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The Crusading movement—a major religious, political and military endeavour of the Middle Ages—began in 1095 when , at the Council of Clermont, proclaimed the First Crusade to liberate Eastern Christians from Muslim rule. He framed it as a form of penitential pilgrimage, offering spiritual rewards. By then, papal supremacy in Western Christendom had grown through church reforms, and tensions with secular rulers encouraged the notion of holy war—combining classical just war theory, biblical precedents, and Augustine's teachings on legitimate violence. Armed pilgrimage aligned with the era's Christocentrism and militant Catholicism, sparking widespread enthusiasm. Western expansion was further enabled by economic growth, the decline of older Mediterranean powers, and Muslim disunity. These factors allowed crusaders to seize territory and found four Crusader states. Their defence inspired successive crusades, and the papacy extended spiritual privileges to campaigns against other targets—Muslims in Iberia, pagans in the Baltic region, and other opponents of papal authority.
The crusades fostered distinctive institutions and ideologies, having a great impact on medieval Europe and the Mediterranean. Though aimed primarily at the warrior elite through appeals to chivalric ideals, they depended on broad support from clergy, townspeople, and peasants. Women, despite being discouraged, were involved as participants, proxies for absent crusaders, or victims. Although many crusaders were motivated by indulgences (remission of sins), material gain also played a part. Crusades were typically initiated through , with participants pledging by "taking the cross"—sewing a cross onto their garments. Failure to fulfil Crusade vow could result in excommunication. Periodic waves of zeal produced unsanctioned "popular crusades".
Initially funded through improvised means, later crusades received more organized support via papal taxes on clergy and the sale of indulgences. Core crusading forces were heavily armed , backed by infantry, local troops, and naval aid from maritime cities. Crusaders secured their holdings by building powerful castles, and the fusion of chivalric and monastic ideals led to the rise of military orders. The movement extended Western Christendom and created new frontier states, some surviving into the early modern period. In many regions, crusading encouraged cultural exchange and left lasting marks on European art and literature. Despite the decline of core institutions during the Reformation, anti-Ottoman "Holy League" sustained the tradition into the 18thcentury.
The empire was divided in 395. Fifteen years later, the sack of the city of Rome led Augustine—Ambrose's student—to write The City of God, a monumental historical study, in which he argued that the Bible's prohibition on killing did not apply to wars waged with divine approval. He held that just war must be declared by legitimate authority, pursued for a just cause once peaceful means had failed, and conducted with restraint and good intent. His reflections were nearly forgotten after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476.
Meanwhile, the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire endured, though much of its territory, including Jerusalem, was conquered by the rapidly expanding Islamic Caliphate by the mid-7thcentury. Islam's holiest text, the Quran, addresses —struggle to spread and defend the faith. In the early 8thcentury, Muslim forces entered Europe, conquering much of the Iberian Peninsula. Christians Dhimmi had to pay a special tax, the . As conquests stabilized, a threefold civilisational order emerged: a fragmented Western Europe, a weakened Byzantium, and an expansionist Islamic world.
As warfare became constant, a new military class of mounted warriors emerged. Known as in contemporary texts, they specialized in weapons like the heavy lance. To restrain their violence, church leaders launched the Peace of God movement. Ironically, efforts to curb bloodshed also militarized the Church, as bishops increasingly raised armies to enforce the Peace.
With weak central authority, regional strongmen seized control of parishes and , often appointing unfit clergy. Believers feared such irregularities invalidated sacraments, heightening anxiety over damnation. Sinners were expected to confess and perform penance to be reconciled with the Church. Since penance could be burdensome, priests began offering —commuting penance into acts like almsgiving or pilgrimage. Among these acts, penitential journeys to Palestine held special value, as it was the setting of Jesus's ministry and home to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, believed to mark his crucifixion and resurrection.
The popes, viewed as the successors of Saint Peter, claimed papal supremacy over the Church, citing Jesus's praise for his apostle. In reality, Roman noble families Tusculan Papacy the papacy until Emperor HenryIII entered Rome in 1053. He appointed clerics who launched the Gregorian Reform for the "liberty of the church", banning simony—the sale of church offices—and giving cardinals, senior clergy, the sole right to papal elections. Andrew Latham, a scholar of international relations, argues that the Gregorian Reform placed the Western Church in conflict with "a range of social forces within and beyond Christendom". By then, divisions in theology and liturgy between Western and Eastern mainstream Christianity had deepened, leading to mutual excommunications in 1054 and the eventual split between the western Roman Catholic and eastern Orthodox Churches, although Full communion was not entirely severed.
A spiritual revival took root as new monastic communities like the Carthusians and Cistercians emerged and the Rule of Saint Augustine spread among secular clergy. Christocentrism—a renewed focus on Christ's life and sufferings—also shaped the period, inspiring itinerant preachers who often defied episcopal authority.
