A sermon preached at Clermont in November 1095, answered with the cry 'Deus vult'
Pope Urban II; 'God wills it'.
History · Medieval
The Crusades
1095–1291
Holy war in the medieval Mediterranean
A series of papally sanctioned military expeditions, launched from 1095, aimed at recovering and holding Jerusalem and the Holy Land, and later turned against other targets from Constantinople to the Cathars of Languedoc. They created the Latin states of Outremer, produced the great military orders, and ended with the fall of the last mainland stronghold in 1291.
How to spot them
- ▸Clue patterns: a sermon at Clermont in 1095, 'God wills it', Outremer, the military orders
- ▸The first took Jerusalem in 1099; Saladin took it back in 1187
- ▸The fourth never reached the Holy Land at all
- ▸The last mainland stronghold, Acre, fell in 1291
What happened
Jerusalem taken on 15 July 1099, its leader refusing a crown in the city where Christ wore thorns
Godfrey of Bouillon took the title Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri instead of king.
A Kurdish sultan who destroyed a Frankish army at the Horns of Hattin in July 1187
Saladin; Jerusalem surrendered three months later.
An expedition of three kings, one of whom drowned in a river in Anatolia before arriving
Frederick Barbarossa drowned in the Saleph in 1190; Richard I and Philip II continued.
An expedition that never reached the Holy Land and sacked a Christian capital instead, in 1204
The Fourth Crusade and Constantinople; Pope Innocent III condemned it.
Two orders founded in the conquered city — one to guard pilgrims, one to nurse them
The Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller; the Teutonic Knights followed at Acre.
'Overseas' — the collective name for the four Latin states founded in the Levant
Outremer: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli.
A holy war preached against heretics in southern France from 1209
The Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars.
Quick-fire facts
- •Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont in November 1095.
- •The First Crusade captured Jerusalem on 15 July 1099; Godfrey of Bouillon became ruler as Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre.
- •The four crusader states of Outremer were the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli.
- •The Second Crusade (1147–1149) was preached by Bernard of Clairvaux and failed before Damascus.
- •Saladin destroyed the Kingdom of Jerusalem's army at the Battle of Hattin on 4 July 1187 and took the city that October.
- •The Third Crusade (1189–1192) involved Richard I of England, Philip II of France and Frederick Barbarossa, who drowned en route; it ended in the Treaty of Jaffa.
- •The Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople in 1204 and set up the Latin Empire.
- •The military orders included the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights.
- •Acre, the last major crusader stronghold on the mainland, fell to the Mamluks in 1291.
- •Crusades were also preached against the Cathars of Languedoc (the Albigensian Crusade, from 1209) and in the Baltic.
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Sources
- Steven Runciman — A History of the Crusades
- Thomas Asbridge — The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Crusades