbers and economic heft , which gave it the ability , not necessarily the motivation , but the ability to think on that kind of scale . And so in 1095 , the pope launched the crew safe . A year or so later , a series of armies began to leave not just one big one , but lots of armies . And the first few armies did incredibly poorly on the battlefield . At least were destroyed .

But then a much larger army advanced through the Byzantine Empire , through Anatolia , that's modern day Turkey , and then into Syria and ultimately the Holy Land . And they went on to conquer Jerusalem itself . As that's the history , very briefly , of the First Crusade and the Crusader states was set up , built around the cities and towns , conquered during the course of the First Crusade . 861 00:05:10,350 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary: They spend two or three years conquering the holy lands .

They get to Jerusalem , they conquer that , and then they decide to stay . How did they cut out the lands for the Crusader states ? There were four of them . How they decide what crusader states they were going to be and how did they pick their rulers . 919 00:05:26,730 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic:

Okay , so it wasn't exactly planned . They didn't come together and sort of work this out . It was more a case that individual crusade commanders , whether by invitation or following the conquest of a major city , decided to claim the area for themselves . And then they set about conquering as much surrounding land as possible . And the sort of the territorial coherence of the crusader states emerged from that .

From the outset , at least , it wasn't a very likely looking venture because in the wake of the first crusade . Well , if you go back a little bit , in fact , the main armies of the first crusade that advanced across Anatolia all the way ultimately to Jerusalem started off being around 100,000 strong . By the time they got to Jerusalem , it's probably around 20,000 strong . So the attrition of the first crusade is staggering and the survival rate is very , very low .

Now , admittedly , not everyone died who ceased to be part of the crusade by the time it reached Jerusalem , some deserted or left , but nonetheless very , very high casualty rates . And so it's really just this sort of spearhead of troops that reaches Jerusalem and then the wake of the very brutal conquest of Jerusalem . The vast majority of those go home . Actually , the chroniclers tell us that only a few hundred soldiers left in Jerusalem .

Maybe a slightly larger number in Antioch and also in Edessa , which are the other two big cities that will become crusader states in the long term . But it's not a very promising looking position . If you sort of view from a pragmatic level in those early years , but there are factors that play out in the Crusaders interests .

The first is that when news arrives in Western Christendom that Jerusalem has been conquered , then this begins a process of movement by which settlers , pilgrims , crusaders in thousands , probably tens of thousands every single year set out for the Holy Land , sometimes to visit the holy sites and return in many cases to settle permanently . As that sort of builds up the population , which is works in favor of the early rulers of the Crusader states .

Another factor that plays out in their favor is that they focus their military attention in the early years on the big coastal cities . And these are big ports . And those big ports not only just bring in reinforcements in Western Christendom , but they also enable Italian merchants and other merchants to trade in those ports in a treaty already .

But of course , the key point is that the crusader states and territories can then tax that trade , and that becomes the economic sort of foundation stone for them and then swinging things round . There's actually a significant lack of resistance to the Crusaders in their early years , particularly in Syria , because in Syria , these are the Western margins of the Seljuk Sultanate , which spans from the borders of the Central Asian steppe all the way through Persia .

That's modern day Iran , Iraq , Syria . It's an enormous empire and it can marshal some big armies in fact , some seljuk commanders did marshal some big armies to fight the crusaders during the first Crusade . But the Seljuk Sultanate is in a state of civil war , and in fact , a multi-layered civil war . Is a civil war being fought over who's going to be the next sultan ? But there's other civil wars taking place in the provinces as well .

All of this makes it quite difficult to unify resistance against the crusaders or Franks as they became known . And so whilst there are some attempts made to dislodge the Franks from their sort of early landholdings , they don't prove to be very successful . And in fact , you have some advocates or one particular advocates for jihad against the Franks . And he's very much saying in his book , look , they're white , they're they're not that strong . We need to move now .

But the political will is just not there in the way that it would need to be in order to make that move . And all of that helps the Crusader states . Most resistance is shown to the Crusader states and the early years , at least from Egypt , which is an empire called the Fatimid caliphate . But even though they send some big armies into the southern borders of the kingdom of Jerusalem , which is the southernmost crusader states , those armies fare particularly well on the battlefield .

