What are the main reasons for the Crusades? Causes of the Crusades (briefly)
Crusades (late 11th – late 13th centuries). Campaigns of Western European knights to Palestine with the aim of liberating the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem from Muslim rule.
First Crusade
1095 - at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban III called for a crusade to liberate holy places from the yoke of the Saracens (Arabs and Seljuk Turks). The first crusade consisted of peasants and poor townspeople led by the preacher Peter of Amiens. 1096 - they arrived in Constantinople and, without waiting for the knightly army to approach, crossed over to Asia Minor. There, the poorly armed and even worse trained militia of Peter of Amiens was defeated by the Turks without much difficulty.
1097, spring - detachments of crusading knights concentrated in the capital of Byzantium. The main role in the First Crusade was played by the feudal lords of France: Count Raymond of Toulouse, Count Robert of Flanders, son of the Norman Duke William (the future conqueror of England) Robert, Bishop Adhemar.
Also taking part in the campaign were Count Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, his brothers Baldwin and Eustathius, Count Hugo of Vermandois, son of the French king Henry I, and Count Bohemond of Tarentum. Pope Urban wrote to the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos that 300,000 crusaders were going on the campaign, but it is more likely that several tens of thousands of people took part in the First Crusade, of which only a few thousand knights were well armed.
A detachment of the Byzantine army and the remnants of the militia of Peter of Amiens joined the crusaders.
The main problem of the crusaders was the lack of a unified command. The dukes and counts who took part in the campaign did not have a common overlord and did not want to obey each other, considering themselves no less noble and powerful than their colleagues.
Godfrey of Bouillon was the first to cross over to the land of Asia Minor, followed by other knights. 1097, June - the crusaders took the fortress of Nicaea and moved to Cilicia. The Crusader army marched in two columns. The right was commanded by Godfrey of Bouillon, the left by Bohemond of Tarentum. Godfrey's army advanced along the Dorylea valley, and Bohemond advanced through the Gargon valley. On June 29, the Nicaean Sultan Soliman attacked the left column of the crusaders, which had not yet managed to move away from Dorilea. The Crusaders were able to build a Wagenburg (closed line of convoys). In addition, their location was covered by the Bafus River. Bohemond sent Godfrey a messenger with a detachment to notify him of the approach of the Turks.
The Turks rained down stones and arrows on Bohemond's infantry, and then began to retreat. When the crusaders rushed after the retreating, they were unexpectedly attacked by Turkish cavalry. The knights were scattered. Then the Turks broke into Wagenburg and slaughtered a significant part of the infantry. Bohemond managed to push back the enemy with the help of a cavalry reserve, but reinforcements approached the Turks, and they again pushed the crusaders back to Wagenburg.
Bohemond sent another messenger to Godfrey, whose column was already hurrying to the battlefield. She arrived in time to force the Turks to retreat. Afterwards, the crusaders reformed for the decisive attack. On the left flank stood the South Italian Normans of Bohemond, in the center were the French of Count Raymond of Toulouse, and on the right were the Lorraineers of Godfrey himself. The infantry and a detachment of knights under the overall command of Bishop Adhemar remained in reserve.
The Turks were defeated, and their camp went to the winner. But the light Turkish cavalry was able to escape pursuit without much loss. The heavily armed knights had no chance of keeping up with her.
The Turks did not undertake new attacks on the combined forces of the crusaders. However, crossing the waterless rocky desert was an ordeal in itself. Most of the horses died from lack of food. When the Crusaders eventually entered Cilicia, they were greeted as liberators by the local Armenian population. The first crusader state was founded there - the County of Edessa.
1097, October - Godfrey's army captured Antioch after a seven-month siege. The Sultan of Mosul tried to recapture the city, but suffered a heavy defeat. Bohemond founded another crusader state - the Principality of Antioch.
1098, autumn - the army of the crusaders advanced towards Jerusalem. Along the way, she captured Accra and in June 1099 approached the holy city, which was defended by Egyptian troops. Almost the entire Genoese fleet, carrying siege weapons, was destroyed by the Egyptians. But one ship was able to break through to Laodicea. The siege engines he delivered enabled the crusaders to destroy the walls of Jerusalem.
1099, July 15 - the crusaders took Jerusalem by storm. On August 12, a large Egyptian army landed near Jerusalem, in Ascalon, but the crusaders managed to defeat it. Godfrey of Bouillon stood at the head of the Kingdom of Jerusalem they founded.
The success of the First Crusade was facilitated by the fact that the united army of Western European knights was opposed by disparate and warring Seljuk sultanates. The most powerful Muslim state in the Mediterranean - the Egyptian Sultanate - only with great delay moved the main forces of its army and navy to Palestine, which the crusaders managed to defeat piece by piece. This reflected a clear underestimation by the Muslim rulers of the danger threatening them.
For the defense of the Christian states formed in Palestine, spiritual knightly orders were created, whose members settled in the conquered lands after the bulk of the participants in the First Crusade returned to Europe. 1119 - the Knights of the Temple were founded, the Order of the Hospitallers, or Johannites, appeared somewhat later, and at the end of the 12th century it appeared.
Second Crusade (briefly)
The Second Crusade, which was undertaken in 1147–1149, ended in vain. According to some estimates, up to 70,000 people took part in it. The Crusaders were led by King Louis VII of France and German Emperor Conrad III. 1147, October - German knights were defeated at Dorileus by the cavalry of the Iconian Sultan. Afterwards, epidemics hit Conrad's army. The emperor was forced to join the army of the king of France, with whom he had previously been at enmity. Most German soldiers chose to return to their homeland. The French were defeated at Khonami in January 1148.
In July, the crusaders besieged heavily fortified Damascus for five days to no avail. 1149 - Conrad and then Louis returned to Europe, realizing the impossibility of expanding the borders of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Third Crusade (briefly)
In the second half of the 12th century, Saladin (Salah ad-Din), a talented commander, became the sultan of Egypt, which opposed the crusaders. He defeated the crusaders at Lake Tiberias and captured Jerusalem in 1187. In response, the Third Crusade was proclaimed, led by Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, King Philip II Augustus of France and the English king.
While crossing one of the rivers in Asia Minor, Frederick drowned, and his army, having lost its leader, disintegrated and returned to Europe. The French and British, moving by sea, captured Sicily and then landed in Palestine, but were generally unsuccessful. True, after a siege of many months, they took the fortress of Accra, and the king of England captured the island of Cyprus, which had recently separated from Byzantium, where he took rich booty. The Lusignan kingdom arose there, becoming a stronghold of the Crusaders in the East for a century. But strife between the English and French feudal lords caused the king of France to leave Palestine.
Deprived of the help of the French knights, Richard was never able to take Jerusalem. 1192, September 2 - Richard signed a peace with Saladin, according to which only the coastal strip from Tire to Jaffa remained under the control of the crusaders, while Jaffa and Ascalon were previously destroyed by the Muslims to the ground.
Fourth Crusade (briefly)
The Fourth Crusade began in 1202 and ended in 1204 with the conquest of Constantinople and a significant part of the possessions of Christian Byzantium instead of Palestine. The capital of the empire was stormed on April 13, 1204 and plundered. The first attack, which was launched on the 9th from the sea, was repulsed by the Byzantines.
Three days later, with the help of swing bridges, the knights climbed the walls. Some of the crusaders entered the city through a gap made with the help of battering guns, and already opened three Constantinople gates from the inside. Inside the city, the crusader army no longer encountered any resistance, since few defenders fled on the night of April 12-13, and the population was not going to take up arms, considering the fight pointless.
After the Fourth Campaign, the scale of the following crusades was significantly reduced. 1204 - King Amaury Lusignan of Jerusalem tried to assert his power in Egypt, stricken by drought and famine. The Crusaders defeated the Egyptian fleet and landed at Damietta in the Nile Delta. Sultan al-Adil Abu Bakr concluded a peace treaty with the crusaders, ceding to them Jaffa, previously conquered by the Egyptians, as well as Ramla, Lydda and half of Saida. After which, for a decade there were no major military conflicts between the Egyptians and the Crusaders.
Fifth Crusade (briefly)
The Fifth Crusade was organized in 1217–1221 to conquer Egypt. It was led by the Hungarian King Andras II and Duke Leopold of Austria. The crusaders of Syria greeted the newcomers from Europe without much enthusiasm. The Kingdom of Jerusalem, which had experienced a drought, found it difficult to feed tens of thousands of new soldiers, and it wanted to trade with Egypt rather than fight. Andras and Leopold raided Damascus, Nablus and Beisan, besieged, but never captured the strongest Muslim fortress of Tabor. After this failure, Andras returned to his homeland in January 1218.
The Hungarians were replaced by Dutch knights and German infantry in Palestine in 1218. It was decided to conquer the Egyptian fortress of Damietta in the Nile Delta. It was located on an island, surrounded by three rows of walls and protected by a powerful tower, from which a bridge and thick iron chains stretched to the fortress, blocking access to Damietta from the river. The siege began on May 27, 1218. Using their ships as floating battering guns and using long assault ladders, the crusaders took possession of the tower.
Having learned about this, the Egyptian Sultan al-Adil, who was in Damascus, could not bear the news and died. His son al-Kamil offered the crusaders to lift the siege of Damietta in exchange for the return of Jerusalem and other territories of the Kingdom of Jerusalem within the borders of 1187, but the knights, under the influence of the papal legate Pelagius, refused, although the Sultan promised to find and return even pieces of the True Cross captured by Saladin.
Pelagius actually led the army, reconciled the different groups of crusaders and brought the siege to an end. On the night of November 4-5, 1219, Damietta was stormed and plundered. By that time, the vast majority of its population had died of hunger and disease. Of the 80,000, only 3,000 survived. But the crusaders rejected Pelagius’s offer to go to Cairo, realizing that they did not have enough strength to conquer Egypt.
The situation changed when, in 1221, new detachments of knights from southern Germany arrived in Damietta. At the insistence of Pelagius, al-Kamil's peace proposals were again rejected, and the crusaders attacked the Muslim positions at Mansura, south of Damietta. His brothers from Syria came to the aid of al-Kamil, so that the Muslim army was not inferior in number to the crusaders. In mid-July, the Nile began to flood, and the crusaders’ camp was flooded, while the Muslims had prepared in advance for the rampant elements and were not harmed, and then cut off the path of retreat for Pelagius’s army.
The crusaders asked for peace. At this time, the Egyptian Sultan was most afraid of the Mongols, who had already appeared in Iraq, and chose not to tempt his luck in the fight against the knights. Under the terms of the truce, the crusaders left Damietta and sailed to Europe.
Sixth Crusade (briefly)
He led the Sixth Crusade in 1228–1229. German Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen. Before the start of the campaign, the emperor himself was excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX, who called him not a crusader, but a pirate who was going to “steal the kingdom in the Holy Land.” Frederick was married to the daughter of the King of Jerusalem and was about to become ruler of Jerusalem. The ban on the campaign did not in any way affect the crusaders, who followed the emperor in the hope of booty.
1228, summer - Frederick landed in Syria. There he was able to persuade al-Kamil, who was at war with his Syrian emirs, to return Jerusalem and other territories of the kingdom to him in exchange for help against his enemies - both Muslims and Christians. The corresponding agreement was concluded in Jaffa in February 1229. On March 18, the crusaders entered Jerusalem without a fight.
Then the emperor returned to Italy, defeated the pope's army sent against him and forced Gregory, under the terms of the Peace of Saint-Germain of 1230, to lift his excommunication and recognize the agreement with the Sultan. Jerusalem, thus, passed to the crusaders only due to the threat that their army created to al-Kamil, and even thanks to the diplomatic skill of Frederick.
Seventh Crusade
The Seventh Crusade took place in the fall of 1239. Frederick II refused to provide the territory of the Kingdom of Jerusalem for the crusader army led by Duke Richard of Cornwall. The Crusaders landed in Syria and, at the insistence of the Templars, entered into an alliance with the emir of Damascus to fight the Sultan of Egypt, but together with the Syrians they were defeated in November 1239 in the Battle of Ascalon. Thus, the seventh campaign ended in vain.
Eighth Crusade
The Eighth Crusade took place in 1248–1254. His goal again was the reconquest of Jerusalem, captured in September 1244 by Sultan al-Salih Eyyub Najm ad-Din, who was helped by 10 thousand Khorezmian cavalry. Almost the entire Christian population of the city was slaughtered. This time, the leading role in the crusade was played by the King of France, Louis IX, and the total number of crusaders was determined at 15–25 thousand people, of which 3 thousand were knights.
At the beginning of June 1249, the crusaders landed in Egypt and captured Damietta. At the beginning of February 1250, the Mansura fortress fell. But there the crusaders themselves were besieged by the army of Sultan Muazzam Turan Shah. The Egyptians sank the Crusader fleet. Louis' army, suffering from hunger, left Mansura, but few reached Damietta. Most were destroyed or captured. The king of France was among the prisoners.
Epidemics of malaria, dysentery and scurvy spread among the captives, and few of them survived. Louis was released from captivity in May 1250 for a huge ransom of 800,000 bezants, or 200,000 livres. At the same time, the king was demanded that the crusaders leave Damietta. The remnants of “Christ’s army” went to Accra. Soon, in the same 1250, Turan Shah was killed, and the Mamluks, hired soldiers in the service of the Sultan, came to power. Muiz Aybek became the first Mamluk sultan. Under him, active hostilities against the crusaders practically ceased. Louis remained in Palestine for another 4 years, but without receiving reinforcements from Europe, he returned to France in April 1254.
Ninth Crusade
The ninth and last crusade took place in 1270. It was caused by the successes of the Mamluk Sultan Baybars. The Egyptians defeated the Mongol troops in the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260. 1265 - Baybars captured the crusader fortresses of Caesarea and Arsuf, and in 1268 - Jaffa and Antioch. The crusade was again led by Louis IX the Saint, and only French knights took part in it. This time the target of the crusaders was Tunisia.
The size of the Crusader army did not exceed 10,000 people. By that time, the knights no longer sought far to the East, as they easily found work in Europe, constantly shaken by feudal strife. The proximity of the Tunisian coast to Sardinia, where the crusaders gathered, and Louis’s desire to have a base for attacking Egypt from land played a role. He hoped that Tunisia would be easy to capture, since there were no large forces of Egyptian troops there.
