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Map of the territorial extent of the Crusader states (Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli, and Jerusalem) in the Holy Land in 1135, shortly before the Second Crusade. The Crusader states, or Outremer, were four Catholic polities that existed in the Levant from 1098 to 1291.
Sep 9, 2024 · The Crusades were organized by western European Christians after centuries of Muslim wars of expansion. Their primary objectives were to stop the expansion of Muslim states, to reclaim for Christianity the Holy Land in the Middle East, and to recapture territories that had formerly been Christian.
- There were at least eight Crusades. The First Crusade lasted from 1096 to 1099. The Second Crusade began in 1147 and ended in 1149. The Third Crusa...
- The First Crusade was led by Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Godrey of Bouillon, Hugh of Vermandois, Bohemond of Otranto, and Robert of Flanders, and the...
- The First Crusade, called in response to a request for help from the Byzantine emperor Alexius Comnenus, was astonishingly successful. The Crusader...
- The Crusades slowed the advance of Islamic power and may have prevented western Europe from falling under Muslim suzerainty. The Crusader states ex...
- Overview
- The Crusader states
A successful surprise attack on the Egyptian relief army ensured the Crusaders’ occupation of Palestine. Having fulfilled their vows of pilgrimage, most of the Crusaders departed for home, leaving the problem of governing the conquered territories to the few who remained. Initially, there was disagreement concerning the nature of the government to be established, and some held that the holy city should be ruled under ecclesiastical authority. As an interim measure, Godfrey was elected to govern and took the modest title of Defender of the Holy Sepulchre.
In December 1099, in the midst of this confused situation, Bohemond and Baldwin of Edessa arrived in Jerusalem to fulfill their Crusader vows. Accompanying Bohemond was Daimbert, the archbishop of Pisa, who was chosen patriarch and received the homage of both Godfrey and Baldwin. If Daimbert had ambitions to govern Jerusalem, they were thwarted when, on Godfrey’s death, his brother Baldwin was summoned back to Jerusalem, where he assumed the title of king (November 11, 1100). Thus, there had come into being not a church state but a feudal kingdom of Jerusalem.
Securing the new Christian territories was now of utmost concern. The Crusade of 1101, for example, was organized by Pope Paschal II to reinforce Christian rule in the Holy Land, but it collapsed in Asia Minor. King Baldwin, however, profited nonetheless from the chronic rivalries of his Muslim neighbours. He was also able to extend his control along the coastline with the aid of Italians and in one instance of a Norwegian squadron that arrived under King Sigurd in 1110. By 1112 Arsuf, Caesarea, Acre, Beirut, and Sidon had been taken, and the entire coast except for Ascalon and Tyre was in Latin hands.
Meanwhile, castles had been built in Galilee, the frontier pushed southward, and Crusader states formed in the north. The county of Edessa, an ill-defined domain extending into the upper Euphrates region with a population consisting mainly of Armenians and Syrians, had already been established by Godfrey’s brother Baldwin. When Baldwin left to become ruler of Jerusalem, he bestowed the county, under his suzerainty, on his cousin Baldwin of Le Bourcq.
Antioch had not been returned to the emperor, and Bohemond had consolidated his position there. The city was predominantly Greek in population, though there were also Syrians and Armenians, and the latent Greek-Latin friction was intensified when Bohemond replaced the Greek patriarch with a Latin one. When Bohemond was captured by the Muslims in 1100, his nephew Tancred became regent and expanded the frontiers of the principality to include the important port of Latakia, taken from the Byzantines in 1103. Not long after his release in 1103, Bohemond traveled to Europe, where he succeeded in winning over Pope Paschal II to the idea of a new Crusade. Whatever the original intention, there resulted not an expedition against Muslims but an attack on the Byzantine city of Dyrrhachium. Like its predecessor, the ill-fated campaign of 1082, the enterprise failed, and in 1108 Bohemond was forced to take an oath of vassalage to the emperor for Antioch and to return to Italy, where he died in 1111. Tancred, again in power, ignored his uncle’s oath, and Antioch and its patriarchate remained a source of controversy.
A fourth Crusader state was established on the coast in the vicinity of Tripoli (Arabic Tarābulus) by Raymond of Saint-Gilles, who had been outmaneuvered in Jerusalem and had returned to Constantinople hoping for aid from the Byzantine emperor, to whom he had always been loyal. In 1102 he returned to Syria, took Tortosa (Ṭarṭūs), and began the siege of Tripoli. But he died in 1105, and it remained for his descendants to finish the task in 1109.