And it has to be observed that by the time they've got through two or three years of crusade , followed by lots of conflicts that followed it , the armies that are left , albeit small , they're incredibly competent on the battlefield because they've worked together for years and they've built up their knowledge and skills that veteran warriors and very hard to

defeat . 1729 00:10:33,240 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary: If there's only a few hundred or thousand against an entire population , they just didn't couldn't coordinate to make a resistance to get the land back . 1756 00:10:41,520 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic:

It's interesting , the local the underlying population is mixed . So in this area , you've probably got you've got large Christian and Muslim communities across the Middle East and then smaller groups of other religious groups such as Jewish communities or even Zoroastrian communities . But while some are hostile to the Franks , not all of the Bedouin work with or some Bedouin groups work with the Franks , who are very early stage as to some sort of smaller Turkish rulers .

So it's it's never quite as simple as sort of just Christian versus Muslim . It can be a great deal more complex than that on the ground in the sort of the mix of alliances that takes place for the vast majority of the population . As long as the crusaders or Franks leaves them alone , they're normally prepared to pay their taxes , as it were . And so a sort of status quo develops is not that either . Everyone sees it as being ideal , but nonetheless , it kind of

works . 1925 00:11:37,800 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary: So how did they govern ? They pay their tax , as you say , and then the crusaders , left them alone . So the demographics have to be mainly local population . How did they get on with the Franks as they were governing the land ? 1968 00:11:49,440 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic:

Okay . So it's different for different groups . Eastern Christians , whether that's Orthodox Christians or Syriac Christians or Armenian Christians or Jacobite Christians as a whole range of different Christian denominations in the East where the vast majority didn't fight for the Franks . A few did . The Armenian groups , but for the most part they didn't fight for them , although there may have been some recruitment there .

But the Franks themselves , they were happy to intermarry with eastern Christian groups . That happened quite a lot . And in law , Eastern Christians were granted the protection of the law in the Crusader states , but they didn't have the same level of protection as Frankish Christians . So in one way that a historian's caption the treatment of Eastern Christians by the Franks is quite neatly , I think , with the phrase wrath tolerance in that it's not equal .

But at the same time , they kind of get on and the historical cross Mckevitt did a very good study on that , but that seems to be about right . But there are lots of areas where they they share things a little bit . They get married state of live in the same areas . They share festivals . In some cases they worship in the same places . So they capital . In some cases they do .

So there is a degree of crossover that in terms of the Muslim population in the Crusader states , it's a slightly different picture , A rather depends on which particular group . So if I mentioned the Bedouin already , often they worked quite closely with the Crusader states . And then you have some communities such as the Nizari , who are often known as the assassins , and they're intensively persecuted in the Seljuk Sultanate , who sees the Nazarene as a substantial threat .

And so the Nizari actually take refuge in the borderlands of the Crusader states , but it always gets old with the Crusader states . But there is a reciprocal relationship there . Sometimes they fight , sometimes they work together , sometimes they conduct diplomacy . But that , too , is a complicated relationship with regard to sort of the broader Sunni and Shia muslim population in the area .

Again , in law , it's a situation of legal inequality in that Muslims have a protection of the law , but they don't have the same level of protection as Frankish Christians . And in many cases , that does seem to have been an underlying expectation that provided that Muslim communities paid their taxes and didn't rebel for the most part , they would be left alone and has a vested interest on both sides to maintain that kind of relationship .

The Franks want tax , and they don't want uprisings of the local population , want to maintain their lands . And you've actually got a pilgrim returning from Hajj back to his home in southern Iberia . So the modern day Spain . And he traveled through the Crusader states and he noticed with surprise this kind of relationship that provides they pay the taxes . They were generally left alone , although it can be more complicated than that in individual

circumstances . 2481 00:15:03,750 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary: Once they created these states . So the most of the resistance was from the outside , not from the inside of the Crusader states to that , because the Crusader states are a small strip along the coast . So there was big cities . Damascus is outside of that . Baghdad isn't too far away . 2533 00:15:17,430 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary:

Were there other Muslim leaders and warlords who were trying to come in and take over those lands ? 2552 00:15:22,680 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic: Yes . So in some ways , the early history of the Crusades in the Crusader states is a tale of two invasions in that you've obviously got the Crusaders advancing from the north across Anatolia , seeking to conquer parts of Syria and obviously Jerusalem .