The landing in July 1270 was successful, but soon a plague epidemic broke out among the crusaders, from which Louis himself died on August 25. His brother Charles I, King of the Two Sicilies, arrived in Tunisia with fresh forces, thereby saving the crusader army from collapse. On November 1, he signed an agreement under which the Tunisian emir resumed the full payment of tribute to the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. After this, the crusaders left Tunisia. After the failure of the Ninth Campaign, the days of the crusaders in Palestine were numbered.
1285 - Mamluk Sultan Kilawun of Egypt captured the fortresses of Marabou, Laodicea and Tripoli in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Accra remained the last stronghold of Christians in Syria. 1289 - a truce was concluded between Kilawun and King Henry II of Cyprus and Jerusalem, but it was soon broken by Henry’s troops, who invaded the border areas of the Mamluk state. In response, the Sultan declared war on the crusaders.
The Accra garrison, reinforced from Europe, numbered 20,000 men. But there was no unity in the ranks of Christians. In the fall of 1290, Kilawun set out on a campaign, but soon fell ill and died. The army was led by his son Almelik Azsharaf. In March 1291, the Muslims approached the walls of Accra. They had 92 siege engines. Truce negotiations proposed by the city's defenders were unsuccessful. On May 5, the Sultan's army began the assault. The day before, King Henry arrived in Accra with a small army, but on the night of May 15-16 he returned to Cyprus, and about 3,000 defenders of the city joined his detachment.
The remaining garrison numbered 12–13,000 men. They fought off enemy attacks until May 18, when the Muslims were able to smash the gates, dismantle the gaps in the walls filled up by the defenders and burst into the streets of Accra. The Egyptians killed Christian men and took women and children captive. Some of the defenders were able to make their way to the harbor, where they boarded ships and went to Cyprus. But a storm arose at sea, and many ships sank.
Several thousand of the crusaders who remained on the shore took refuge in the Templar castle, which the Sultan’s troops were quickly able to capture by storm. Some of the Christian warriors were able to break through to the sea and board ships, the rest were exterminated by the Egyptians. Accra was burned and razed to the ground. This was retaliation for the murder of the Egyptian garrison of Accra, which was committed by the King of England, Richard the Lionheart. After the fall of Accra, Christians abandoned several small towns in Syria that were under their control. This was the inglorious end of the Crusades.
CRUSADES
(1095-1291), a series of military campaigns in the Middle East undertaken by Western European Christians in order to liberate the Holy Land from Muslims. The Crusades were the most important stage in the history of the Middle Ages. All social strata of Western European society were involved in them: kings and commoners, the highest feudal nobility and clergy, knights and servants. People who took the crusader vow had different motives: some sought to get rich, others were attracted by a thirst for adventure, and others were driven solely by religious feelings. The Crusaders sewed red breast crosses onto their clothes; when returning from a campaign, the signs of the cross were sewn onto the back. Thanks to legends, the Crusades were surrounded by an aura of romance and grandeur, knightly spirit and courage. However, stories about gallant crusader knights are replete with exaggerations beyond measure. In addition, they overlook the “insignificant” historical fact that, despite the valor and heroism shown by the crusaders, as well as the appeals and promises of the popes and confidence in the rightness of their cause, Christians were never able to liberate the Holy Land. The Crusades only resulted in Muslims becoming the undisputed rulers of Palestine.
Causes of the Crusades. The crusades began with the popes, who were nominally considered the leaders of all enterprises of this kind. The popes and other instigators of the movement promised heavenly and earthly rewards to all those who would put their lives in danger for the holy cause. The campaign to recruit volunteers was particularly successful due to the religious fervor that reigned in Europe at the time. Whatever their personal motives for participating (and in many cases they played a vital role), the soldiers of Christ were confident that they were fighting for a just cause.
Conquests of the Seljuk Turks. The immediate cause of the Crusades was the growth of the power of the Seljuk Turks and their conquest of the Middle East and Asia Minor in the 1070s. Coming from Central Asia, at the beginning of the century the Seljuks penetrated into Arab-controlled areas, where they were initially used as mercenaries. Gradually, however, they became more and more independent, conquering Iran in the 1040s, and Baghdad in 1055. Then the Seljuks began to expand the borders of their possessions to the west, leading an offensive mainly against the Byzantine Empire. The decisive defeat of the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071 allowed the Seljuks to reach the shores of the Aegean Sea, conquer Syria and Palestine, and take Jerusalem in 1078 (other dates are also indicated). The threat from the Muslims forced the Byzantine emperor to turn to Western Christians for help. The fall of Jerusalem greatly disturbed the Christian world.
Religious motives. The conquests of the Seljuk Turks coincided with a general religious revival in Western Europe in the 10th and 11th centuries, which was largely initiated by the activities of the Benedictine monastery of Cluny in Burgundy, founded in 910 by the Duke of Aquitaine, William the Pious. Thanks to the efforts of a number of abbots who persistently called for the purification of the church and the spiritual transformation of the Christian world, the abbey became a very influential force in the spiritual life of Europe. At the same time in the 11th century. the number of pilgrimages to the Holy Land increased. The “infidel Turk” was portrayed as a desecrator of shrines, a pagan barbarian, whose presence in the Holy Land is intolerable for God and man. In addition, the Seljuks posed an immediate threat to the Christian Byzantine Empire.
Economic incentives. For many kings and barons, the Middle East seemed like a world of great opportunity. Lands, income, power and prestige - all this, they believed, would be the reward for the liberation of the Holy Land. Due to the expansion of the practice of inheritance based on primogeniture, many younger sons of feudal lords, especially in the north of France, could not count on participating in the division of their father's lands. By taking part in the crusade, they could hope to acquire the land and position in society that their older, more successful brothers enjoyed. The Crusades gave peasants the opportunity to free themselves from lifelong serfdom. As servants and cooks, peasants formed the convoy of the Crusaders. For purely economic reasons, European cities were interested in the crusades. For several centuries, the Italian cities of Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa and Venice battled Muslims for dominance over the western and central Mediterranean. By 1087, the Italians had driven the Muslims out of southern Italy and Sicily, founded settlements in North Africa, and took control of the western Mediterranean. They launched sea and land invasions of Muslim territories in North Africa, forcing trade privileges from local residents. For these Italian cities, the Crusades only meant a transfer of military operations from the western Mediterranean to the eastern.
THE BEGINNING OF THE CRUSADES
The beginning of the Crusades was proclaimed at the Council of Clermont in 1095 by Pope Urban II. He was one of the leaders of the Cluny reform and devoted many meetings of the council to discussing the troubles and vices that hindered the church and clergy. On November 26, when the council had already completed its work, Urban addressed a huge audience, probably numbering several thousand representatives of the highest nobility and clergy, and called for a war against infidel Muslims in order to liberate the Holy Land. In his speech, the pope emphasized the sanctity of Jerusalem and the Christian relics of Palestine, spoke of the plunder and desecration to which they were subjected by the Turks, and outlined the numerous attacks on pilgrims, and also mentioned the danger facing Christian brothers in Byzantium. Then Urban II called on his listeners to take up the holy cause, promising everyone who went on the campaign absolution, and everyone who laid down their lives in it - a place in paradise. The pope called on the barons to stop destructive civil strife and turn their ardor to a charitable cause. He made it clear that the crusade would provide the knights with ample opportunities to gain lands, wealth, power and glory - all at the expense of the Arabs and Turks, whom the Christian army would easily deal with. The response to the speech was the shouts of the listeners: “Deus vult!” (“God wants it!”). These words became the battle cry of the crusaders. Thousands of people immediately vowed that they would go to war.
The first crusaders. Pope Urban II ordered the clergy to spread his call throughout Western Europe. Archbishops and bishops (the most active among them was Adhemar de Puy, who took the spiritual and practical leadership of the preparations for the campaign) called on their parishioners to respond to it, and preachers like Peter the Hermit and Walter Golyak conveyed the pope’s words to the peasants. Often, preachers aroused such religious fervor in the peasants that neither their owners nor local priests could restrain them; they took off in thousands and set off on the road without supplies and equipment, without the slightest idea of the distance and hardships of the journey, in naive confidence, that God and the leaders will take care of both that they do not get lost and their daily bread. These hordes marched across the Balkans to Constantinople, expecting to be treated with hospitality by fellow Christians as champions of a holy cause. However, the local residents greeted them coolly or even with contempt, and then the Western peasants began to loot. In many places, real battles took place between the Byzantines and the hordes from the west. Those who managed to get to Constantinople were not at all welcome guests of the Byzantine Emperor Alexei and his subjects. The city temporarily settled them outside the city limits, fed them and hastily transported them across the Bosporus to Asia Minor, where the Turks soon dealt with them.
1st Crusade (1096-1099). The 1st Crusade itself began in 1096. Several feudal armies took part in it, each with its own commander-in-chief. They arrived in Constantinople by three main routes, by land and sea, during 1096 and 1097. The campaign was led by feudal barons, including Duke Godfrey of Bouillon, Count Raymond of Toulouse and Prince Bohemond of Tarentum. Formally, they and their armies obeyed the papal legate, but in fact they ignored his instructions and acted independently. The crusaders, moving overland, took food and fodder from the local population, besieged and plundered several Byzantine cities, and repeatedly clashed with Byzantine troops. The presence of a 30,000-strong army in and around the capital, demanding shelter and food, created difficulties for the emperor and the inhabitants of Constantinople. Fierce conflicts broke out between the townspeople and the crusaders; At the same time, disagreements between the emperor and the military leaders of the crusaders worsened. Relations between the emperor and the knights continued to deteriorate as the Christians moved east. The crusaders suspected that the Byzantine guides were deliberately luring them into ambushes. The army turned out to be completely unprepared for sudden attacks by enemy cavalry, which managed to hide before the knightly heavy cavalry rushed in pursuit. The lack of food and water aggravated the hardships of the campaign. Wells along the way were often poisoned by Muslims. Those who endured these most difficult trials were rewarded with their first victory when Antioch was besieged and taken in June 1098. Here, according to some evidence, one of the crusaders discovered a shrine - a spear with which a Roman soldier pierced the side of the crucified Christ. This discovery is reported to have greatly inspired the Christians and contributed greatly to their subsequent victories. The fierce war lasted another year, and on July 15, 1099, after a siege that lasted little more than a month, the Crusaders took Jerusalem and put its entire population, Muslims and Jews, to the sword.
Kingdom of Jerusalem. After much debate, Godfrey of Bouillon was elected king of Jerusalem, who, however, unlike his not so modest and less religious successors, chose the unassuming title of “Defender of the Holy Sepulcher.” Godfrey and his successors were given control of a power united only nominally. It consisted of four states: the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli and the Kingdom of Jerusalem itself. The King of Jerusalem had rather conditional rights in relation to the other three, since their rulers had established themselves there even before him, so they fulfilled their vassal oath to the king (if they performed) only in the event of a military threat. Many sovereigns made friends with the Arabs and Byzantines, despite the fact that such a policy weakened the position of the kingdom as a whole. Moreover, the king's power was significantly limited by the church: since the Crusades were carried out under the auspices of the church and nominally led by the papal legate, the highest cleric in the Holy Land, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, was an extremely influential figure there.
Population. The kingdom's population was very diverse. In addition to the Jews, there were many other nations present here: Arabs, Turks, Syrians, Armenians, Greeks, etc. Most of the crusaders came from England, Germany, France and Italy. Since there were more French, the crusaders were collectively called Franks.
Coastal cities. At least ten important centers of commerce and trade developed during this time. Among them are Beirut, Acre, Sidon and Jaffa. In accordance with privileges or grants of powers, Italian merchants established their own administration in coastal cities. Usually they had their own consuls (heads of administration) and judges here, acquired their own coins and a system of weights and measures. Their legislative codes also applied to the local population. As a rule, the Italians paid taxes on behalf of the townspeople to the king of Jerusalem or his governors, but in their daily activities they enjoyed complete independence. Special quarters were allocated for the residences and warehouses of the Italians, and near the city they planted gardens and vegetable gardens in order to have fresh fruits and vegetables. Like many knights, Italian merchants made friends with Muslims, of course, in order to make a profit. Some even went so far as to include sayings from the Koran on coins.
Spiritual knightly orders. The backbone of the crusader army was formed by two orders of chivalry - the Knights Templar (Templars) and the Knights of St. John (Johnnites or Hospitallers). They included predominantly the lower strata of the feudal nobility and the younger scions of aristocratic families. Initially, these orders were created to protect temples, shrines, roads leading to them and pilgrims; provision was also made for the creation of hospitals and care for the sick and wounded. Since the orders of the Hospitallers and Templars set religious and charitable goals along with military ones, their members took monastic vows along with the military oath. The orders were able to replenish their ranks in Western Europe and receive financial assistance from those Christians who were unable to take part in the crusade, but were eager to help the holy cause. Due to such contributions, the Templars in the 12-13th centuries. essentially turned into a powerful banking house that provided financial intermediation between Jerusalem and Western Europe. They subsidized religious and commercial enterprises in the Holy Land and gave loans to the feudal nobility and merchants here in order to obtain them in Europe.
SUBSEQUENT CRUSADES
2nd Crusade (1147-1149). When Edessa was captured by the Muslim ruler of Mosul, Zengi, in 1144 and news of this reached Western Europe, the head of the Cistercian monastic order, Bernard of Clairvaux, convinced the German Emperor Conrad III (reigned 1138-1152) and King Louis VII of France (reigned 1137-1180) to undertake a new crusade. This time, Pope Eugene III issued a special bull on the Crusades in 1145, which contained precisely formulated provisions that guaranteed the families of the crusaders and their property the protection of the church. The forces that were able to attract participation in the campaign were enormous, but due to the lack of cooperation and a well-thought-out campaign plan, the campaign ended in complete failure. Moreover, he gave the Sicilian king Roger II a reason to raid Byzantine possessions in Greece and the islands of the Aegean Sea.
