Portal:Crusades

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THE CRUSADES PORTAL
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The Crusades were a series of military conflicts of a religious character waged by much of Christian Europe against external and internal threats. Crusades were fought against Muslims, pagan Slavs, Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians, Mongols, Cathars, Hussites, and political enemies of the popes. Crusaders took vows and were granted an indulgence for past sins.

The Crusades originally had the goal of recapturing Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim rule and were originally launched in response to a call from the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire for help against the expansion of the Muslim Seljuk Turks into Anatolia. The term is also used to describe contemporaneous and subsequent campaigns conducted in territories outside the Levant usually against pagans, heretics, and peoples under the ban of excommunication for a mixture of religious, economic, and political reasons. Rivalries among both Christian and Muslim powers led also to alliances between religious factions against their opponents, such as the Christian alliance with the Sultanate of Rum during the Fifth Crusade.

The Crusades had far-reaching political, economic, and social impacts, some of which have lasted into contemporary times. Because of internal conflicts among Christian kingdoms and political powers, some of the crusade expeditions were diverted from their original aim, such as the Fourth Crusade, which resulted in the sack of Christian Constantinople and the partition of the Byzantine Empire between Venice and the Crusaders.

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The fall of Edessa, seen here on the right of this map (c.1140), was the proximate cause of the Second Crusade.
The Second Crusade (1145–1149) was the second major crusade launched from Europe, called in 1145 in response to the fall of the County of Edessa the previous year. Edessa was the first of the Crusader states to have been founded during the First Crusade (1095–1099), and was the first to fall. The Second Crusade was announced by Pope Eugene III, and was the first of the crusades to be led by European kings, namely Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, with help from a number of other important European nobles. The armies of the two kings marched separately across Europe and were somewhat hindered by Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus; after crossing Byzantine territory into Anatolia, both armies were separately defeated by the Seljuk Turks. Louis and Conrad and the remnants of their armies reached Jerusalem and, in 1148, participated in an ill-advised attack on Damascus. The crusade in the east was a failure for the crusaders and a great victory for the Muslims. It would ultimately lead to the fall of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade at the end of the 12th century.

The only success came outside of the Mediterranean, where Flemish, Frisian, Norman, English, Scottish, and some German crusaders, on the way by ship to the Holy Land, fortuitously stopped and helped the Portuguese in the capture of Lisbon in 1147. Some of them, who had departed earlier, helped capture Santarém earlier in the same year. Later they also helped to conquer Sintra, Almada, Palmela and Setúbal, and were allowed to stay in the conquered lands, where they had offspring. Meanwhile, in Eastern Europe, the first of the Northern Crusades began with the intent of forcibly converting pagan tribes to Christianity, and these crusades would go on for centuries.

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Richard I of England
Credit: Tagishsimon

This bronze equestrian statue of the crusader Richard I of England brandishing his sword by Carlo Marochetti stands outside the Palace of Westminster in London.

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caption=Pope Eugene III

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Manuscript miniature of Manuel I (part of double portrait with Maria of Antioch, Vatican Library, Rome)
Manuel I Komnenos, or Comnenus 28 November 1118 – 24 September 1180) was a Byzantine Emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history of Byzantium and the Mediterranean. Eager to restore his empire to its past glories as the superpower of the Mediterranean world, Manuel pursued an energetic and ambitious foreign policy. In the process he made alliances with the Pope and the resurgent west, invaded Italy, successfully handled the passage of the dangerous Second Crusade through his empire, and established a Byzantine protectorate over the Crusader kingdoms of Outremer. Facing Muslim advances in the Holy Land, he made common cause with the Kingdom of Jerusalem and participated in a combined invasion of Fatimid Egypt. Manuel reshaped the political maps of the Balkans and the east Mediterranean, placing the kingdoms of Hungary and Outremer under Byzantine hegemony and campaigning aggressively against his neighbours both in the west and in the east. However, towards the end of his reign Manuel's achievements in the east were compromised by a serious defeat at Myriokephalon, which in large part resulted from his arrogance in attacking a well-defended Seljuk position.

Called Megas, translated as "the Great", by the Greeks, Manuel is known to have inspired intense loyalty in those who served him. He also appears as the hero of a history written by his secretary, John Kinnamos, in which every virtue is attributed to him. Manuel, who was influenced by his contact with western Crusaders, enjoyed the reputation of "the most blessed emperor of Constantinople" in parts of the Latin world as well. Modern historians, however, have been less enthusiastic about him. Some of them assert that the great power he wielded was not his own personal achievement, but that of the dynasty he represented; they also argue Byzantine imperial power declined so rapidly after Manuel's death that it is only natural to look for the causes of this decline in his reign.

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The Crusades

Background: Pilgrimage • Holy Land • Church of the Holy Sepulchre • German Pilgrimage of 1064-1065 • Theology of sacred violence • Battle of Manzikert • Council of Piacenza • Council of Clermont • Jihad

Realms and dynasties: Great Seljuq Empire • Fatimid Caliphate • Kingdom of Jerusalem • Principality of Antioch • County of Tripoli • County of Edessa • Kingdom of Cyprus • Vassals of the Kingdom of Jerusalem • Officers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem • Officers of the Kingdom of Cyprus • Ayyubid dynasty • Almohad dynasty • Latin Empire • Monastic state of the Teutonic Knights • Mamluks • Mongol Empire • Lusignan dynasty • Duchy of Athens • Duchy of the Archipelago • Rise of the Ottoman Empire • Holy League • Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem • Archdiocese of Tyre • Archdiocese of Nazareth • Archdiocese of Caesarea • Archdiocese of Petra • Latin Patriarchate of Antioch • Latin Patriarchate of Constantinople

Cities and castles: Jerusalem • Citadel of Salah Ed-Din • Constantinople • Acre • Krak des Chevaliers • Famagusta

Campaigns and battles: First Crusade • Siege of Jerusalem • Reconquista • Second Crusade • Siege of Damascus • Northern Crusades • Battle of Hattin • Third Crusade • Battle of Arsuf • Livonian Crusade • German Crusade • Crusades in Italy • Fourth Crusade • Albigensian Crusade • Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa • Children's Crusade • Fifth Crusade • Siege of Damietta • Prussian Crusade • Sixth Crusade • Seventh Crusade • Battle of Al Mansurah • Shepherds' Crusade • Eighth Crusade • Ninth Crusade • Aragonese Crusade • Alexandrian Crusade • Crusades of the Western Schism • Battle of Nicopolis • Hussite Wars • Crusade of Varna • Fall of Constantinople • Siege of Belgrade • Ottoman invasion of Otranto • Fall of Rhodes • Ottoman-Habsburg wars • Battle of Mohács • Battle of Lepanto • Spanish Armada • Battle of Vienna

People: al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah • Pope Urban II • Godfrey of Bouillon • Bernard of Clairvaux • Baldwin of Exeter • Saladin • Richard I of England • Louis IX of France • James I of Aragon • Marino Sanuto the Elder • Pope Clement VI • Timur • John Hunyadi • Muhammad XII of Granada • Thomas Stukley • al-Afdal ibn Salah ad-Din

Military orders: Knights Templars • History of the Knights Templar • Knights Hospitaller • Military orders of the Reconquista • Teutonic Knights

Legacy: History of the Jews and the Crusades • Criticism of the Crusades • Trade and the Crusades • Medieval Christian missions to Asia • Sovereign Military Order of Malta

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# Al-Afdal ibn Salah ad-Din
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# Children's Crusade
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