But there's another invasion going on as well , and that predates the crusade by war in Syria , at least by a little over 20 years . And that is that in around the year 1000 groups of Turkish nomadic communities began to move south out of the Central Asian steppe region . And in time , the Seljuk family rose to lead these very large population movements , which ultimately conquered the vast majority of the Middle East . But the Seljuks who led this conquest , they're incredibly powerful .

They conquered the entire region and then displace the local Arab or Kurdish rulers . And so their conquerors too . And in the early years at least , that either they still maintained that the early ancestral beliefs of the Central Asian steppe or at a very early stage in their conversion to Islam . So they're not necessarily seen as being a familiar face to the various sort of Muslim dynasties and territories of the Middle East . And so there is substantial resistance to the Seljuks .

Interestingly enough , in the wake of the first Crusade , because the first crusade has proved the siege economies can be defeated and there's a wave of rebellions following that . It's a situation in the wake of the first crusade where you have two conquerors , the seljuks with their first , but their position is not secure and the crusaders are there as well , and they've newly arrived and their position is not secure either .

And so the relations between between those two and then the underlying populations underneath both those ruling factions , that makes for a very complex situation . And I've always thought that one of the reasons the Bedouin supported the Crusader states in their early years is probably because they were being pushed off their grazing lands by the incoming nomadic Turkish nomads who wanted those lands to themselves .

It's natural for them to align with someone who might be able to get them those lands back . 2922 00:17:37,020 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary: The Crusaders started out helping the Byzantine Empire , so while they were governing the Crusader states , Did the Byzantine Empire come back and say , 2947 00:17:44,010 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary:

Hey , this is our land that you conquered for us , and try to take that land back ? 2965 00:17:47,460 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic: Yes , the Byzantine Empire is the direct line continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire . There's no break . It's just the name changes , but there's no actual rift between as I know it . It ceases to be the Assyrian Empire becomes the Byzantine Empire . And so as a result , as far as the Byzantines are concerned , they have a right to rule .

Much of the area and formally for centuries , say rural parts of Syria and even down to Egypt and North Africa . So the Byzantines do see this area as being historically theirs , at least Alexius the first Komnenos . He was part of the call for the first crusade , trying to request help . So the Crusaders arrive and historians have generally thought that Alexius probably wouldn't have been particularly pleased by the sight of this enormous army outside the walls .

Yes , he wanted supports , but historians have normally felt that he probably wanted two or 3000 professional soldiers who could seamlessly be integrated into his army , rather than hundreds of thousands of people with large numbers of non-combatants who have their own ideas about what they're doing and where they're going . So things do get a little bit tense as even some skirmishes fought outside the Byzantine capital during the First Crusade as tensions emerge .

But the bottom line is this the Crusaders agree to work with the Byzantines if they are prepared to take an oath to the Byzantine Emperor . And the emphasis very clear on this , and in return the Emperor offers , offers , logistical support and supplies and things like that . A key clause in that oath that they're expected to take is that they're supposed to return any formerly Byzantine territory . And I suppose in theory the Byzantines could expand that to mean pretty much anywhere .

But the thing they've really got their eye on is the territories they've lost very recently in Anatolia when they Turkey , but in particular the city of Antioch , which is in very much the southern borders of Turkey today . And so when the crusaders advance across Anatolia , they begin by handing back the city of Nicaea , which they conquered , that the Byzantines take Nicaea whilst its being besieged by the Crusaders , and then later the Crusaders move south towards Jerusalem .

The Byzantines follow behind it , and with the Crusaders defeating the various armies who are sent against them , the Byzantines decides to collect the lands basically that the Crusaders are passing through and to consolidate , to conquer any remaining unconquered territories . And they regain a lot of territory in Anatolia because that following in the wake of the crusading army . And so that works very well for the Byzantines .

But things begin to come unstuck in that relationship ship during the siege of Antioch , which is very much the make or break moment of the first crusade , the siege lasts a seven or eight months . It's in the middle of the Syrian winter , which is cold and wet . Lots of crusaders die from exposure or starvation or other natural causes alongside military action .

And although the Byzantines do send some forces to relieve them , there comes a point , it seems , where the Byzantines probably felt that the Crusaders not going to survive . And this is a very contentious topic .

Exactly what was going on in that conversation isn't clear , but it seems as though the Crusaders on the verge of falling apart and the Crusaders therefore accused the Byzantines of not supplying them with the assistance they require at the critical moment where they're in most need of the Byzantines . So that part rejects this and the debate on that goes round and round .