A successful surprise attack on the Egyptian relief army ensured the Crusaders’ occupation of Palestine. Having fulfilled their vows of pilgrimage, most of the Crusaders departed for home, leaving the problem of governing the conquered territories to the few who remained. Initially, there was disagreement concerning the nature of the government to be established, and some held that the holy city should be ruled under ecclesiastical authority. As an interim measure, Godfrey was elected to govern and took the modest title of Defender of the Holy Sepulchre.
In December 1099, in the midst of this confused situation, Bohemond and Baldwin of Edessa arrived in Jerusalem to fulfill their Crusader vows. Accompanying Bohemond was Daimbert, the archbishop of Pisa, who was chosen patriarch and received the homage of both Godfrey and Baldwin. If Daimbert had ambitions to govern Jerusalem, they were thwarted when, on Godfrey’s death, his brother Baldwin was summoned back to Jerusalem, where he assumed the title of king (November 11, 1100). Thus, there had come into being not a church state but a feudal kingdom of Jerusalem.
Securing the new Christian territories was now of utmost concern. The Crusade of 1101, for example, was organized by Pope Paschal II to reinforce Christian rule in the Holy Land, but it collapsed in Asia Minor. King Baldwin, however, profited nonetheless from the chronic rivalries of his Muslim neighbours. He was also able to extend his control along the coastline with the aid of Italians and in one instance of a Norwegian squadron that arrived under King Sigurd in 1110. By 1112 Arsuf, Caesarea, Acre, Beirut, and Sidon had been taken, and the entire coast except for Ascalon and Tyre was in Latin hands.
Meanwhile, castles had been built in Galilee, the frontier pushed southward, and Crusader states formed in the north. The county of Edessa, an ill-defined domain extending into the upper Euphrates region with a population consisting mainly of Armenians and Syrians, had already been established by Godfrey’s brother Baldwin. When Baldwin left to become ruler of Jerusalem, he bestowed the county, under his suzerainty, on his cousin Baldwin of Le Bourcq.
Antioch had not been returned to the emperor, and Bohemond had consolidated his position there. The city was predominantly Greek in population, though there were also Syrians and Armenians, and the latent Greek-Latin friction was intensified when Bohemond replaced the Greek patriarch with a Latin one. When Bohemond was captured by the Muslims in 1100, his nephew Tancred became regent and expanded the frontiers of the principality to include the important port of Latakia, taken from the Byzantines in 1103. Not long after his release in 1103, Bohemond traveled to Europe, where he succeeded in winning over Pope Paschal II to the idea of a new Crusade. Whatever the original intention, there resulted not an expedition against Muslims but an attack on the Byzantine city of Dyrrhachium. Like its predecessor, the ill-fated campaign of 1082, the enterprise failed, and in 1108 Bohemond was forced to take an oath of vassalage to the emperor for Antioch and to return to Italy, where he died in 1111. Tancred, again in power, ignored his uncle’s oath, and Antioch and its patriarchate remained a source of controversy.
A fourth Crusader state was established on the coast in the vicinity of Tripoli (Arabic Tarābulus) by Raymond of Saint-Gilles, who had been outmaneuvered in Jerusalem and had returned to Constantinople hoping for aid from the Byzantine emperor, to whom he had always been loyal. In 1102 he returned to Syria, took Tortosa (Ṭarṭūs), and began the siege of Tripoli. But he died in 1105, and it remained for his descendants to finish the task in 1109.
In general, the Crusader States were centrally located in the Holy Land, which sat at the crossroads of major trade routes that spanned from Europe to Africa and Far East Asia. For instance, the most famous of these trade routes was the Silk Road.
Nov 1, 2018 · The most important of the Crusader States was the Kingdom of Jerusalem which controlled a narrow strip of coastal lands from Jaffa in the south to Beirut in the north. The kingdom controlled various fiefdoms, including Acre, Tyre, Nablus, Sidon and Caesarea.
- Mark Cartwright
Also known as the Crusade of Louis IX to the Holy Land, its objective was to reclaim the Holy Land by attacking Egypt, the main seat of Muslim power in the Middle East, then under as-Salih Ayyub, son of al-Kamil.
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.