3rd Crusade (1187-1192). If Christian military leaders were constantly in discord, then Muslims under the leadership of Sultan Salah ad-din united into a state that stretched from Baghdad to Egypt. Salah ad-din easily defeated the divided Christians, took Jerusalem in 1187 and established control over the entire Holy Land, with the exception of a few coastal cities. The 3rd Crusade was led by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa (reigned 1152-1190), the French king Philip II Augustus (reigned 1180-1223) and the English king Richard I the Lionheart (reigned 1189-1199). The German emperor drowned in Asia Minor while crossing a river, and only a few of his warriors reached the Holy Land. Two other monarchs who competed in Europe took their disputes to the Holy Land. Philip II Augustus, under the pretext of illness, returned to Europe to try, in the absence of Richard I, to take away the Duchy of Normandy from him. Richard the Lionheart remained the only leader of the crusade. The exploits he accomplished here gave rise to legends that surrounded his name with an aura of glory. Richard recaptured Acre and Jaffa from the Muslims and concluded an agreement with Salah ad-din on unimpeded access for pilgrims to Jerusalem and some other shrines, but he failed to achieve more. Jerusalem and the former Kingdom of Jerusalem remained under Muslim rule. Richard's most significant and lasting achievement in this campaign was his conquest of Cyprus in 1191, where as a result the independent Kingdom of Cyprus arose, which lasted until 1489.
4th Crusade (1202-1204). The 4th Crusade, announced by Pope Innocent III, was mainly carried out by the French and Venetians. The vicissitudes of this campaign are described in the book of the French military leader and historian Geoffroy Villehardouin, The Conquest of Constantinople - the first lengthy chronicle in French literature. According to the initial agreement, the Venetians undertook to deliver the French crusaders by sea to the shores of the Holy Land and provide them with weapons and provisions. Of the expected 30 thousand French soldiers, only 12 thousand arrived in Venice, who, due to their small numbers, could not pay for the chartered ships and equipment. Then the Venetians proposed to the French that, as payment, they would assist them in an attack on the port city of Zadar in Dalmatia, which was the main rival of Venice in the Adriatic, subject to the Hungarian king. The original plan - to use Egypt as a springboard for an attack on Palestine - was put on hold for the time being. Having learned about the plans of the Venetians, the pope forbade the expedition, but the expedition took place and cost its participants excommunication. In November 1202, a combined army of Venetians and French attacked Zadar and thoroughly plundered it. After this, the Venetians suggested that the French once again deviate from the route and turn against Constantinople in order to restore the deposed Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelus to the throne. A plausible pretext was also found: the crusaders could count on that, in gratitude, the emperor would give them money, people and equipment for an expedition to Egypt. Ignoring the pope's ban, the crusaders arrived at the walls of Constantinople and returned the throne to Isaac. However, the question of payment of the promised reward hung in the air, and after an uprising occurred in Constantinople and the emperor and his son were removed, hopes for compensation melted away. Then the crusaders captured Constantinople and plundered it for three days starting on April 13, 1204. The greatest cultural values were destroyed, and many Christian relics were plundered. In place of the Byzantine Empire, the Latin Empire was created, on the throne of which Count Baldwin IX of Flanders was placed. The empire that existed until 1261 of all the Byzantine lands included only Thrace and Greece, where the French knights received feudal appanages as a reward. The Venetians owned the harbor of Constantinople with the right to levy duties and achieved a trade monopoly within the Latin Empire and on the islands of the Aegean Sea. Thus, they benefited the most from the crusade, but its participants never reached the Holy Land. The pope tried to extract his own benefits from the current situation - he lifted the excommunication from the crusaders and took the empire under his protection, hoping to strengthen the union of the Greek and Catholic churches, but this union turned out to be fragile, and the existence of the Latin Empire contributed to the deepening of the schism.
Children's Crusade (1212). Perhaps the most tragic of attempts to return the Holy Land. The religious movement, which originated in France and Germany, involved thousands of peasant children who were convinced that their innocence and faith would achieve what adults could not achieve by force of arms. The religious fervor of the teenagers was fueled by their parents and parish priests. The pope and the higher clergy opposed the enterprise, but were unable to stop it. Several thousand French children (possibly up to 30,000), led by the shepherd Etienne from Cloix near Vendôme (Christ appeared to him and handed him a letter to give to the king), arrived in Marseilles, where they were loaded onto ships. Two ships sank during a storm in the Mediterranean Sea, and the remaining five reached Egypt, where the shipowners sold the children into slavery. Thousands of German children (estimated at up to 20 thousand), led by ten-year-old Nicholas from Cologne, headed to Italy on foot. While crossing the Alps, two-thirds of the detachment died from hunger and cold, the rest reached Rome and Genoa. The authorities sent the children back, and on the way back almost all of them died. There is another version of these events. According to it, French children and adults, led by Etienne, first arrived in Paris and asked King Philip II Augustus to organize a crusade, but the king managed to persuade them to go home. The German children, under the leadership of Nicholas, reached Mainz, here some were persuaded to return, but the most stubborn continued their journey to Italy. Some arrived in Venice, others in Genoa, and a small group reached Rome, where Pope Innocent released them from their vow. Some children showed up in Marseille. Be that as it may, most of the children disappeared without a trace. Perhaps in connection with these events, the famous legend about the rat catcher from Hammeln arose in Germany. The latest historical research casts doubt on both the scale of this campaign and its very fact in the version as it is usually presented. It has been suggested that the “Children’s Crusade” actually refers to the movement of the poor (serfs, farm laborers, day laborers) who had already failed in Italy and gathered for a crusade.
5th Crusade (1217-1221). At the 4th Lateran Council in 1215, Pope Innocent III declared a new crusade (sometimes it is considered as a continuation of the 4th campaign, and then the subsequent numbering is shifted). The performance was scheduled for 1217, it was led by the nominal king of Jerusalem, John of Brienne, the king of Hungary, Andrew (Endre) II, and others. In Palestine, military operations were sluggish, but in 1218, when new reinforcements arrived from Europe, the crusaders shifted the direction of their attack to Egypt and captured the city of Damiettu, located on the seashore. The Egyptian Sultan offered the Christians to cede Jerusalem in exchange for Damietta, but the papal legate Pelagius, who was expecting the approach of the legendary Christian “King David” from the east, did not agree to this. In 1221, the crusaders launched an unsuccessful assault on Cairo, found themselves in a difficult situation and were forced to surrender Damietta in exchange for an unhindered retreat.
6th Crusade (1228-1229). This crusade, sometimes called "diplomatic", was led by Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, grandson of Frederick Barbarossa. The king managed to avoid hostilities; through negotiations, he (in exchange for a promise to support one of the parties in the inter-Muslim struggle) received Jerusalem and a strip of land from Jerusalem to Acre. In 1229 Frederick was crowned king in Jerusalem, but in 1244 the city was again conquered by the Muslims.
7th Crusade (1248-1250). It was headed by the French king Louis IX the Saint. The military expedition undertaken against Egypt turned into a crushing defeat. The crusaders took Damietta, but on the way to Cairo they were completely defeated, and Louis himself was captured and forced to pay a huge ransom for his release.
8th Crusade (1270). Not heeding the warnings of his advisers, Louis IX again went to war against the Arabs. This time he targeted Tunisia in North Africa. The crusaders found themselves in Africa during the hottest time of the year and survived a plague epidemic that killed the king himself (1270). With his death, this campaign ended, which became the last attempt of Christians to liberate the Holy Land. Christian military expeditions to the Middle East ceased after the Muslims took Acre in 1291. However, in the Middle Ages, the concept of "crusade" was applied to various kinds of religious wars of Catholics against those whom they considered enemies of the true faith or the church that embodied this faith, in including the Reconquista - the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula from Muslims that lasted seven centuries.
RESULTS OF THE CRUSADES
Although the Crusades did not achieve their goal and, begun with general enthusiasm, ended in disaster and disappointment, they constituted an entire era in European history and had a serious impact on many aspects of European life.
Byzantine Empire. The Crusades may have indeed delayed the Turkish conquest of Byzantium, but they could not prevent the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The Byzantine Empire was in a state of decline for a long time. Its final death meant the emergence of the Turks on the European political scene. The sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 and the Venetian trade monopoly dealt the empire a mortal blow, from which it could not recover even after its revival in 1261.
Trade. The biggest beneficiaries of the Crusades were the merchants and artisans of the Italian cities, who provided the crusader armies with equipment, provisions and transport. In addition, Italian cities, especially Genoa, Pisa and Venice, were enriched by a trade monopoly in the Mediterranean countries. Italian merchants established trade relations with the Middle East, from where they exported various luxury goods to Western Europe - silks, spices, pearls, etc. The demand for these goods brought super profits and stimulated the search for new, shorter and safer routes to the East. Ultimately, this search led to the discovery of America. The Crusades also played an extremely important role in the emergence of the financial aristocracy and contributed to the development of capitalist relations in Italian cities.
Feudalism and the Church. Thousands of large feudal lords died in the Crusades, in addition, many noble families went bankrupt under the burden of debt. All these losses ultimately contributed to the centralization of power in Western European countries and the weakening of the system of feudal relations. The impact of the Crusades on the authority of the church was controversial. If the first campaigns helped strengthen the authority of the Pope, who took on the role of spiritual leader in the holy war against Muslims, then the 4th Crusade discredited the power of the Pope even in the person of such an outstanding representative as Innocent III. Business interests often took precedence over religious considerations, forcing the crusaders to disregard papal prohibitions and enter into business and even friendly contacts with Muslims.
Culture. It was once generally accepted that it was the Crusades that brought Europe to the Renaissance, but now such an assessment seems overestimated to most historians. What they undoubtedly gave the man of the Middle Ages was a broader view of the world and a better understanding of its diversity. The Crusades were widely reflected in literature. A countless number of poetic works were composed about the exploits of the crusaders in the Middle Ages, mostly in Old French. Among them there are truly great works, such as the History of the Holy War (Estoire de la guerre sainte), describing the exploits of Richard the Lionheart, or the Song of Antioch (Le chanson d'Antioche), supposedly composed in Syria, dedicated to the 1st Crusade . New artistic material born of the Crusades also penetrated into ancient legends. Thus, the early medieval cycles about Charlemagne and King Arthur were continued. The Crusades also stimulated the development of historiography. The conquest of Constantinople by Villehardouin remains the most authoritative source for the study of the 4th Crusade. The best medieval work in the genre of biography is considered by many to be the biography of King Louis IX, created by Jean de Joinville.One of the most significant medieval chronicles was the book written in Latin by Archbishop William of Tyre, History of Deeds in Overseas Lands (Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum), lively and reliable recreating the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1144 to 1184 (the year of the author's death).
LITERATURE
The era of the Crusades. M., 1914 Zaborov M. Crusades. M., 1956 Zaborov M. Introduction to the historiography of the Crusades (Latin chronography of the 11th-13th centuries). M., 1966 Zaborov M. Historiography of the Crusades (XV-XIX centuries). M., 1971 Zaborov M. History of the Crusades in documents and materials. M., 1977 Zaborov M. With a cross and a sword. M., 1979 Zaborov M. Crusaders in the East. M., 1980
Collier's Encyclopedia. - Open Society. 2000 .
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Crusades, military expeditions of European Catholic militias to the east in 1096–1291, proclaiming as their goal the liberation of Christian holy sites in Palestine from Muslim rule.
Brutal persecution and massacres during the Crusades devastated the flourishing Jewish communities of the Rhine cities. These events are known in Jewish history as gzerot tatnav, that is, the massacre of 4856 according to the Jewish calendar (1096 - the beginning of the 1st Crusade). Some Jews were forced to be baptized, many chose martyrdom - Kiddush Hashem.
First Crusade
The desire to reconquer the Holy Land from Muslims appeared in Western Christianity at the beginning of the 11th century. as a result of religious ferment caused by the seizure of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher by the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim (1012).
According to some historians, this fermentation should also be attributed to the intensification from the 11th century. persecution of Jews - “god killers”.
The reason for the campaigns was the capture by the Seljuks in the last third of the 11th century. many Byzantine possessions in Asia Minor, as well as messages from Jerusalem, which they conquered from the Fatimids in 1071, about the oppression of Christian pilgrims by Muslims and about the “atrocities of the Jews” against Christians.
Calls of Pope Urban II and monk Peter of Amiens at the church council in Clermont (November 27, 1095) for a campaign against Muslims did not call for violence against Jews. But the traditional Christian view of the Jews as the culprits of the crucifixion of Jesus, as well as socio-economic reasons, (Jewish usury) at the very beginning of the 1st Crusade (1096–99) made Jews the target of attacks by the Crusaders.
In 1096, when crowds of knights, townspeople and peasants set out on the 1st Crusade. A wave of pogroms swept across Europe, the instigators of which declared that, setting out on a long campaign to liberate the Holy Sepulcher from the Christ-killing Gentiles, they could not tolerate their presence in their own land.
Crusader outrages in Western Europe
Murder of Jews in Metz (France) during the First Crusade.
In the First Crusade, the army of the poor, as the most inspired, set off first, and, having killed many Jews along the way, it gradually disintegrated and ceased to exist... Jacques le Goff, "The Civilization of the Medieval West", p. 70
The first detachments of crusaders, gathered in Rouen (France, 1096), almost completely exterminated the Jewish community, leaving only a few alive who agreed to be baptized. Frightened by this, as well as by the oath of one of the main leaders of the campaign, Duke Godfrey of Bouillon, to take revenge on the Jews for the blood of Jesus, the communities of France warned of the danger to the Jews of the Rhine communities of Germany.
Despite this, the Rhine communities only at the very last moment approached the emperor with a request for the protection promised in the privileges. Emperor Henry IV, who was informed by the head of the Jewish community of Mainz, Kalonimos ben Meshulam ha-Parnas, of the threats of Godfrey of Bouillon, ordered all dukes and bishops to protect the Jews from the crusaders. In the spring of 1096, pogroms spread to the Rhine region.
Godfrey of Bouillon, under pressure from the emperor, was forced to renounce his oath and, having arrived in Germany, even promised protection to the communities of Cologne and Mainz, who “gave” him 500 silver marks. Peter of Amiens, having entered Trier with his detachment (April 1096), did not conduct anti-Jewish agitation and limited himself to collecting food from the Jewish community for the crusaders. They paid huge sums to bishops and city garrison commanders to be provided with forts and auxiliaries for defense.