But the point is when the crusaders do ultimately take Antioch , they refuse to give it back because they sent their oath to the Byzantine Emperor has already been rendered void . And that creates a line of tension , particularly between the Franks who taken rule Antioch becoming the principality of Antioch .

That creates a lot of tension that just runs and runs and runs with the Byzantine emperors who feel they have a right to it , and the princes of Antioch who feel they have a right to it too , and other rulers in place as so the other Crusader states , the Byzantines , are much , much more willing to be broadly supportive , provided that certain conditions are met in later years .

So the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the county of Tripoli , which is essentially the northern part of modern day Lebanon and the southwestern part of modern day Syria , relations that are also fairly positive with Byzantines throughout much of their history . So it's a mixed picture . But the sort of origins of that relationship , we . 3755 00:22:35,280 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary:

You can't visit those crusader states that are not nations today . So what was the beginning of the downfall for them ? How long were they states ? And then where did the resistance come from if it didn't come from within ? That started the downfall of the Crusader states . 3804 00:22:50,040 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic: Okay . Yeah , great question . So for the first 30 years , the Crusader states are on the front foot . They win most of the battles . They're taking territory .

There's various reasons for that . The fact that the generation of the first crusade is still around and can pass on a great deal of knowledge and experience seems to have been a factor . Another factor is that there's not much consolidation , particularly in Syria among the various Turkish rulers that they face on their eastern frontier .

The Franks managed to defeat the Fatimid empire in Egypt , many battlefield encounters and from about 1105 onwards , there's not much fighting in the South , which consolidates as southern borders and the momentum of conquest carries them forwards where the franks begin to come in . The difficulty is once they start to reach the borders of the big Syrian cities of Aleppo in the north and Damascus in the south .

Now these are really big cities by medieval standards , maybe as many as 60,000 population , which is huge by the standards of the day . And just the context . Armies deployed by the Crusader states in this era never got bigger than about 10,000 . So they're looking at tackling cities where the very population , before you bring in any really reforms or anyone else is still six times larger than the army attacking it . They struggled to conquer those cities with their failure to do so .

The tide began to turn a bit . That was sort of the moment of which I believe the military jargon is to culminate . Their invasions culminated . After that you have the beginnings of consolidation in Syria with the rise of a ruler called Ascending . He's a Turkish ruler and he manages to build up a powerbase across Syria and the Jazeera , which is the area of land between the Euphrates and Tigris River all the way across to Mosul .

And with that big empire that he's carved out of Muslim territory that gives him enormous military force , which tipped the balance of power very much in his favor . Now , he's not that interested in fighting the Franks . He does it occasionally , but not very much . But nonetheless , it means there's going to be no more expansion for the Franks on that frontier . 4186 00:25:05,070 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic:

And under his son called Nur al Din , Nur al-DIn are other begins to make more inroads on the acquisitive states , although it has to be something which because it's getting more and more powerful pretty much until they fall . What really shifts the needle , as it were , is that Nur al-Din , who is the ruler of Syria . I would talk now in about the 1150s , 1160s . He has two main clusters of opponents .

Yes , he recognizes the threat from the Franks is that he also has various Turkish rivals , particularly in Anatolia . But he's also very keen to conquer Egypt and Egypt's really , really important because Egypt is the economic powerhouse of the entire region . The crops of the Nile Delta , the industrial product of the big cities of Egypt , and Egypt's central position on the spice routes across the Indian Ocean . The silk roads from Central Asia , the Trans Sahara and gold routes .

There's a lot of money , whether through trade , commerce , industrial agriculture in Egypt . So if you've got control of Egypt , then that's going to substantially enhance your economic position and the world and wants to conquer Egypt . Now , it's not necessarily for Egypt's wealth , it seems it was equally as interested as a Sunni Muslim ruler in conquering a Shia empire , which is the price of an empire was . And so he sends a series of armies into Egypt .

So too does the Kingdom of Jerusalem . And during the 1160s , a lot of fighting over who's going to rule Egypt . Well , the fact that it's retained control , will it be the crusader states ? Will it be neutral ?

