Crusades
Origins of the Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The term refers especially to the Eastern Mediterranean campaigns in the period between 1095 and 1271 that had the objective of recovering the Holy Land from Islamic rule. The term has also been applied to other church-sanctioned campaigns fought to combat paganism and heresy, to resolve conflict among rival Roman Catholic groups, or to gain political and territorial advantage.
First Crusade (1096–1099)
The First Crusade was called in November 1095 by Pope Urban II at the town of Clermont in central France. The crusade was a response to an appeal for help that the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos sent to the West in order to repel the invading Seljuq Turks in Anatolia. One of Urban's aims was to guarantee pilgrims access to the Eastern Mediterranean holy sites that were under Muslim control while hoping to reunify the Eastern and Western branches of Christendom after their split in 1054 with the East–West Schism and thus heal the rift in the Church.
Second Crusade (1147–1150)
The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa in 1144 to the forces of Zengi. The county had been founded during the First Crusade by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem in 1098. While it was the first Crusader state to be founded, it was also the first to fall.
Third Crusade (1189–1192)
The Third Crusade was an attempt by European leaders to reconquer the Holy Land from Saladin, the Kurdish Muslim military leader who had become the Sultan of Egypt and Syria. The campaign was largely successful, capturing the important cities of Acre and Jaffa, and reversing most of Saladin's conquests, but it failed to capture Jerusalem, the emotional and spiritual motivation of the Crusade.
Fourth Crusade (1202–1204)
The Fourth Crusade was a Western European armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III, originally intended to conquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, in April 1204, the Crusaders of Western Europe invaded and sacked the Christian (Eastern Orthodox) city of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire.
Later Crusades
After the Fourth Crusade, the institution of the Crusade was significantly altered. The nature and purpose of crusading evolved almost entirely during the 13th century. The range of those considered fit for a crusade was widened to include criminals, who were promised amnesty at home and a clean slate with God, in return for service in defence of the faith. The object of crusading was extended from a struggle against external enemies of the faith, to include the internal enemies; the "heretics" within Christendom itself.
Impact of the Crusades
The Crusades had a profound impact on Western civilization. They resulted in a substantial weakening of the Byzantine Empire, which fell several centuries later to the Ottoman Turks. The Crusades also had a role in the creation and institutionalisation of the military and the Dominican orders as well as the Medieval Inquisition.