But the soldiers sent to protect the Jews refused to protect the Gentiles from the Christian soldiers going on the crusade, and abandoned the Jews to their fate. Some bishops, such as Cologne, sought to prevent pogroms by cruelly punishing the pogrom-makers - the death penalty or cutting off the hands; others, fearing for their lives, fled before the arrival of the crusaders, such as the Bishop of Mainz.
When waves of crusaders, mostly peasants and urban rabble, poured into the Rhineland from France, Lorraine and Germany, civil and ecclesiastical authorities failed to restrain them from committing excesses. The aristocracy that led the campaign did not, for the most part, participate in the violence against the Jews, but sought to avoid conflicts between participants over the Jews.
The least disciplined and more prone to violence, the common people subjected the communities of the Rhine region to severe defeat in May-July 1096. Particularly cruel were the detachments led by Count Emicho von Leiningen in Germany and Knight Volkmar in France. In Metz, 23 Jews were killed, the rest were baptized.
The defenselessness of the victims led to a previously unprecedented wave of violence, murders and robberies. There were cases when terrified Jews, and sometimes entire communities, converted to Christianity. But, as has happened before throughout Jewish history, most Jews were willing to die in the name of their faith. In many communities, for example, in Mainz, Xanten and others, Jews fought with all their strength, and when there was not the slightest hope of salvation, they took the lives of themselves and their families. Thousands of Jews accomplished this martyrdom.
Continuing their journey, the crusaders did not stop committing atrocities against the Jews.
Consequences of the First Crusade in the German Empire
Extermination of Jews in the Land of Israel
Capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders in 1099. 13th century miniature, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
South wall of the Temple Mount. Templar fortress. Photo by Mikhail Margilov.
Entering Palestine from the north, the crusaders besieged Jerusalem on June 7, 1099 and captured it on July 15. The majority of the combat-ready Jewish population of Jerusalem, together with the Muslims, tried to resist the troops of Godfrey of Bouillon, and after the fall of the city Jews who took refuge in synagogues were burned. The rest were slaughtered or sold into slavery.
Large Jewish communities in the cities of Ramla and Jaffa were also destroyed.
Jewish settlements in Galilee remained unaffected. In the captured territories, the crusaders formed the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which stretched approximately from the area of modern Jubeil in Lebanon to Eilat (territorially finally formed at the beginning of the 12th century).
When the Crusaders opened transport routes from Europe, pilgrimages to the Holy Land became popular. At the same time, an increasing number of Jews sought to return to their homeland. Documents from the period show that 300 rabbis from France and England arrived in a group, with some settling in Accra (Acre), others in Jerusalem.
Second Crusade
The reason for the 2nd Crusade (1147–49) was the capture in 1144 by the Seljuks of Edessa (now Urfa, Turkey), which since 1098 had been the center of the Edessa County of the Crusaders.
Pope Eugene III's bull calling for a campaign exempted the participants of the campaign from paying interest on debts to creditors (mostly Jews), and the rulers of various countries completely freed the crusaders from paying debts to the Jews. More strict this time control of secular and ecclesiastical authorities over the masses of the crusaders to a large extent limited violence against Jews.
Unrest in Western Europe
In France, the decisive actions of King Louis VII (who led the campaign together with the German King Conrad III) and the sermons of church authority Bernard of Clairvaux protected the majority of the country's Jewish communities from the atrocities of the Crusaders. The exceptions were the communities of Rameru (in Champagne) and Carentan, in which the Jews, having fortified themselves in one of the courtyards, gave an unequal battle to the crowds of pogromists and all died.
In Germany, Conrad III, who patronized the Jews, failed to prevent the pogrom agitation of the Cistercian monk Rudolf(in some sources Radulf or Raulf), who went around the country preaching that the campaign should begin with the baptism or extermination of the Jews.
Jews, paying huge sums of money to feudal rulers and bishops, were able to take refuge in their castles for some time. Conrad III provided the Jews with refuge in his hereditary lands (Nuremberg, etc.), the Bishop of Cologne gave them the fortress of Wolkenburg, in which Jews defended themselves from the crusaders with weapons in their hands.
Unable to reach the Jews who had taken refuge in the castles, bands of crusaders killed or forced to be baptized every Jew who left the shelter. Bands of crusaders rampaged on the roads. Several Jews were killed in the vicinity of Cologne and Speyer. The economic life of the country was upset.
Situation in the Land of Israel
In Palestine, the 2nd Crusade ended with the conquest of Ashkelon. However, Benjamin of Tudela and Ptahia of Regensburg(who visited the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1160 and 1180 respectively) found well-established Jewish communities in Ashkelon, Ramla, Caesarea, Tiberias and Acre. Yehuda Al-Harizi's notes speak of a thriving community in Jerusalem, which he visited in 1216. Apparently unaffected Samaritan communities existed during this period in Nablus, Ashkelon, and Caesarea.
Third Crusade
The 3rd Crusade (1189–92) was sparked by the conquest of Jerusalem in 1187 by Salah al-Din.
During it Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, who headed it, took decisive measures suspended all attempts at violence against Jews in Germany. Jews were hidden in castles, the murder of a Jew was punishable by death, and wounding by cutting off a hand. The bishops threatened the rioters with excommunication and a ban on participating in the crusades.
For their salvation, the Jews again paid large sums of money to the authorities.
In France, King Philip II Augustus' attempts to prevent violence against Jews were unsuccessful. In a number of cities in central France, the crusaders organized the massacre of the Jewish population.
The greatest disasters befell the Jews of England, who were not harmed during the 1st and 2nd Crusades and even provided refuge in 1096 to French Jews fleeing the atrocities of the Crusaders. On September 3, 1189, the crusaders, who had gathered in London for the coronation ceremony of King Richard I the Lionheart, carried out a pogrom in the capital.
The king's attempt to stop the outrages failed: the dignitaries he sent to admonish the rioters were driven out by the crowd. Only three of the pogrom participants detained by the authorities were sentenced by the court, but not for violence against Jews, but for arson and robbery of the houses of Christians adjacent to the houses of Jews.
From London, the pogroms quickly spread to other cities in the country. Along with the mob, nobility and knighthood actively participated in the pogroms, who owed Jews large sums of money and wanted to get rid of debt payments. The Jewish communities of Lynn, Norwich, and Stamford were destroyed.
In Lincoln and some other cities, Jews escaped by taking refuge in royal castles. After the king went on campaign (beginning of 1190), the pogroms were repeated with greater force. The biggest pogrom took place in York. The Jewish community of Bury St Edmuns was hit hard, where 57 Jews were killed.
Late Crusades
In 1196, shortly before the preparation of the 4th Crusade (1201–1204), which apparently cost no Jewish victims, the crusaders killed 16 Jews in Vienna, for which two of the instigators of the pogrom were executed by Duke Frederick I.
The 5th–8th CRUSADES (1217–21; 1228–29; 1249–54; 1270) also took place without harmful consequences for the Jews of Europe.
The so-called children's crusade, who in 1212 set off from Germany and France to Provence and Italy. It cost the lives of several tens of thousands of children (some of them died during a storm on the Mediterranean Sea, some were sold into slavery).
Jerusalem, as a result of the 6th Crusade, was annexed to the Land of Israel, which still remained under the rule of the Crusaders (1229), and was finally lost by them in 1244.
In 1309, the Jews of many cities of Brabant (Belgium) who refused to accept baptism were killed by gathered crusaders.
The Shepherds' Crusades
New disasters befell the Jews of France during the two so-called Shepherds Crusades, the participants of which were mainly the dregs of society.
In 1251, the “shepherds,” heading to the East with the goal of reconquering Jerusalem and freeing Saint Louis IX, who had been in captivity by the Egyptians since 1250, defeated the Jewish communities of Paris, Orleans, Tours and Bourget.
They subjected the communities of Gascony and Provence to even greater destruction during their 2nd campaign (1320). Forty thousand militia - mostly teenagers as young as 16 - crossed France from north to south, destroying about 130 Jewish communities.
Pope John XXII, trying to stop the outrages, excommunicated all participants in the campaign. King Philip V, fearing losses to his treasury, ordered local authorities to protect Jews from "shepherds". But they everywhere met with the support of the mob and the middle layer of townspeople, including royal officials.
In Albi (southern France) the city authorities tried to stop the crowd at the city gates, but when the “shepherds”, shouting that they had come to kill Jews, burst into the city, the population greeted them with enthusiasm and took part in the beating.
In Toulouse, the monks released the leaders of the “shepherds” arrested by the governor, and declared their salvation a matter of divine intervention - the reward of the Almighty for the godly extermination of the Jews. During the massacre that followed, only those who were baptized were saved from death.
About 500 Jews besieged at the castle of Verdun-sur-Garonne committed suicide. In the papal possession - the county of Venessen - most of the Jewish community was baptized. Attempts of these " new Christians"Returns to Judaism were suppressed by the Inquisition.
From France, gangs of “shepherds” invaded Spain, where King Jaime II of Aragon, outraged by their outrages, defeated and scattered their gangs.
Consequences of the Crusades
The Crusades radically changed the position of Jews in Christian Europe. The dispute between Judaism and Christianity has lost its theological character.
The massacres and violence that accompanied the Crusades, which surpassed in cruelty all the misfortunes that have ever befallen the Jews since the rise of Christianity, revealed the full force of hatred towards the Jews and their faith, all the powerlessness of the Jews, who were constantly under threat, all the futility of the not always selfless efforts of the popes and kings to protect them.
In the 12th century. the idea of a Jewish conspiracy against Christians was first expressed, and the blood libel became widespread. Increasing religious fanaticism, which saw Jews as irreconcilable enemies of the Christian faith, found expression in increased discrimination and humiliation of Jews, culminating in the legislation of the Fourth Lateran (Ecumenical) Council (1215).
The Crusades dealt a heavy blow to the economic situation of the Jews. From the 13th century they lost their role as the main intermediary in Europe's trade with the East, since the movement of Jewish merchants across Christian Europe, whose roads were dominated by gangs of crusaders, became almost impossible. Deprived of their livelihood, the Jews were forced to turn to usury on a large scale.
Hated by the Christian environment, the Jews of medieval Europe, withdrawn into their communities, found sources of religious consolation and national pride in the memory of hundreds of communities exterminated by the crusaders and the many thousands of victims killed or martyred.
Federal Agency for Education
State educational institution of higher professional education
"Nizhny Novgorod State Linguistic University named after Dobrolyubov"
Translation faculty
Culture and history of France
"Crusades"
Performed:
1st year full-time student
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Baturina Yu.V.
Nizhny Novgorod
Introduction
1. Background and reason for the Crusades
1.1 Preconditions in the East
1.2 Background in the West
1.3 Reason for the Crusades. Clermont Cathedral 1095
2. The course and order of the Crusades to the East
2.1 First Crusade
3. Results and consequences of the Crusades
3.1 Fall of Crusader power in the East
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
The Crusades are a series of military campaigns by Western European knights directed against “infidels” - Muslims, pagans, Orthodox states and various heretical movements. The goal of the first crusades was the liberation of Palestine, primarily Jerusalem (with the Holy Sepulcher), from the Seljuk Turks, but later the crusades were also carried out for the sake of converting the pagans of the Baltic states to Christianity, suppressing heretical and anti-clerical movements in Europe (Cathars, Hussites, etc. ) or solving the political problems of the popes.
The name “crusaders” appeared because participants in the crusades sewed crosses onto their clothes. It was believed that the participants in the campaign would receive forgiveness of sins, so not only knights, but also ordinary residents and even children went on campaigns. The first to embrace the idea of liberating Jerusalem from Turkish oppression was Pope Gregory VII, who wished to personally lead the campaign. Up to 50,000 enthusiasts responded to his call, but the pope’s struggle with the German emperor left the idea hanging in the air. Gregory's successor, Pope Victor III, renewed his predecessor's call, promising absolution, but not wanting to personally participate in the campaign. Residents of Pisa, Genoa, and some other Italian cities, which suffered from Muslim sea raids, equipped a fleet that departed for the African coast. The expedition burned two cities in Tunisia, but this episode did not receive wide resonance.
The true inspirer of the mass crusade was the simple beggar hermit Peter of Amiens, nicknamed the Hermit, originally from Picardy. When visiting Golgotha and the Holy Sepulcher, the sight of all kinds of oppression of Palestinian brothers in faith aroused strong indignation in him. Having received letters from the patriarch with a plea for help, Peter went to Rome to Pope Urban II, and then, wearing rags, without shoes, with his head uncovered and a crucifix in his hands, he went through the cities and villages of Europe, preaching wherever possible about the campaign for the liberation of Christians. and the Holy Sepulcher. Ordinary people, touched by his eloquence, took Peter for a saint and considered it happiness to even pinch off a piece of wool from his donkey as a souvenir. Thus the idea spread very widely and became popular.
The First Crusade began shortly after the passionate sermon of Pope Urban II at a church council in the French city of Clermont in November 1095. Shortly before this, the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos turned to Urban with a request to help repel the attack of the warlike Seljuk Turks (named after their leader Seljuk). Perceiving the invasion of Muslim Turks as a threat to Christianity, the Pope agreed to help the emperor, and also, wanting to win public opinion on his side in the fight against another contender for the papal throne, he set an additional goal - to conquer the Holy Land from the Seljuks. The pope’s speech was repeatedly interrupted by outbursts of popular enthusiasm and cries of “It’s God’s will!” That’s what God wants!” Urban II promised the participants the cancellation of their debts and care for the families remaining in Europe. Right there, in Clermont, those wishing to take solemn oaths and, as a sign of the vow, sewed crosses made of strips of red fabric onto their clothes. This is where the name “crusaders” came from, and the name of their mission - “Crusade”.
The first campaign, on the wave of general enthusiasm, generally achieved its goals. Subsequently, Jerusalem and the Holy Land were recaptured by Muslims and the Crusades were undertaken to liberate them. The last (ninth) Crusade in its original meaning took place in 1271-1272. The last campaigns, also called “crusades,” were undertaken in the 15th century and were directed against the Hussites and Ottoman Turks.
