Crusades

Crusades. The primary use of the term is to describe the series of expeditions from W. Europe to the E. Mediterranean, beginning in 1095, which were designed to recover the Holy Land from Islam and then to retain it in Christian hands, and later to counteract the expanding power of the Ottoman Empire. Crusaders were granted indulgences and the status of martyr in the event of death.

The history of the Crusades may be divided into three periods.

1. 1095–1204. The First Crusade was solemnly proclaimed by Urban II at the Council of Clermont (1095), with the double object of relieving the pressure of the Seljuk Turks on the E. Empire following the Battle of Manzikert (1071) and of freeing the church of Jerusalem from Muslim control. Several armies set out. Antioch was captured in 1098 and Jerusalem in 1099. Godfrey of Bouillon was appointed as the first Latin ruler of Jerusalem; on his death in 1100 his brother Baldwin was crowned King of Jerusalem. During the next 20 years a series of Latin States was established along the E. coast of the Mediterranean. These proved difficult to defend. The Second Crusade of 1147, provoked by the fall of Edessa (1144), was preached by St Bernard of Clairvaux; it was led by Louis VII of France and Conrad III, King of the Romans. It did not ease the situation and in 1187 Saladin captured Jerusalem. The Third Crusade of 1189–92, in which the Emp. Frederick I, Richard I of England, and Philip II of France all took part, failed to recover Jerusalem. In 1202 the Fourth Crusade set out, but it was diverted to Constantinople, where a Latin Empire was established from 1204 to 1261.

2. 1204–91. Attempts to defend the remaining W. possessions in Syria continued. Jerusalem was recovered through negotiation by Frederick II and was in Latin hands from 1229 to 1244. The two largest Crusades were directed against Egypt, but both failed. In 1291 the last remaining possession on the mainland fell. Public opinion in the W. was becoming critical of Papal conduct of Crusading, partly because the concept had been extended to cover expeditions against non-Christians in Europe (e.g. Muslims in Spain), against heretics (e.g. the Albigensians) and against the political enemies of the Papacy.

3. AFTER 1291. The recovery of Jerusalem was now unlikely but the expansion of Ottoman power into E. Europe in the 14th cent. provoked a series of attempts to organize expeditions against it, and Crusading ideas helped to shape the Portuguese and Spanish oceanic expansion in the early 16th cent. In the W. in the 19th and 20th cent. the terms ‘Crusade’ and ‘Crusader’ were used for a variety of enterprises, usually in a favourable sense.

See also CHILDREN'S CRUSADE; HOSPITALLERS; TEMPLARS; WAR, CHRISTIAN ATTITUDE TO.