Did the crusader states and the Fatimids lose that contest because no audience armies do take control of Cairo in 1168 and consolidate their position in the following months and yet , in fact , neutral didn't doesn't get to rule Egypt either , because his lieutenant , who commanded the army of invasion into Egypt , is a Kurdish commander called Shaka and should die fairly soon after conquering Egypt and power passes onto his nephew . 4531 00:27:20,790 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic:

His nephew's name is Salah ad-Din ibn Ayyub . Are you Saladin ? As Saladin takes control of Egypt , they never really let me . Whilst he always acknowledges neuralgia in Din's Overlordship , nonetheless , he pretty much rules Egypt as an independent power . And in 1170s and eighties he manages to conquer much of Syria as well . After his Masters death , Saladin invades Syria and conquers many towns and cities from Neurath . It is as and this is the key point .

By doing that , he builds this enormous consolidation of power . Syria , which can call upon large reserves of troops from the Turkic population , Egypt with its enormous economic resources . And so you're putting troops and money together by having both Syria and Egypt that gives him the force to raise enormous armies .

And it's in the 1180s that he can really begin to take the offensive in a very serious way against the Crusader states and with a serious hope of reconquering Jerusalem , that enormous consolidation of power that he's able to put together that ultimately destroys the kingdom of Jerusalem . Kingdom of Jerusalem continues to grow even into the 1180s , but it's just outmatched by Saladin . His empire is growing faster .

And so in 1187 , at the Battle of 18 , Saladin stores an overwhelming victory against the Kingdom of Jerusalem . Kingdom of Jerusalem is the biggest of the Crusader states . The northern ones can't survive alone . And so this then sees the substantial demolition of much of the Crusader states . And that brings to an end a chapter in the history of the Crusader states .

Although just to make things more complicated , there's an another big crusade called the Third Crusade , which rebelled to some extent the states which then carry on for another century until their eventual collapse in 1291 . 4832 00:29:22,290 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary: Saladin takes over . Egypt is right below kind of borders , the kingdom of Jerusalem on the south side . And if he takes Syria as well , he surrounds the crusader states . For the most part , he's got them all surrounded .

They can't go anywhere except the ocean or fight . 4881 00:29:36,150 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic: That's correct . 4884 00:29:36,750 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary: Yeah . The Third Crusade and Richard , the first comes in . And so how does he regrow or how does he help solidify the crusader state so they don't fall for another 100 years or so . 4920 00:29:47,160 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic:

Within about a year , 18 months of the Battle of Hattin , the Kingdom of Jerusalem has been reduced from encompassing tens of cities , dozens of towns , huge areas of agricultural lands , and many , many castles and strongholds . It's been reduced it basically to one city . That's the city of Tyre , a modern day Syria . In modern day southern Lebanon , the northern crusader states of Tripoli , Tripoli is reduced to Tripoli itself in a few strongholds , Antiochus reduced to Antioch itself .

In a few strongholds , the county of Edessa fell some time before that . Saladin's advance is also has him very , very effective at destroying the greater part of the Crusader states . And it's clear the Crusader states are on the point of falling . But within months of Saladin's victory 18 and by the time that Saladin has reconquered Jerusalem , the armies of the Third Crusade are already being raised .

They're already gathering , and they're led by commanders such as Emperor , the first of Germany , but at the second to France , and most famously , perhaps , Richard , the first of England . And so these armies arrive in the Middle East and a massive war begins to emerge along the coastline as the crusaders try to regain territory and Saladin and his army tries to prevent them .

It's fascinating how a database in which they record every battle , skirmish and raid I can find across the entire Middle East between about 1013 hundred . But in the years of the Third Crusade , which are basically between well , the fighting was really between about 1199 and 1192 . There's scarcely any conflict anywhere else except in a very , very narrow bit of land .

It's remarkable to what extent the struggle between Saladin and the armies of the Third Crusade drew fighters from so many different areas . There's just not much more fighting anywhere else . And so there are some enormous battles fought in battle . Richard tends to do better around the negotiating table . Saladin tends to do better . And the upshot of this is that a treaty is forged in 1192 .

But in that treaty , the Crusaders do regain some of their former port cities , but they don't get Jerusalem . Saladin gets to keep Jerusalem , and that is the compromise that is settled for the time at least . But of equal importance is that within a year or so of the third Crusades ending the strain , the Third Crusade would have put on all all the commanders involved would have been incredible , just the sheer effort that would have required for everyone involved .