Chapter 1. Prerequisites and reason for the Crusades
1.4 Prerequisites in the East
Christianity initially combined peaceful premises: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who abuse you. Give the other one to the one who hits you on the cheek, and do not prevent the one who takes your outer clothing from taking your shirt. Give to everyone who asks you, and do not demand back from the one who took what you have.”
In the 4th century, St. Basil the Great, with his 13th rule, proposed excommunicating from Communion for three years soldiers who killed in war, and his 55th rule excommunicated from Communion those who resisted the robbers by force of the sword. And even in the 10th century, Patriarch Polyeuctus of Constantinople excommunicated soldiers who defended their Orthodox fatherland from the invasion of Muslims (Turks) for 5 years.
The Crusades against Muslims continued for two centuries, until the very end of the 13th century. Both Christianity and Islam alike saw themselves as called to dominate the world. The rapid successes of Islam in the first century of its existence threatened European Christianity with serious danger: the Arabs conquered Syria, Palestine, Egypt, northern Africa, and Spain. The beginning of the 8th century was a critical moment: in the East, the Arabs conquered Asia Minor and threatened Constantinople, and in the West they tried to penetrate the Pyrenees. The victories of Leo the Isaurian and Charles Martel stopped the Arab expansion, and the further spread of Islam was stopped by the political disintegration of the Muslim world that soon began. The caliphate was fragmented into parts that were at war with each other.
In the second half of the 10th century, the Byzantine Empire even received the opportunity to return some of what was lost earlier: Nikephoros Phocas conquered Crete, part of Syria, and Antioch from the Arabs. In the 11th century, the situation changed again in a way unfavorable for Christians. After the death of Vasily II (1025), the Byzantine throne was occupied by weak emperors, who were constantly changing. The weakness of the supreme power turned out to be all the more dangerous for Byzantium because it was at this time that the eastern empire began to face serious danger in both Europe and Asia. In Western Asia, the Seljuks made their offensive movement to the West. Led by Shakir Beg (died 1059) and Toghrul Beg (died 1063), they brought most of Iran and Mesopotamia under their rule. Shakir's son Alp Arslan devastated Armenia, then a significant part of Asia Minor (1067-1070) and captured Emperor Roman Diogenes at Manzikert (1071). Between 1070 and 1081, the Seljuks took Syria and Palestine from the Egyptian Fatimids (Jerusalem in 1071-1073, Damascus in 1076), and Suleiman, the son of Kutulmish, a cousin of Togrul Beg, took all of Asia Minor from the Byzantines by 1081; Nicaea became his capital. Finally, the Turks took Antioch (1085). Again, as in the 8th century, the enemies were near Constantinople. At the same time, the European provinces of the empire were subjected (since 1048) to continuous invasions of the Pechenegs and Uzes, who sometimes caused terrible devastation right under the very walls of the capital. The year 1091 was especially difficult for the empire: the Turks, led by Chakha, were preparing an attack on Constantinople from the sea, and the Pecheneg army stood on land near the capital itself. Emperor Alexei Komnenos could not hope for success, fighting with his own troops alone: his forces had been largely exhausted in recent years in the war with the Italian Normans, who were trying to establish themselves on the Balkan Peninsula.
1.5 Prerequisites in the West
In the West, by the end of the 11th century, a number of reasons created a mood and situation favorable for the call to fight against the infidels, with which Emperor Alexius I Komnenos addressed there: religious feeling intensified extremely and an ascetic mood developed, which found expression in all kinds of spiritual exploits, between other things and on numerous pilgrimages.
In addition, in 1054 there was a Schism of the Christian Church (1054) - Catholics and Orthodox Christians anathematized each other.
Especially many pilgrims have long been heading to Palestine, to the Holy Sepulcher; in 1064, for example, Archbishop Siegfried of Mainz went to Palestine with a crowd of seven thousand pilgrims. The Arabs did not interfere with such pilgrimages, but Christian feelings were sometimes greatly offended by manifestations of Muslim fanaticism: for example, the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1009. Even then, under the impression of this event, Pope Sergius IV preached a holy war, but to no avail (after the death of Al-Hakim, however, the destroyed temples were restored). The establishment of the Turks in Palestine made Christian pilgrimages much more difficult, expensive and dangerous: pilgrims were much more likely to become victims of Muslim fanaticism. The stories of the returning pilgrims developed in the religiously minded masses of Western Christianity a feeling of grief over the sad fate of the holy places and strong indignation against the infidels. In addition to religious inspiration, there were other motives that powerfully acted in the same direction. In the 11th century, the passion for movement, which seemed to be the last echoes of the great migration of peoples (the Normans, their movements), had not yet completely died out. The establishment of the feudal system created in the knightly class a significant contingent of people who could not find application for their strength in their homeland (for example, younger members of baronial families) and were ready to go where there was hope of finding something better. Difficult socio-economic conditions attracted many people from the lower strata of society to the Crusades. In some Western countries (for example, in France, which provided the largest contingent of crusaders) in the 11th century, the situation of the masses became even more unbearable due to a number of natural disasters: floods, crop failures, and widespread diseases. The rich trading cities of Italy were ready to support crusader enterprises in the hope of significant trade benefits from the establishment of Christians in the East.
1.6 Reason for the Crusades. Clermont Cathedral 1095
The papacy, which had just strengthened its moral authority throughout the West with ascetic reform and had assimilated the idea of a single kingdom of God on earth, could not help but respond to the call addressed to it from Constantinople, in the hope of becoming the head of the movement and, perhaps, gaining spiritual power in the East. Finally, Western Christians have long been incited against Muslims by fighting them in Spain, Italy and Sicily. For all of southern Europe, Muslims were a familiar, hereditary enemy. All this contributed to the success of the appeal of Emperor Alexius I Komnenos, who already around 1089 was in relations with Pope Urban II and was apparently ready to put an end to church discord in order to receive help from the Latin West. There was talk of a council in Constantinople for this purpose; Dad freed Alexei from the excommunication that had hitherto been imposed on him as if he were a schismatic. When the pope was in Campania in 1091, Alexei's ambassadors were with him. In March 1095, the pope once again listened to Alexei's ambassadors (at the council in Piacenza), and in the fall of the same year a council was convened in Clermont (in France, in Auvergne). In the mind of Pope Urban II, the idea of helping Byzantium took on a form that would especially appeal to the masses. In the speech he delivered in Clermont, the political element was relegated to the background before the religious element: Urban II preached a campaign to liberate the Holy Land and the Holy Sepulcher from the infidels. The pope's speech in Clermont on November 24, 1095 was a huge success: many immediately vowed to go against the infidels and sewed crosses on their shoulders, which is why they were called “crusaders”, and the Campaigns were called “crusaders”. This gave impetus to a movement that was destined to stop only two centuries later. While the idea of a Crusade was ripening in the West, Emperor Alexei freed himself from the danger that forced him to seek help in the West. In 1091, he destroyed the Pecheneg horde, with the help of the Polovtsian khans Tugorkan and Bonyak; Chakha's maritime enterprise also ended unsuccessfully (Chakha was soon killed by order of the Nicene Sultan). Finally, in 1094-1095, Alexei managed to free himself from the danger that threatened him from his recent allies - the Polovtsians. The immediate danger for Byzantium passed just at the time when masses of the first crusaders began to arrive from the West, whom Alexei now looked at with alarm. Western assistance was too broad; it could threaten Byzantium itself, due to the enmity between the Latin West and the Greek East. The preaching of the Crusade was an extraordinary success in the West. The church stood at the head of the movement: the pope appointed Bishop Puy Adhemar as his legate to the crusader army, who was one of the first to accept the cross in Clermont. Those who accepted the cross, like pilgrims, were accepted by the church under its protection. Creditors could not demand debts from them during their journey; those who seized their property were excommunicated from the church; all the crusaders who went to the Holy Land, prompted to do so by piety, and not by the desire to acquire honors or wealth, were absolved of their sins. Already in the winter from 1095 to 1096, large masses of poorly or almost completely unarmed crusaders from the poorest classes gathered. They were led by Peter the Hermit and Walter Golyak (or Gautier the Beggar). Some of this crowd reached Constantinople, but many died earlier. The Greeks transported the crusaders to Asia, where almost all of them were exterminated by the Seljuks. Somewhat later, the real First Crusade began.
Chapter 2. The course and order of the Crusades to the East
2.1 First Crusade
The first campaign began in 1096. At the head of the numerous and well-armed militia were Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse (he led troops from southern France and was joined by the papal legate), Hugues de Vermandois (brother of the French king Philip I), Etienne (Stephen) II, Count of Blois and Chartres, Duke of Normandy Robert III of Courtgeuse, Count of Flanders Robert II, Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, with brothers Eustache (Eustache) III, Count of Boulogne, and Baldwin (Baudouin), as well as nephew Baldwin (Baudouin) the Younger, finally Bohemond of Tarentum (son of Robert Guiscard), with his nephew Tancred. The number of crusaders who gathered in different ways in Constantinople probably reached 300 thousand. In Constantinople, most of the crusader leaders recognized their future conquests as parts of the eastern empire, in fief dependence on Alexei and gave him the appropriate oath. It was not easy for Alexei to achieve this: he was even forced to resort to armed force (this is how he forced Gottfried of Bouillon to take the oath). Their troops were not a single cohesive army - each feudal lord going on a campaign attracted his vassals, and behind them came peasants who had escaped from their homes.
In April 1097, the crusaders crossed the Bosphorus. Soon Nicaea surrendered to the Byzantines, and on July 1, the crusaders defeated Sultan Kilij-Arslan at Dorileum and thus paved their way through Asia Minor. Moving further, the crusaders found precious allies against the Turks in the princes of Lesser Armenia, whom they began to support in every possible way. Baldwin, having separated from the main army, established himself in Edessa. For the crusaders this was very important due to the position of the city, which has since constituted their extreme eastern outpost. In October 1097, the crusaders besieged Antioch, which they managed to take only in June of the following year. In Antioch, the crusaders, in turn, were besieged by the emir of Mosul Kerboga and, suffering from hunger, were in great danger; They managed, however, to leave the city and defeat Kerboga. After a long feud with Raymond, Antioch was taken over by Bohemond, who, even before its fall, managed to force the rest of the crusader leaders to agree to transfer this important city to him. While there were disputes over Antioch, an unrest occurred in the army, dissatisfied with the delay, which forced the princes, stopping the strife, to move on. The same thing was repeated later: while the army was rushing towards Jerusalem, the leaders argued over each captured city.
On June 7, 1099, the holy city finally opened before the eyes of the crusaders, and on July 15 they took it, and carried out a terrible massacre among Muslims. Godfrey of Bouillon received power in Jerusalem. Having defeated the Egyptian army near Ascalon, he ensured the conquest of the crusaders on this side for some time. After the death of Godfrey, Baldwin the Elder became king of Jerusalem, and transferred Edessa to Baldwin the Younger. In 1101, the second large crusader army from Lombardy, Germany and France came to Asia Minor, led by many noble and wealthy knights; but most of this army was destroyed by the combined forces of several emirs. Meanwhile, the crusaders, who had established themselves in Syria (their number increased with new pilgrims arriving almost continuously), had to wage a difficult struggle with the neighboring Muslim rulers. Bohemond was captured by one of them and ransomed by the Armenians. In addition, the crusaders had already been waging war with the Greeks over the coastal cities since the spring of 1099. In Asia Minor, the Byzantines managed to regain significant territory; their successes could have been even greater here if they had not wasted their strength in the fight against the crusaders from beyond the remote Syrian and Cilician regions. Finally, from the very beginning there was a struggle between the crusaders themselves over the possession of different cities. The soon-to-be-formed spiritual and knightly orders of the Templars and Hospitallers (Johannites) provided significant support to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The crusaders began to face serious danger when Imad-ad-Din Zengi gained power in Mosul (1127). He united under his rule several Muslim possessions that lay near the possessions of the Crusaders, and formed a vast and strong state that occupied almost all of Mesopotamia and a significant part of Syria. In 1144 he took Edessa, despite heroic resistance. The news of this disaster again caused crusading enthusiasm in the West, expressed in the 2nd Crusade. The preaching of Bernard of Clairvaux raised, first of all, the mass of French knights, led by King Louis VII; Then Bernard managed to attract the German Emperor Conrad III to the Crusades. His nephew Frederick of Swabia and many German princes went with Conrad.
2.2 Subsequent Eastern Crusades
Crusader states
At the end of the 1st Crusade, four-Christian states were founded in the Levant.
The County of Edessa is the first state founded by the Crusaders in the East. It was founded in 1098 by Baldwin I of Boulogne. After the conquest of Jerusalem and the creation of the kingdom. It existed until 1146. Its capital was the city of Edessa.
The Principality of Antioch was founded by Bohemond I of Tarentum in 1098 after the capture of Antioch. The principality existed until 1268.
The Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted until the fall of Akriv in 1291. The kingdom was subordinate to several vassal lordships, including the four largest:
Principality of Galilee
County of Jaffa and Askalon
Transjordan - lordship of Krak, Montreal and Saint Abraham
Señoria of Sidon
The County of Tripoli is the last of the states founded during the First Crusade. It was founded in 1105 by the Count of Toulouse, Raymond IV. The county existed until 1289.
The Crusader states completely covered the territory through which Europe traded with India and China at that time, without occupying any extra territory. Egypt found itself cut off from this trade. Delivery of goods to Europe in the most economical way from Baghdad, bypassing the crusader states, became impossible. Thus, the crusaders acquired a kind of monopoly in this type of trade. Conditions were created for the development of new trade routes between Europe and, for example, China, such as the route along the Volga with transshipment into rivers flowing into the Baltic and the Volga-Don route. In this one can see the reasons for the shift in the political center of Rus' just after the first crusade to the area where international cargo was transshipped from the Volga basin to the Western Dvina basin, as well as the reasons for the economic and political rise of Volga Bulgaria. The subsequent seizure by the Crusaders of the mouth of the Western Dvina and the Neman, their capture of Constantinople, through which the cargo of the Volga-Don route and the route along the Kura River passed, as well as the attempt of the Swedes to capture the mouth of the Neva, can also be regarded as an attempt to establish control over the trade routes of this type of trade. The economic rise at that time in the northwestern part of Western Europe against the southern one became the reason that for Europeans, international trade with the East through the Baltic and further through North-Eastern Rus' became more economically profitable. Perhaps it was in this regard that the crusades to the Holy Land lost popularity among Europeans, and the crusader states lasted the longest in the Baltic states, disappearing only when the Europeans opened direct sea routes to China and India.
