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5 days ago · The First Crusade lasted from 1096 to 1099. The Second Crusade began in 1147 and ended in 1149. The Third Crusade started in 1189 and was concluded in 1192. The Fourth Crusade got underway in 1202 and ended in 1204. The Fifth Crusade lasted from 1217 until 1221. The Sixth Crusade occurred in 1228–29. The Seventh Crusade began in 1248 and ...
- Crusades
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- Crusades
Oct 12, 2018 · The Crusades were a series of military campaigns organised by popes and Christian western powers to take Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control and then defend those gains. There were eight major official crusades between 1095 and 1270, as well as many more unofficial ones.
- Mark Cartwright
- How did the Crusades affect Europe?The Crusades affected Europe in that great wealth was invested in these wars and many of the ruling class died in them. Military orders were create...
- What were the three main causes of the Crusades?The three main causes of the crusades were: The Byzantine emperors wanted military help from Europe, the Popes wanted more power and prestige, and...
- Who proclaimed the beginning of the Crusades?The beginning of the Crusades was proclaimed by Pope Urban II.
May 5, 2015 · The First Crusade was called in November 1095 by Pope Urban II at the town of Clermont in central France. The pope made a proposal: 'Whoever for devotion alone, but not to gain honour or money, goes to Jerusalem to liberate the Church of God can substitute this journey for all penance.'
- Setting a timeline
- Theaters and targets
- Participants
In some ways, setting a beginning date for the crusading movement is relatively easy. The First Crusade was preached by Pope Urban II in 1095. Several different expeditions responded to this appeal, but the general dates for the First Crusade are 1096–99, when the city of Jerusalem was conquered. Keep in mind though that crusading didn’t emerge from a vacuum, and many of the elements of crusading were circulating before 1095.
However, finding an end date for the crusades is quite difficult indeed. Scholars used to stress that the heyday of crusading was before 1300. But we now know that crusading continued to flourish—as an ideal even when not in practice—for many centuries after that. Some place the end date at 1571, when the rising Ottoman Empire defeated the
The First Crusade was launched at the Levant (the region at the end of the eastern Mediterranean) with the stated purpose of rescuing Christians and bringing the Christian holy places—specifically Jerusalem—back into (European) Christian hands.
Of all the crusades to the region, the First was the most successful (from the perspective of European participants), and led to the creation of small
in the Levant, known as the crusader states. European nobles first governed these small states, which were inhabited by some settlers from western Europe as well as native Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
By the time the Second Crusade rolled around (1146–49) crusading had already expanded dramatically. The Second Crusade took place on three fronts: against Muslims in the Levant, against pagans in northern Europe, and against Muslims on the Iberian peninsula (modern day Spain and Portugal). This does not mean that all three fronts were coordinated, as in a modern war. Rather, it means that contemporaries believed that the wars on all three fronts together constituted a larger endeavor.
We should also remember that the Levant and Iberia contained any number of local Christians, Jews, and other religious groups, and they were not always exempted from crusader violence, even though it was held to be wrong to persecute or kill fellow Christians and Jews.
After the Second Crusade, crusading continued to expand and evolve. Muslims (or areas under Muslim governance) continued to be targets, especially when they threatened or reconquered portions of the crusader states, but other targets included Christian “heretics” (for example, in southern France), the Christian Byzantine Empire, and political opponents of the papacy within Europe.
Who went on crusade? From the beginning, popes and other leaders sought to encourage only professional men of war, whether kings, lords, knights, or simple men-at-arms, to go on crusade. And from the beginning, individuals of almost every other social class, age, and gender ignored this and wanted to go, too. The only people explicitly forbidden from going on crusade were those who had taken religious vows (like priests and monks), and even then, many tried to find a way to go—and, indeed, many went.
This doesn’t mean that everyone in Europe was pulled inexorably into crusading like water down a drain. Crusading was expensive, and it was very risky. To go on crusade meant leaving your loved ones and your property (if you had any) vulnerable for at least several years and possibly forever. Going on crusade was not an “easy out” for younger sons (as used to be thought) nor was it a reliable treasure-hunting expedition; it impoverished many more people than it profited. Nonetheless, because of the spiritual and social rewards on offer for crusading, crusade leaders were never able to fully stop people of both genders and all classes from accompanying armed parties on crusade, and it is fair to say that many expeditions, especially those to the Levant, included a wide range of age, social classes, and military experience.
Additional resources
What were the crusades?
How was crusading justified?
The impact of the crusades.
October 2001 (originally published)February 2014 (last revised) The First Crusade. Most historians consider the sermon preached by Pope Urban II at Clermont-Ferrand in November 1095 to have been the spark that fueled a wave of military campaigns to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control. Considered at the time to be divinely sanctioned, these ...
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Christian Latin Church in the medieval period.
This was crusading. Now imagine Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily. Frederick regains Jerusalem from the Muslims without waging war—it helps that he knows Arabic. He is crowned the King of Jerusalem in 1229, but returns to Europe to find the pope waging war on his lands. This, too, was crusading—at least it was for some ...