And I've always rather suspected that it's just sheer exhaustion that played a part in Saladin's death fairly soon afterwards , in the wake of Saladin's death , his empire falls apart , or at least it falls apart as a single unified entity , as his brother and sons take various different parts of it and then fight amongst themselves and they fight amongst themselves for the next almost 60 years because they're fighting amongst themselves . They actually show very little interest .

It's very periodic their interest in either defending against or attacking what's left of the Crusader states , which creates a window of opportunity for the crusaders to rebuild their position along the coast , even to the point where the Crusaders regained Jerusalem by treaty in 1229 , only hold it for about 15 years . What ultimately brings about the fall of the Crusader states is , interestingly enough , nothing to do with the Crusaders states themselves .

A new empire forms in Egypt , which rises up . It takes over Egypt from Saladin's dynasty by the by about 1250 , which is when are you the IU but dynasty stallions dynasty in Egypt Falls . Their armies depend very heavily on enslaved people who they have purchased and then raised and trained to be soldiers . 5556 00:34:03,030 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic:

And they're called Mamluks . And these soldiers are very effective on the battlefield , but they have too many of them , and they can simply guess what's coming next . The Mamluks realized , well , actually , they don't have to obey anyone's instructions . And so they rebelled . Take over Egypt and form the Mamluk empire .

So the mamluks in Egypt and then to the north east , you have the rapidly expanding empire of the Mongols and the Mongols begin their expansion into the Middle East in the 1220s . By 1260 , the Mongols control the pretty much the entire Middle East up to much of Syria and all that's left of territory is that the Mongols are either control or have overlordship the Crusader states which are fairly small , not anything like strong enough to fight off the Mongols and the Mamluks in Egypt .

And a deal emerges in the Mamluks and the Mongols last for 60 years and there's victory and defeat on sides , massive armies . And the major contest is between the Mongols and the Mamluks , who's therefore going to be the ruler of the Middle East , sort of control the entire area . And it ends in a stalemate . But essentially within that context , when the Mamluks are fighting the Mongols , they send their armies against what's left of the Crusader state to the present .

So it's a sort of worn down and eventually destroyed as a sideshow to a much bigger contest taking place between the Mamluks and the Mongols . 5806 00:35:35,460 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary: Stop getting bored . They just go pick on the Crusader states . 5818 00:35:38,490 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic:

There may be an element to that because there's big lulls in the fighting between the Mamluks and the Mongols and the Mamluks use those lulls to fight the Crusader states , and as you say , that would give them some very good training in siege craft and battlefield tactics that they could then apply to fighting the Mongols

later . 5878 00:35:55,770 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary: All the writing was kind of on the wall when the Mongols come in from the north and the east , and then you have Mamluks in the south . Once you're surrounded by those two armies and you only have a couple of thousand people , you're in trouble . Well , so what was the downfall ? They lasted through some of those battles .

The Mongols were there and then they pull out who eventually took over those crusader states 5955 00:36:17,340 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic:

I mentioned . The big contest is the Mamluks in Egypt and later in Syria fighting the Mongols . The main frontier in that war is the Euphrates River , the Mamluks and their troops against the states during sort of periods of peace with the Mongols anyway . But basically they just take the position of , say , it's a pot every year , every few years , they might take a few towns , a few strongholds . The next year they do the same thing because there's no real counter-offensive .

The Franks by this stage lack the numbers to meet the mamluks on equal terms on the battlefield . They made the front a few raids , but they're never going to get these territories back . And by the late 13th century , which is this sort of era enthusiasm for crusading all the way across to the eastern Mediterranean's at a fairly low ebb in western Christendom , so no big armies set out during that era to support the Crusader states . A few smaller contingents , perhaps .

So the Mamluks really can take the kind of states apart as as a when they choose . In fact , the crusaders biggest card to play at the negotiating table is their central role in trade , their crucial trading importance , and the moments of an interest in keeping the trading emporium open , which is actually their strongest argument for remaining for keeping going in many ways . But yeah , they're taken apart .

And in 1291 , the Mamluks besiege the City of Acre , which is the capital city of the Kingdom of Jerusalem , and with the fall of Angkor , that's pretty much it . There's a couple of towns left , but they're evacuated in the wake of the fall of acre and that's the end of the mainland Crusader states . Although the island of Cyprus remains a Catholic kingdom all the way up until it remains in western Christian hands until 1571 . 6272 00:38:04,740 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary:

I know for me , I always look at kind of the military aspect of everything , but what was the social and economic aspect of the Crusader states that you said that they had a lot of trade that was involved . Did they build up these cities in like a Frankish way ? Did they kind of assimilate and build them up into the Muslim near East kind of society ? How would the economics and society look like before everything collapsed ? 6352 00:38:26,580 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic: Yeah , great question .