Second Crusade (1147-1149)
Conrad arrived in Constantinople by dry route (via Hungary), in mid-September 1147 he transported troops to Asia, but after a clash with the Seljuks at Dorylaeum he returned to the sea. The French, frightened by Conrad's failure, went along the western coast of Asia Minor; then the king and noble crusaders sailed on ships to Syria, where they arrived in March 1148. The rest of the crusaders wanted to break through by land and for the most part died. In April, Conrad arrived in Acre; but the siege of Damascus, undertaken together with the Jerusalemites, went unsuccessfully, due to the selfish and short-sighted policies of the latter. Then Conrad, and in the fall of the next year Louis VII returned to their homeland. Edessa, which had been taken by Christians after the death of Imad-ad-Din, but was soon again taken from them by his son Nur-ad-Din, was now lost forever to the crusaders. The 4 decades that followed were a difficult time for Christians in the East. In 1176, the Byzantine Emperor Manuel suffered a terrible defeat from the Seljuk Turks at Myriokephalos. Nur ad-Din took possession of the lands lying to the northeast of Antioch, took Damascus and became a close and extremely dangerous neighbor for the crusaders. His commander Shirku (of Kurdish origin) established himself in Egypt. The crusaders were surrounded by enemies as if in a ring. After Shirku's death, the title of vizier and power over Egypt passed to his famous nephew Saladin, son of Ayyub.
Loss of Jerusalem
Saladin (actually Salah ad-din Yusuf ibn Ayyub) after the death of the caliph ruled the country unlimitedly, recognizing only nominally the supreme power of Nur ad-Din. After the death of the latter (1174), Saladin subjugated Damascus, all of Muslim Syria, and most of Mesopotamia and took the title of sultan.
At this time, the young king Baldwin IV ruled in Jerusalem. Despite a serious illness - leprosy - he managed to show himself as a wise and far-sighted commander and diplomat. Under him, some balance was established between Jerusalem and Damascus. Both Baldwin and Saladin tried to avoid decisive battles. However, foreseeing the imminent death of the king, the intrigues of powerful barons grew at Baldwin’s court, the most influential of whom were Guy de Lusignani (Renaud de Chatillon). They represented a radical party that absolutely demanded an end to Saladin. Chatillon, among other things, committed outrages on the caravan routes in the vicinity of his stronghold of Krak of Moab.
Baldwin died in 1185. Guy de Lusignan married his sister Sibylle and became king of Jerusalem. Now, with the assistance of Renaud de Chatillon, he began to openly provoke Saladin into a general battle. The last straw that broke Saladin's patience was Reno's attack on the caravan in which Saladin's sister was traveling. This led to a deterioration in relations and the Muslims going on the offensive.
In July 1187, Saladin took Tiberias and inflicted a terrible defeat on the Christians who occupied the heights of Hattin (near Tiberias).
King of Jerusalem Guy de Lusignan, his brother Amaury, Renaud de Chatillon and many knights were captured. Saladin then captured Acre, Beirut, Sidon, Caesarea, Ascalon and other cities. On October 2, 1187, his troops entered Jerusalem. Only near Tire, which was defended by Conrad of Montferrat, did Saladin fail. Only Tyre, Tripoli and Antioch remained in the power of the crusaders. Meanwhile, King Guy, freed from captivity, moved to conquer Acre. Saladin's successes sparked a new movement in the West, leading to the 3rd Great Crusade. The fleets of the Lombards, Tuscans and Genoese moved first. Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa led a large army. Even now there were hostilities between the crusaders and the Greeks: the Greeks even entered into an alliance with Saladin.
Third Crusade (1189-1192)
In March 1190, Frederick's troops crossed into Asia, moved to the southeast and, after terrible hardships, made their way through all of Asia Minor; but soon after crossing Taurus, the emperor drowned in the Salefa River. Part of his army dispersed, many died, the rest were led by Duke Frederick to Antioch, and then to Acre. In January 1191 he died of a pestilence. In the spring, the kings of France (Philip II Augustus) and England (Richard the Lionheart) and Duke Leopold of Austria arrived. On the way, Richard the Lionheart defeated the Emperor of Cyprus, Isaac, who was forced to surrender; he was imprisoned in a Syrian castle, where he was kept almost until his death, and Cyprus fell into the power of the crusaders. The siege of Acre went badly, due to discord between the French and English kings, as well as between Guy de Lusignan and Margrave Conrad of Montferrat, who, after the death of Guy's wife, declared a claim to the Jerusalem crown and married Isabella, sister and heiress of the deceased Sibylla. Only on July 12, 1191, Acre surrendered after almost two years of siege. Conrad and Guy were reconciled after the capture of Acre; the first was recognized as Guy's heir and received Tire, Beirut and Sidon. Soon after this, Philip II sailed home with part of the French knights, but Hugo of Burgundy, Henry of Champagne and many other noble crusaders remained in Syria. The Crusaders managed to defeat Saladin in the Battle of Arsuf, but due to lack of water and constant skirmishes with Muslim troops, the Christian army was unable to recapture Jerusalem - King Richard approached the city twice and both times did not dare to storm. Finally, in September 1192, a truce was concluded with Saladin: Jerusalem remained in the power of Muslims, Christians were only allowed to visit the holy city. After this, King Richard sailed to Europe.
A circumstance that somewhat eased the position of the crusaders was the death of Saladin in March 1193: the division of his possessions among his many sons became a source of civil strife among Muslims. Soon, however, Saladin's brother, al-Malik al-Adil, advanced, who took possession of Egypt, southern Syria and Mesopotamia and took the title of sultan. After the failure of the third crusade, Emperor Henry VI began to gather in the Holy Land, accepting the cross in May 1195; but he died in September 1197. Some crusader detachments that had set off earlier nevertheless arrived in Acre. Somewhat earlier than the emperor, Henry of Champagne, who was married to the widow of Conrad of Montferrat and therefore wore the Jerusalem crown, died. Amaury II (brother of Guy de Lusignan), who married Henry's widow, was now chosen as king. Meanwhile, military operations in Syria were going poorly; a significant part of the crusaders returned to their homeland. Around this time, the German hospital brotherhood of St. Mary, founded during the 3rd Crusade, was transformed into a Teutonic spiritual-knightly order.
Fourth Crusade (1202-1204)
Soon Pope Innocent III began to preach a new 4th Crusade. The ardent preacher Fulco of Nelly persuaded Count Thibault of Champagne, Louis of Blois and Chartres, Simon of Monfort and many knights to accept the cross. In addition, Count Baldwin of Flanders and his brothers, Eustachius and Henry, made a vow to go to the Holy Land. Count Tibov soon died, but Boniface of Montferrat also took part in the Crusades.
While the crusaders were preparing to sail to Egypt, in the summer of 1201, Tsarevich Alexei, the son of the Byzantine emperor Isaac Angelus, deposed and blinded in 1196, arrived in Italy. He asked the Pope and the Hohenstaufens for help against his uncle, the usurper Alexei III. Philip of Swabia was married to Tsarevich Alexei's sister, Irina, and supported his request. Intervention in the affairs of the Byzantine Empire promised great benefits to the Venetians; Therefore, Doge Enrico Dandolo also took the side of Alexei, who promised the crusaders a generous reward for their help. The Crusaders, having taken the city of Zadar for the Venetians in November 1202 (in return for underpaid money for transportation), sailed to the East, in the summer of 1203 they landed on the shores of the Bosphorus and began to storm Constantinople. After several failures, Emperor Alexei III fled, and the blind Isaac was again proclaimed emperor, and his son as co-emperor.
Soon, discord began between the crusaders and Alexei, who was not able to fulfill his promises. Already in November of the same year this led to hostile actions. On January 25, 1204, a new revolution in Constantinople overthrew Alexios IV and elevated Alexios V (Murzufla) to the throne. The people were dissatisfied with the new taxes and the confiscation of church treasures to pay the agreed reward to the crusaders. Isaac died; Alexei IV and Canabus, who was chosen by the emperor, were strangled by order of Murzufla. The war with the Franks was unsuccessful even under the new emperor. On April 12, 1204, the crusaders took Constantinople, and many art monuments were destroyed. Alexey V and Theodore Lascaris, son-in-law of Alexey III, fled (the latter to Nicaea, where he established himself), and the winners formed the Latin Empire. For Syria, the immediate consequence of this event was the distraction of Western knights from there. In addition, the power of the Franks in Syria was weakened by the struggle between Bohemond of Antioch and Leo of Armenia. In April 1205, King Amalrich of Jerusalem died; Cyprus was received by his son Hugo, and the crown of Jerusalem was inherited by Mary of Jerusalem, daughter of Margrave Conrad of Montferrat and Elizabeth. During her childhood, Jean I of Ibelin ruled. In 1210, Maria Iolanta was married to the brave John of Brienne. At that time, the crusaders lived with the Muslims for the most part in peace, which was very beneficial to Almelik-Aladil: thanks to him, he strengthened his power in Western Asia and Egypt. In Europe, the success of the 4th Campaign once again revived crusading zeal.
Children's Crusade (1212)
In 1212, the so-called Children's Crusade took place, an expedition led by a young seer named Stephen, who inspired the belief in French and German children that with his help, as poor and devoted servants of God, they could return Jerusalem to Christianity. The children went to the south of Europe, but many of them did not even reach the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, but died along the way. Some historians believe that the Children's Crusade was a provocation staged by slave traders in order to sell participants in the campaign into slavery.
In May 1212, when the German people's army passed through Cologne, in its ranks there were about twenty-five thousand children and teenagers heading to Italy, in order to reach Palestine by sea. In the chronicles of the 13th century, this campaign is mentioned more than fifty times, which was called the “Children’s Crusade.”
The crusaders boarded ships in Marseilles and some died from a storm, while others, as they say, sold their children to Egypt as slaves. A similar movement spread to Germany, where the boy Nikolai gathered a crowd of about 20 thousand children. Most of them died or scattered along the road (especially many of them died in the Alps), but some reached Brindisi, from where they were supposed to return; most of them also died. Meanwhile, the English king John, the Hungarian Andrew and, finally, Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, who accepted the cross in July 1215, responded to the new call of Innocent III. The start of the Crusade was scheduled for June 1, 1217.
Fifth Crusade (1217-1221)
The work of Innocent III (died in July 1216) was continued by Honorius III. Although Frederick II postponed the campaign, and John of England died, nevertheless, in 1217, significant detachments of crusaders set off for the Holy Land, with Andrew of Hungary, Duke Leopold VI of Austria, Otto of Meran at the head; this was the 5th Crusade. Military operations were sluggish, and in 1218 King Andrew returned home. Soon new detachments of crusaders arrived in the Holy Land, under the leadership of George of Vidsky and William of Holland (on the way, some of them helped Christians in the fight against the Moors in Portugal). The Crusaders decided to attack Egypt, which at that time was the main center of Muslim power in Western Asia. Sonal-Adil, al-Kamil (al-Adil died in 1218), offered an extremely profitable peace: he even agreed to the return of Jerusalem to Christians. This proposal was rejected by the crusaders. In November 1219, after more than a year's siege, the crusaders took Damietta. The removal of Leopold and King John of Brienne from the crusading camp was partly compensated for by the arrival of Louis of Bavaria and the Germans in Egypt. Some of the crusaders, convinced by the papal legate Pelagius, moved towards Mansurah, but the campaign ended in complete failure, and the crusaders concluded peace with al-Kamil in 1221, according to which they received a free retreat, but pledged to cleanse Damietta and Egypt in general. Meanwhile, Frederick II of Hohenstaufen married Isabella, daughter of Maria Iolanta and John of Brienne. He committed himself to the pope to begin a crusade.
Sixth Crusade (1228-1229)
Frederick in August 1227 actually sent a fleet to Syria with Duke Henry of Limburg at its head; in September he sailed himself, but had to soon return to shore due to a serious illness. Landgrave Ludwig of Thuringia, who took part in this crusade, died almost immediately after landing in Otranto. Pope Gregory IX did not respect Frederick's explanations and excommunicated him for not fulfilling his vow at the appointed time. A struggle began between the emperor and the pope, which was extremely harmful to the interests of the Holy Land. In June 1228, Frederick finally sailed to Syria (6th Crusade), but this did not reconcile the pope with him: Gregory said that Frederick (still excommunicated) was going to the Holy Land not as a crusader, but as a pirate. In the Holy Land, Frederick restored the fortifications of Joppa and in February 1229 concluded an agreement with Alkamil: the Sultan ceded Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and some other places to him, for which the emperor undertook to help Alkamil against his enemies. In March 1229, Frederick entered Jerusalem, and in May he sailed from the Holy Land. After the removal of Frederick, his enemies began to seek to weaken the power of the Hohenstaufens both in Cyprus, which had been a fief of the empire since the time of Emperor Henry VI, and in Syria. These discords had a very unfavorable effect on the course of the struggle between Christians and Muslims. Relief for the crusaders was brought only by the discord of the heirs of Alkamil, who died in 1238.
In the autumn of 1239, Thibault of Navarre, Duke Hugo of Burgundy, Count Peter of Brittany, Amalrich of Monfort and others arrived in Acre. And now the crusaders acted discordantly and rashly and were defeated; Amalrich was captured. Jerusalem again fell for some time into the hands of a Heyyubid ruler. The alliance of the crusaders with the emir Ishmael of Damascus led to their war with the Egyptians, who defeated them at Ascalon. After this, many crusaders left the Holy Land. Arriving in the Holy Land in 1240, Count Richard of Cornwall (brother of the English king Henry III) managed to conclude a profitable peace with Eyyub (Melik-Salik-Eyyub) of Egypt. Meanwhile, discord among Christians continued; barons hostile to the Hohenstaufens transferred power over the kingdom of Jerusalem to Alice of Cyprus, while the rightful king was the son of Frederick II, Conrad. After Alice's death, power passed to her son, Henry of Cyprus. The new alliance of Christians with Eyyub's Muslim enemies led to Eyyub calling to his aid the Khorezmian Turks, who took Jerusalem, which had recently been returned to Christians, in September 1244 and terribly devastated it. Since then, the holy city was lost forever to the crusaders. After a new defeat of the Christians and their allies, Eyyub took Damascus and Ascalon. The Antiochians and Armenians had to at the same time undertake to pay tribute to the Mongols. In the West, crusading zeal cooled down due to the unsuccessful outcome of the last Campaigns and due to the behavior of the popes, who spent money collected for the Crusades on the fight against the Hohenstaufens, and declared that by helping the Holy See against the emperor, it was possible to free oneself from the earlier vow to go to the Holy Land. However, the preaching of the Crusade to Palestine continued as before and led to the 7th Crusade. First of all, Louis IX of France accepted the cross: during a dangerous illness, he vowed to go to the Holy Land. With him went his brothers Robert, Alphonse and Charles, Duke of Burgundy, c. William of Flanders, c. Peter of Brittany, Seneschal of Champagne John Joinville (a famous historian of this campaign) and many others.
Seventh Crusade (1248-1254)
In the summer of 1249, King Louis IX landed in Egypt. The Christians occupied Damietta and reached Mansura in December. In February of the following year, Robert, recklessly bursting into this city, died; a few days later the Muslims nearly took the Christian camp. When the new sultan arrived in Mansura (Eyyub died at the end of 1249), the Egyptians cut off the retreat of the crusaders; famine and pestilence broke out in the Christian camp. In April, the Muslims inflicted a complete defeat on the Crusaders; the king himself was captured, and bought his freedom by returning Damietta and paying a huge sum (the murder of Sultan Turanshah by the Melyuks, under the command of Baybars, did not change the state of affairs). Most of the crusaders returned to their homeland; Louis stayed in the Holy Land for another four years, but could not achieve any serious results.
Eighth Crusade (1270)
Among Christians, despite the extremely dangerous situation, endless strife continued: the Templars were at enmity with the Johannites, the Genoese with the Venetians and Pisans (due to trade rivalry). The crusaders only gained some benefit from the struggle between the Mongols and Muslims who appeared in Western Asia; but in 1260, Sultan Kutuznan defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalutei and captured Damascus and Aleppo. When, after the murder of Kutuz, Baybars became the sultan, the position of Christians became hopeless. First of all, Baybars turned against Bohemond of Antioch; in 1265 he took Caesarea, Arzuf, Safed, and defeated the Armenians. In 1268, Antioch fell into his hands, which Christians ruled for 170 years. Meanwhile, Louis IX took up the cross again. His example was followed by his sons Philip, John Tristan and Peter of Alençon, c. Poitiers, c. Artois (son of Robert Artois, who died in Mansur), King Thibault of Navarre and others. In addition, Charles of Anjou and the sons of the English king Henry III, Edward and Edmund, promised to go on Crusades. In July 1270, Louis sailed from Egmort. In Cagliari, it was decided to start crusades related to the conquest of Tunisia, which would be beneficial for Charles of Anjou (brother of Saint Louis), but not for the Christian cause in the Holy Land. Near Tunisia, a pestilence broke out among the crusaders: John Tristan died, then the papal legate and, finally, on August 25, 1270, Louis IX himself. After the arrival of Charles of Anjou, a peace was concluded with the Muslims, beneficial for Charles. The Crusaders left Africa, and some of them sailed to Syria, where the British also arrived in 1271. Baybars continued to gain the upper hand over the Christians and took several cities, but his attempt to conquer Cyprus failed. He concluded a truce with Christians for 10 years and 10 days and began to fight the Mongols and Armenians. Bohemond VI's successor, Bohemond VII of Tripoli, paid him tribute.
The fall of the Crusaders' power in the east
Pope Gregory X tried, but without success, to organize a new crusade. Many promised to go to the Holy Land (including Rudolf of Habsburg, Philip of France, Edward of England, Jaime of Aragon and others), but no one fulfilled the promise. In 1277, Baybars died, and the struggle for his inheritance began. There were also troubles among Christians. In 1267, with the death of King Hugo II of Jerusalem (son of Henry I of Cyprus), the male line of the Lusignans ceased; power passed to Hugo III, Prince of Antioch. Mary of Antioch, considering herself the heir to the Jerusalem crown, ceded her claims to Charles of Anjou, who took possession of Acre and demanded to be recognized as king. Hugo III died in 1284; He was succeeded by his son John, but he died already in 1285. His brother Henry II expelled the Sicilians from Acre and received the crowns of Cyprus and Jerusalem. Meanwhile, hostilities against Muslims resumed. Sultan Kalaun took Markab, Marakia, Laodicea, Tripoli (Bohemond VII died in 1287). Crusader preaching no longer had the same effect in the West: the monarchs, under the influence of the Crusades themselves, lost faith in the possibility of further successful struggle for the Holy Sepulcher and lands in the East; the old religious mood weakened, secular aspirations developed, and new interests arose. Qalaun's son, Malik al-Ashraf, took Acre (May 18, 1291). King Henry left the besieged city and sailed to Cyprus. After Acre fell Tire, Sidon, Beirut, Tortoza; Christians lost all their conquests on the Syrian coast. A lot of the crusaders died, the rest moved out, mainly to Cyprus. After the fall of Acre, the Johannites retired to Cyprus. The Templars also moved first to Cyprus, then to France; The Teutons had previously found a new field of action in the north, among the Prussians (see: Teutonic Order).
The idea of returning the Holy Land, however, was not completely abandoned in the West. In 1312, Pope Clement V preached the crusade at the Council of Vienne. Several sovereigns promised to go to the Holy Land, but no one went. A few years later, the Venetian Marino Sanutos drafted a crusade and presented it to Pope John XXII; but the time of the Crusades passed irrevocably. The Kingdom of Cyprus, reinforced by the Franks who fled there, retained its independence for a long time. One of its kings, Peter I (1359-1369), traveled all over Europe with the aim of starting a crusade. He managed to conquer and rob Alexandria, but he could not keep it behind him. Cyprus was finally weakened by the wars with Genoa, and after the death of King James II, the island fell into the hands of Venice: the Venetian widow of James, Catherine Cornaro, was forced to cede Cyprus to her hometown after the death of her husband and son (1489). Republic of St. Mark owned the island for almost a century, until the Turks took it away from her. Cilician Armenia, whose fate since the first crusade was closely connected with the fate of the crusaders, defended its independence until 1375, when the Mameluke Sultan Ashraf subjugated it to his rule. When the Ottoman Turks established themselves in Asia Minor, transferred their conquests to Europe and began to threaten the Christian world with serious danger, the West tried to organize crusades against them.
Chapter 3. Results and consequences of the Crusades
3.1 Fall of Crusader power in the east
Pope Gregory X tried, but without success, to organize a new crusade. Many promised to go to the Holy Land (including Rudolf of Habsburg, Philip of France, Edward of England, Jaime of Aragon and others), but no one fulfilled the promise. In 1277, Baibars died, and the struggle for his inheritance began. There were also troubles among Christians. In 1267, with the death of King Hugo II of Jerusalem (son of Henry I of Cyprus), the male line of the Lusignans ceased; power passed to Hugo III, Prince of Antioch. Mary of Antioch, considering herself the heir to the Jerusalem crown, ceded her claims to Charles of Anjou, who took possession of Acre and demanded to be recognized as king. Hugo III died in 1284; in Cyprus he was succeeded by his son John, but he died already in 1285. His brother Henry II expelled the Sicilians from Acre and received the crowns of Cyprus and Jerusalem. Meanwhile, hostilities against Muslims resumed. Sultan Kalaun took Markab, Marakia, Laodicea, Tripoli (Bohemond VII died in 1287). Crusader preaching no longer had the same effect in the West: the monarchs, under the influence of the Crusades themselves, lost faith in the possibility of further successful struggle for the Holy Sepulcher and lands in the East; the old religious mood weakened, secular aspirations developed, and new interests arose. Qalaun's son, Malik al-Ashraf, took Acre (May 18, 1291). King Henry left the besieged city and sailed to Cyprus. After Acre fell Tire, Sidon, Beirut, Tortosa; Christians lost all their conquests on the Syrian coast. A lot of the crusaders died, the rest moved out, mainly to Cyprus. After the fall of Acre, the Johannites also retired to Cyprus. The Templars also moved first to Cyprus, then to France; The Teutons had previously found a new field of action in the north, among the Prussians.
The idea of returning the Holy Land, however, was not completely abandoned in the West. In 1312, Pope Clement V preached the crusade at the Council of Vienne. Several sovereigns promised to go to the Holy Land, but no one went. A few years later, the Venetian Marino Sanuto drafted a crusade and presented it to Pope John XXII; but the time of the Crusades passed irrevocably. The Kingdom of Cyprus, reinforced by the Franks who fled there, retained its independence for a long time. One of its kings, Peter I (1359-1369), traveled all over Europe with the aim of starting a crusade. He managed to conquer and rob Alexandria, but he could not keep it for himself. Cyprus was finally weakened by the wars with Genoa, and after the death of King James II, the island fell into the hands of Venice: Jacob’s widow, the Venetian Caterina Cornaro, after the death of her husband and son, was forced to cede Cyprus to her hometown (1489). Republic of St. Mark owned the island for almost a century, until the Turks took it from her. Cilician Armenia, whose fate since the first crusade was closely connected with the fate of the crusaders, defended its independence until 1375, when the Mameluke Sultan Ashraf subjugated it to his rule. When the Ottoman Turks established themselves in Asia Minor, transferred their conquests to Europe and began to threaten the Christian world with serious danger, the West tried to organize crusades against them.
Among the reasons for the unsuccessful outcome of the Crusades in the Holy Land, the feudal nature of the crusader militias and the states founded by the crusaders is in the foreground. To successfully fight the Muslims, unity of action was required; Meanwhile, the crusaders brought feudal fragmentation and disunity with them to the East. The weak vassalage in which the crusader rulers were from the king of Jerusalem did not give him the real power that was needed here, on the border of the Muslim world.
The largest princes (Edessa, Tripoli, Antioch) were completely independent of the Jerusalem king. The moral shortcomings of the crusaders, the selfishness of their leaders, who sought to create special principalities for themselves in the East and to expand them at the expense of their neighbors, the poor development of political sense among the majority of the crusaders, made them unable to subordinate their personal narrow motives to higher goals (there were, of course, exceptions ). Added to this from the very beginning were almost constant strife with the Byzantine Empire: the two main Christian forces in the East were exhausted in mutual struggle. The rivalry between popes and emperors had the same influence on the course of the Crusades. Further, it was important that the possessions of the crusaders occupied only a narrow coastal strip, too insignificant for them to successfully fight the surrounding Muslim world without outside support. Therefore, the main source of strength and resources for Syrian Christians was the West. Europe, but it lay far away and the migration from there to Syria was not strong enough, since most of the crusaders, having fulfilled their vow, returned home. Finally, the success of the Crusaders' cause was harmed by the difference in religion between the Crusaders and the native population.
3.2 Consequences of the Crusades
The Crusades, however, did not remain without important consequences for the whole of Europe. Their unfavorable result was the weakening of the eastern empire, which gave it over to the power of the Turks, as well as the death of countless people, the introduction of cruel eastern punishments and gross superstitions into Western Europe by the crusaders, the persecution of Jews, and the like. But much more significant were the consequences beneficial for Europe. For the East and Islam, the Crusades did not have the same significance that they had in the history of Europe: they changed very little in the culture of Muslim peoples and in their state and social system. The Crusades undoubtedly had a certain influence (which, however, should not be exaggerated) on the political and social system of Western Europe: they contributed to the fall of medieval forms in it. The numerical weakening of the baronial knightly class, which was a consequence of the outflow of knights to the East, which lasted almost continuously for two centuries, made it easier for the royal authorities to fight against the representatives of the feudal aristocracy who remained in their homeland. The hitherto unprecedented development of trade relations contributed to the enrichment and strengthening of the urban class, which in the Middle Ages was the support of royal power and the enemy of the feudal lords. Then, the Crusades in some countries facilitated and accelerated the process of liberating the villans from serfdom: the villans were freed not only as a result of leaving for the Holy Land, but also by purchasing their freedom from the barons, who needed money when going on a crusade and therefore willingly entered into such transactions. Representatives of all those groups into which the population of medieval Western Europe was divided took part in the Crusades, starting from the largest barons and ending with the masses of simple villans; therefore, the Crusades contributed to the rapprochement of all classes among themselves, as well as the rapprochement of various European nationalities. The Crusades for the first time united in one cause all the social classes and all the peoples of Europe and awakened in them the consciousness of unity. On the other hand, by bringing the various peoples of Western Europe into close contact, the Crusades helped them understand their national characteristics. By bringing Western Christians into close contact with the foreign and heterodox peoples of the East (Greeks, Arabs, Turks, and so on), the Crusades helped weaken tribal and religious prejudices. Having become closely acquainted with the culture of the East, with the material situation, morals and religion of Muslims, the crusaders learned to see in them similar people and began to appreciate and respect their opponents. Those whom they at first considered half-savage barbarians and rude pagans turned out to be culturally superior to the crusaders themselves. The Crusades left an indelible mark on the knightly class; the war, which previously served the feudal lords only as a means to achieve selfish goals, received a new character in the Crusades: the knights shed their blood because of ideal, religious motives. The ideal of the knight, as a fighter for higher interests, a fighter for truth and religion, was formed precisely under the influence of the Crusades. The most important consequence of the Crusades was the cultural influence of the East on Western Europe. From the contact in the East of Western European culture with Byzantine and especially Muslim culture, extremely beneficial consequences flowed for the first. In all areas of material and spiritual life, in the era of the Crusades one encounters either direct borrowings from the East, or phenomena that owe their origin to the influence of these borrowings and the new conditions in which Western Europe then became.