And there's several points to make here . The first is that there's a huge amount of exchange that takes place during this era . When you look at maps and in some people's books or some of the way which people describe this era , you would be forgiven for thinking that there's a sort of one block of territory called Christian territory , one block of typical Muslim territory and a line between the two , and that's it . Recent research is very much breaking down the idea .

I just to give you one idea of how that might operate , there's not much money around . So even though the Christian sector to quite wealthy , so is Damascus and Aleppo . By modern standards , the entire region is not particularly wealthy . And so let's say that you are the emir of Damascus or the count of Tripoli or the queen of Jerusalem or any any ruler from across the area , if you will , to build a church , a mosque , a palace , a castle , the town walls .

You can probably do that just about . And so for two or three years , you will hire masons and carpenters and laborers and all the people you need to build that building . And at the end of that period , that's it . You're out of money . That's the end . And so all those artisans have to go somewhere else . And so where do they go ? They go where the money is .

And if that means crossing a cultural border into Christian territory or into Muslim territory or Byzantine territory or Armenian territory , they'll do it . They follow the money . As a result , all these artisans , not just the building stuff , but also scientists , intellectuals , theologians , in some cases doctors , falconers , all the all these sorts of professionals . They travel all the time and they travel very easily from Christian and Muslim territory .

And of course , they don't just leave their ideas and technologies at the border , they bring them with them . And so within that process , ideas , stories , technologies , they get shared all the time . And it's interesting to see the architecture of this era where you see distinctively Western European elements in some eastern Christian or Muslim buildings and you see some distinctively Muslim architectural elements in Christian buildings .

And the reason they're doing that is because they're sharing a workforce . You mentioned about the cities of the Crusader states , and here it's an incredible mixture because of course they're inheriting I said heritage . When they conquer these places , the buildings are already there . Some might get knocked down or destroyed . They may replace them or augment . But the basic building stocks are already there . And that will be a mixture of eastern Christian and Muslim buildings .

But of course , the Franks that impose their own imprint on that . And so where you might have a traditional Middle Eastern city to begin with , for example , one feature of Frankish architecture is the like big town squares . That's a distinctive of Italian cities in this era , and they create that in the Crusader states and Italian townhouses have beautiful facades that emphasize the prestige majesty of the family that live there .

And so these Frankish ideas and norms are augmented onto the existing cities that the Crusaders conquered in the first place . And so you've got this mixture of a mixture of architecture , a mixture of building styles .

And I've often thought that if I could go back in time , it would just be the opportunity to walk through some of these cities , whether that's ACRE in the Kingdom of Jerusalem or Damascus in Seljuk , Syria , and just to hear the voices and the stories and the things being exchanged because it must be an incredible and fascinating place with all these different cultures negotiating , making friends , eating together , hating each other , good or bad , or every other emotion in between the

spectrum and all taking place in a very small area . I know what that must have been like is it's one of the things that fascinates me about this . All these different cultures encountering each other , whether for good or ill , but having that encounter , what they make of each other , what they love and what they refuse to learn , it makes it a very interesting mix for

many . 7077 00:42:39,900 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary: Pop culture movies , kind of kind of black and white line down the middle . It's this versus that . But I'm sure it was a melting pot of everything . And Frankish crusader soldiers married local population and vice versa . 7116 00:42:51,480 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic: And even the armies of this era . So we know that many Muslim rulers hired Frankish mercenary groups in large numbers .

And we know that many of the armies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the present states employ Muslim soldiers . And of course then there's auxiliaries and that you've got plenty of occasions where you've got multiple states taking part in that battle and you've got Christians and Muslims on both sides . So it's complicated .

There is it has to be said that underlying religious tension and there are plenty of moments where holy war takes place , but plenty of other moments as well , where it's a great deal more complicated . 7229 00:43:33,030 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary:

These crusader states , they were done , the Crusades kind of diminished over time . Was there ever anything that anyone tried to regain any of this territory ? 7256 00:43:42,150 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic: But there's a lot of talk . So when when the final crusade of states fall in 1291 , the mainland crusader states , there's a lot of talk and a lot of planning . And you've got all sorts of armchair experts who want guides on how they would do it , not offering it themselves if they were to .

This is how they do it . And you have some very much , very serious proposals to put forward by the Templars and hospitals who give very detailed accounts . Well , this is exactly how it could be done . But in those years at least , the wills not in Western Christendom for another big crusade . There's a lot of infighting in Western Christendom . 100 years . War is hotting up . There's struggles in the German empire . Northern Italy is a warzone . There's a lot going on .

That means that that's just not going to be a big crusade in later years . Proposals continue to be touted for another big crusade , but by the time those sorts of proposals start to take concrete form , you're in the mid 14th century , so sort of the 1350s studying forties , that sort of era by which time a bit of background here you have the rise of the Ottoman Empire .

So it's thought , for example , in one of the stories is that there was a group of peoples displaced by the Mongols who moved west into Anatolia , joining many other Turkish nomads being driven west into Anatolia . And in time those various groups formed by beyliks , one of which was the Ottoman beylik and the Ottoman beylik , expanded and expanded until ultimately it became the Ottoman Empire .

And by the 14th century , the big bayonets , the Ottomans among them are a much bigger source of anxiety in Western Christendom than anywhere else . And so crusading changes focus from Jerusalem on the eastern Mediterranean to more defensive , crusading about trying to hold territory against the oncoming Ottomans , among others . And so crusading shifts .

But when the Christian movement itself carries on , the hundreds of years and crusading didn't just take place in the Middle East , you've got crusades fought in the Baltic Crusades , fought in Iberia . Believe it or not , there are even crusades launched against the Eskimos . So crusades take place in all sorts of different contexts , even internal crusading against the papacies political opponents in Western Christendom and also anti heresy crusades as well .

So crusading in various forms carries on , but there's not really a serious effort to retake Jerusalem in later years . The aspiration is discussed endlessly , but no army gets close . 7691 00:46:23,740 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary:

Good place to end it . Then at the end of the Crusader states . Thank you for your time . It's a fascinating talk . Where can people find you online ? How can they get a hold of you ? Where can they find your books ? 7734 00:46:32,820 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic: Yeah , sure .

So so the books that might be of interest or my recent paperback with Oxford University Press called The Crusader States and the Neighbors and Military History and Uptakes the history of the Crusader states from 1099 to 1187 . And that can be bought on Amazon or the Oxford University website . There's also my other recent book called The Mongol Storm , which is a history of the Mongol invasions into the Middle East in the 13th century . And that , again , Amazon would be a good place to go for .

That's for the publisher's website , which is basic books . If you'll find out more about my research then of a YouTube channel and the handle there is at Medieval Near East . And you can also find out what my publications I have an account on academia or edu , so you type in my name . Nicholas Morton Academia dot edu . That will show you where my publications are . Or indeed you can see my university website , which is Nottingham Trent University in the

UK . 7909 00:47:30,270 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary: All right . And we'll link up all those in the in the show notes for this so that everyone can just find them with a simple click perfect . 7938 00:47:36,420 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic: Thank you . 7941 00:47:36,810 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary: Well , I appreciate your time . Thank you and thanks for being on the show again . 7957 00:47:40,020 --> 00:00:00,-01 Nic: Always a pleasure . Thanks very much .

Derek . 7965 00:47:49,050 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary:

That is the rise and fall of the Crusader states in a nutshell . Now , I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did . And I want to thank Nick again for coming on the show and sharing his extensive knowledge . You can find links to next book in the show notes as well as his social media on YouTube , Twitter , and the academia dot edu he mentioned . While we're on the subject of social networks , 8042 00:48:09,660 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary:

you can find medieval archives over on Mastodon and Blue Sky . They are the new kids on the social media and it's not as crowded on them . And there's a lot of good conversations going on over there . Links to those profiles also in the show notes . Send your comments and questions to podcasts that medieval archives dot com . And if you're enjoying the podcast . Easy way to support the show is to tell your friends can share it right from your smartphone . Send them the link to this great

interview . 8134 00:48:34,060 --> 00:00:00,-01 Gary:

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Thank you for your time and thank you for your continued support and that'll wrap it up for this episode . Thanks again for subscribing and listening to the Medieval Archives podcast . Illuminating the Dark Ages for the digital world for .