Navigation reached unprecedented development during the Crusades: most of the crusaders went to the Holy Land by sea; Almost all of the extensive trade between Western Europe and the East was carried out by sea. The main figures in this trade were Italian merchants from Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi and other cities. Lively trade relations brought a lot of money to Western Europe, and this, together with the development of trade, led to the decline of forms of subsistence farming in the West and contributed to the economic revolution that was noticed at the end of the Middle Ages. Relations with the East brought many useful items to the West, which until then were either completely unknown there, or were rare and expensive. Now these products began to be imported in larger quantities, became cheaper and came into general use. This is how carob, saffron, apricot (Damascus plum), lemon, pistachios (the very words denoting many of these plants are Arabic) were transferred from the East. Sugar began to be imported on a large scale, and rice came into widespread use. Works of highly developed eastern industry were also imported in significant quantities - paper materials, chintz, muslin, expensive silk fabrics (satin, velvet), carpets, jewelry, paints, and the like. Familiarity with these objects and the method of their manufacture led to the development of similar industries in the West (in France, those who made carpets based on eastern models were called “Saracens”). Many items of clothing and home comfort were borrowed from the East, which bear evidence of their origin in their names (Arabic) (skirt, burnous, alcove, sofa), some weapons (crossbow) and the like. A significant number of eastern, mainly Arabic words that entered Western languages during the era of the Crusades usually indicate the borrowing of what is denoted by these words. These are (except for those mentioned above) Italian. dogana, fr. douane - customs, - admiral, talisman, etc. The Crusades introduced Western scientists to Arabic and Greek science (for example, with Aristotle). Geography made especially many acquisitions at this time: the West became closely acquainted with a number of countries little known before; the widespread development of trade relations with the East made it possible for Europeans to penetrate into such remote and then little-known countries as Central Asia (the travels of Plano Carpini, William of Rubruk, Marco Polo). Significant progress was also made then in mathematics, astronomy, natural sciences, medicine, linguistics, and history. In European art since the era of the Crusades, a certain influence of Byzantine and Muslim art has been noticed.
Such borrowings can be traced in architecture (horseshoe-shaped and complex arches, trefoil-shaped arches and pointed, flat roofs), in sculpture (“arabesques” - the very name indicates borrowing from the Arabs), in artistic crafts. Poetry, spiritual and secular crusades provided rich material. Having a strong effect on the imagination, they developed it among Western poets; they introduced Europeans to the treasures of the poetic creativity of the East, from where a lot of poetic material and many new subjects were transferred to the West. In general, the acquaintance of Western peoples with new countries, with political and social forms different from those in the West, with many new phenomena and products, with new forms in art, with other religious and scientific views - should have extremely expanded the mental horizons of Western peoples, informed to him a hitherto unprecedented breadth. Western thought began to break free from the grip in which the Catholic Church had hitherto held all spiritual life, science and art. The authority of the Roman Church was greatly undermined by the failure of those aspirations and hopes with which the Church led the West into the Crusades. The widespread development of trade and industry under the influence of the Crusades and through the mediation of Syrian Christians contributed to the economic prosperity of the countries that took part in this movement, and gave scope to various worldly interests, and this further undermined the decrepit edifice of the medieval church and its ascetic ideals. Having familiarized the West more closely with the new culture, making accessible to it the treasures of thought and artistic creativity of the Greeks and Muslims, developing worldly tastes and views, the Crusades prepared the so-called Renaissance, which chronologically directly adjoins them and is largely their consequence. In this way, the Crusades indirectly contributed to the development of a new direction in the spiritual life of mankind and prepared, in part, the foundations of a new European civilization.
There was also an increase in European trade: due to the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the dominance of Italian merchants in the Mediterranean began.
Conclusion
Although the Crusades did not achieve their goal and, begun with general enthusiasm, ended in disaster and disappointment, they constituted an entire era in European history and had a serious impact on many aspects of European life.
Byzantine Empire.
The Crusades may have indeed delayed the Turkish conquest of Byzantium, but they could not prevent the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The Byzantine Empire was in a state of decline for a long time. Its final death meant the emergence of the Turks on the European political scene. The sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 and the Venetian trade monopoly dealt the empire a mortal blow, from which it could not recover even after its revival in 1261.
Trade.
The biggest beneficiaries of the Crusades were the merchants and artisans of the Italian cities, who provided the crusader armies with equipment, provisions and transport. In addition, Italian cities, especially Genoa, Pisa and Venice, were enriched by a trade monopoly in the Mediterranean countries.
Italian merchants established trade relations with the Middle East, from where they exported various luxury goods to Western Europe - silks, spices, pearls, etc. The demand for these goods brought super profits and stimulated the search for new, shorter and safer routes to the East. Ultimately, this search led to the discovery of America. The Crusades also played an extremely important role in the emergence of the financial aristocracy and contributed to the development of capitalist relations in Italian cities.
Feudalism and the Church.
Thousands of large feudal lords died in the Crusades, in addition, many noble families went bankrupt under the burden of debt. All these losses ultimately contributed to the centralization of power in Western European countries and the weakening of the system of feudal relations.
The impact of the Crusades on the authority of the church was controversial. If the first campaigns helped strengthen the authority of the Pope, who took on the role of spiritual leader in the holy war against Muslims, then the 4th Crusade discredited the power of the Pope even in the person of such an outstanding representative as Innocent III. Business interests often took precedence over religious considerations, forcing the crusaders to disregard papal prohibitions and enter into business and even friendly contacts with Muslims.
Culture.
It was once generally accepted that it was the Crusades that brought Europe to the Renaissance, but now such an assessment seems overestimated to most historians. What they undoubtedly gave the man of the Middle Ages was a broader view of the world and a better understanding of its diversity.
The Crusades were widely reflected in literature. A countless number of poetic works were composed about the exploits of the crusaders in the Middle Ages, mostly in Old French. Among them there are truly great works, such as the History of the Holy War (Estoire de la guerre sainte), describing the exploits of Richard the Lionheart, or the Song of Antioch (Le chanson d'Antioche), supposedly composed in Syria, dedicated to the 1st Crusade New artistic material, born of the Crusades, penetrated into ancient legends.Thus, the early medieval cycles about Charlemagne and King Arthur were continued.
The Crusades also stimulated the development of historiography. Villehardouin's Conquest of Constantinople remains the most authoritative source for the study of the 4th Crusade. Many consider the best medieval work in the biography genre to be the biography of King Louis IX, created by Jean de Joinville. One of the most significant medieval chronicles was the book written in Latin by Archbishop William of Tyre, History of Deeds in Overseas Lands (Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum), vividly and reliably recreating the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1144 to 1184 (the year of the author’s death).
Bibliography
1. Vasiliev A. A. History of the Byzantine Empire: From the beginning of the Crusades to the fall of Constantinople. SPb.: Aletheia. 1998. 581 p. (Byzantine library.)
2. Villehardouin J. de. Conquest of Constantinople Trans., article and commentary. M. Zaborov. M.: Science. 1993.. 296 p. (Monuments of historical thought.)
3. Ertov I. History of the Crusades for the liberation of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the hands of infidels, selected from general history. SPb.: type. H. Ginz. 1835. 375 p.
4. Zaborov M. A. Historiography of the Crusades. (XV-XIX centuries) M.: Nauka. 1971. 386 p.
5. Clary, R. de. Conquest of Constantinople Trans., art. and comm. M. Zaborov. M.: Science. 1986. 174 p. (Monuments of historical thought.)
6. Uspensky F.I. History of the Crusades, St. Petersburg, 1900-1901, 230 p.
7. Shishnev U. G. History of Europe M: Science. 1985. 415 p.
The Crusades of the 11th-13th centuries, although they led to casualties and destruction, were accompanied by the development of contacts between the West and the East.
Causes and beginning of the Crusades
At the end of the 11th century. Byzantium turned to the West with a request to help in the fight against the Seljuk Turks, who had captured she has Asia Minor. Because of the invasion Seljuks, the roads along which Christian pilgrims reached Palestine became dangerous. The main Christian saints were there. In November 1095 the pope Urban II made a speech at a church council in the city of Clermont. He called for the expulsion of Muslims from the Holy Land. The Pope promised all participants in the campaign absolution and earthly riches. He called on the knights to stop strife and move to conquer the Holy Land.
The inspired crowd responded to his speech with exclamations: “God wants it this way!” People immediately cut out crosses from material and sewed them onto their clothes as a sign that they would go to recapture the Holy Sepulcher.
Began Crusades. What are their reasons? Of course, the deep religious feelings of the crusaders played a role. But they were also motivated by completely earthly motives.
The peasants were looking for freedom and land in the East. Knights, aristocrats and sovereigns were looking for new possessions, merchants - new wealth. The Catholic Church sought to expand its sphere of influence far into the East and strengthen the position of Catholicism in competition with Orthodoxy.
First Crusade
in spring 1096 Crowds of peasants set out on their way to the East. Groups of knights joined them. In the autumn they all crossed to Asia Minor and were immediately destroyed by the Seljuks; Few were saved. Thus ended the campaign of the poor.
In summer and autumn, detachments of knights set out on the road, representing a formidable military force. Fighting with unprecedented enthusiasm, they fought through Asia Minor and Syria. IN 1099 G. their troops took Jerusalem and subjected it to a terrible defeat.
Crusaders in the East
One of the leaders of the crusaders was elected king of Jerusalem. The rulers of three other states formed on the occupied lands (the Principality of Antioch, the County of Edessa and the County of Tripoli) became his vassals. In the states of the Crusaders, feudal orders, transferred from Western Europe, were established.
The dominance of the Crusaders in the East was fragile, since along with feudal relations, fragmentation and strife also appeared here. In addition, there were few fertile lands, and therefore the number of feuds and knights ready to fight for them was also small. Local residents hated the crusaders and longed to be freed from their oppression.
Spiritual knightly orders
Spiritual knightly orders played an important role in the history of the crusader states. The knights who joined them, instead of prayer and labor, had to fight for the faith with weapons in their hands. Members of the order obeyed only the pope and their leaders.
The three most famous orders are: Hospitallers, Templars And Teutonic(German) order, which united mainly German knights. To fight the pagan Prussians, this Order moved to the Baltic States, where it created its own state.
Spiritual knightly orders played a significant role in the defense of the Holy Land, but they were unable to change the outcome of the struggle.
In the Baltics, the Teutonic Order became the most dangerous enemy not only of the pagan Prussians, but also of Lithuania, Poland and Rus'. IN 1385 Poland and Lithuania entered into an alliance to fight a common enemy. IN 1410 at Grunwald they won a decisive victory over the Order. Russian regiments from the Smolensk land fought steadfastly on the side of Poland and Lithuania. The Order then survived, but its aggression to the east was stopped.
Second and Third Crusades
In the middle of the 12th century. Muslims captured the county of Edessa. To bring him back, efforts were made Second Crusade, which turned out to be unsuccessful. In addition, Christians in the East have a formidable opponent - Sultan Salah ad Din(in Europe it was called Saladin), who united Egypt, Mesopotamia and Syria under his rule. IN 1187 G. Saladin captured Jerusalem.
To recapture Jerusalem, it was organized Third Crusade(1189-1192). It was headed by the emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, french king Philip II Augustus and the English king Richard I the Lionheart, gathered enormous forces. However, the emperor died at the beginning of the campaign, and subsequently there was no unity in the ranks of the crusaders. As a result of a long siege, they took the city of Acre. But after this the king of France returned home. Richard had to conclude a truce with Saladin and also go home.
The rivals Philip II and Richard I presented a sharp contrast. Richard, in order to gather a huge crusader army, literally plundered his vast possessions. He once joked, saying that he was “ready to sell London itself if a buyer could be found.” Philip, a cautious and resourceful politician, thought not so much about the campaign as about its consequences.
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| Map of the Crusades |
Fourth Crusade
The leaders of the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) decided to reach Egypt on Venetian ships. But they didn’t have enough money to pay for transportation. For deferment of payment, the Venetians demanded that the crusaders capture the Christian city of Zadar, which competed with Venice. For the first time, the crusaders turned their weapons against Christians.
Envoys of the Byzantine prince, whose father had been overthrown by his brother, arrived at the crusaders. The cunning policy of Venice, which longed for the weakening of Byzantium, and the promise to pay generously for help did their job: the crusaders agreed to help the prince regain the throne. IN 1204 G. They took Constantinople by storm and brutally plundered the city, not even sparing the temples. Having captured fabulous wealth, the crusaders did not want to continue the campaign. They founded their own state with its capital in Constantinople - the Latin Empire. True, the crusaders could not conquer the entire territory of Byzantium, but in 1261 G. The Roman power was restored.
The Fourth Crusade became a turning point. The “Warriors of Christ” twice turned their weapons against Christians. The crusader movement lost all meaning.
Decline and end of the Crusades
Many in those days thought that sinless children would be able to liberate Jerusalem rather than knights stained with sins. IN 1212 G. thousands of children marched. But their sincere faith did not bring results. Material from the site
In the 13th century Four more Crusades were organized, but they were not successful. The territories of the crusader states were constantly shrinking. IN 1291 The last fortress, Acre, fell. The era of the Crusades to the East ended, although later military events proclaimed by the Pope were often called Crusades.
The meaning and results of the Crusades
The significance of the Crusades cannot be judged unequivocally. On the one hand, despite all efforts, Christians failed to retain their shrines. The Crusades brought sacrifices and destruction to the Muslim world, and the destruction of cultural monuments. The heaviest blow was dealt to Byzantium, and the enmity between the Catholic West and Orthodox Byzantium intensified. On the other hand, trade ties between East and West strengthened. The knowledge of Muslims and Christians about each other and about the world around them has expanded, Europeans have learned a lot in the East. The Crusades are one of the brightest pages in the history of the Middle Ages.
On this page there is material on the following topics:
The main reasons for the Crusades of the 10th - 13th centuries
What was the turning point in the Crusader movement and why briefly
Why did the Crusades to the East end by the end of the 13th century?
Which states carried out crusades in the 11th century
Report on the Crusades in brief
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