Weakened by internal conflict, Al-Andalus fractured into taifa, vulnerable to Christian expansion—a process called the . The historian Thomas Madden describes it as "the training ground" for the crusades, blending pilgrimage with anti-Muslim warfare. In Egypt and Palestine, repeated failure of the Nile flood led to famine and interreligious tension. In 1009, the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim ordered the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre, though it was later rebuilt with Byzantine support. Meanwhile, Turkoman migrations from Central Asia destabilized the Middle East. The Turkoman chief , of the Seljuk dynasty, seized Baghdad in 1055; his successor, Alp Arslan, defeated the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1072, opening Anatolia to Turkoman settlement.
As traditional powers declined, Italian merchants gained control of Mediterranean trade. The Italo-Normans, originating in northern France, conquered southern Italy and Sicily by 1091. Their expansion threatened papal interests, prompting Pope Leo IX to launch a military campaign against them. Although his campaign failed, he had promised absolution to its participants—a sign of the reform papacy's willingness to invoke spiritual incentives for warfare.
For Western warriors, warfare offered a path to land and power. These ambitions often aligned with reformist popes, who granted absolution to those fighting Muslim powers. As these territories were once Christian, papal attention soon turned to Palestine. Pope GregoryVII proposed a campaign to reclaim Jerusalem in 1074, though it never materialized. Two years later, disputes over papal and royal authority ignited the Investiture Controversy, reviving interest in just war theory. Anselm of Lucca, a canon lawyer, compiled Augustine's writings to argue that war aimed at preventing sin could be an act of love. The theologian Bonizo of Sutri considered those who died in such wars Christian martyr. These ideas shaped the notion of penitential warfare: the belief that fighting for a just cause could serve as penance.
Urban's appeal sparked unexpected enthusiasm. In early 1096, more than 20,000poorly organized Crusaders set off in what became the People's Crusade. Most perished or were massacred en route. A second wave followed between August and October in that year, comprising at least 30,000warriors and as many non-combatants, led by prominent aristocrats including Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Bohemond of Taranto, and Godfrey of Bouillon. They advanced through fragmented Muslim-held territories and captured the cities of Edessa, Antioch, and Jerusalem by July 1099.
The resulting crisis triggered the Third Crusade, led by Emperor Frederick I, Richard I of England, and Philip II of France. Although Jerusalem remained under Muslim rule, the Crusader states endured, and the Kingdom of Cyprus was founded on former Byzantine territory. Later Crusades focused on recovering Jerusalem, but the Fourth Crusade was diverted by a Byzantine claimant, leading to the sack of Constantinople and the creation of a Latin Empire in Byzantine territory in 1204. The Fifth Crusade against Egypt failed in 1217–21. The Sixth Crusade regained Jerusalem in 1229 through negotiations by the excommunicated Emperor Frederick II, but the city was sacked in 1244 by Khwarazmian raiders. Its loss prompted Louis IX of France to launch the Seventh Crusade in 1248, which ended in defeat.
After the Mamluks supplanted the Ayyubid dynasty—Saladin's family—as the dominant Muslim power in the Levant, Sultans Baybars and Qalawun waged systematic campaigns against the Crusader states, massacring Christian populations. LouisIX mounted the Eighth Crusade, but died in 1270, and anarchy followed. In 1291 Qalawun's son Al-Ashraf Khalil seized the last Crusader strongholds in the Holy Land. Despite continued proposals to reclaim Jerusalem, efforts were hampered by events such as the Hundred Years' War.
Some crusades emerged from conflict with pagan groups. In 1107–08, Saxon leaders referred to the pagan Slavic Wends' territory as "Our Jerusalem", though anti-Wendish war was recognized as Wendish Crusade only in 1147. From then, northern German, Danish, Swedish, and Polish rulers launched papally sanctioned campaigns against Slavic, Balts, and Finnic tribes—collectively termed as the Northern Crusades. By the 1260s, leadership had passed to the Teutonic Order's warrior monks.
Crusading zeal also turned against Christian foes of the papacy. So-called "political crusades" were launched against Emperor FrederickII, his heirs, and rebellious papal . From 1209, Pope InnocentIII targeted heretics—Christians who rejected Church doctrine—and Crusades were proclaimed after 1261 against the restored Byzantine Empire.
Extensive piracy in the Mediterranean revived anti-Muslim crusading in the mid-14thcentury. International campaigns targeted the rising Ottoman Empire but failed to stop the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The Hussite Wars reignited anti-heretical crusades in 1420, and the Reformation saw indulgences granted to Catholics fighting Protestants, including Irish forces opposing Queen . Although the Reformation weakened papal authority, the papacy continued to promote crusades, helping form anti-Ottoman "Holy League" well into the early 18thcentury.
Initially seen as a unique event Deus volt, the expanding movement soon required stronger legal foundations. The , an influential collection of church law, permitted warfare —but only against heretics. Within decades, jurists like Huguccio extended this to Muslims, citing just intent, recovery of Christian lands, and retaliation for violence. Although originally framed as defensive, the Northern Crusades soon focused on conversion. Crusades against anti-papal Christians were justified as necessary to remove obstacles to the defence of the Holy Land.
Soon after Clermont, the Guibert of Nogent wrote that "God has instituted in our times holy wars" so that both knights and commoners might gain salvation. Yet the nature of the spiritual rewards granted to the First Crusaders remains unclear. Some sources mention cancellation of temporal penance, others full remission of sins. Pope Urban referred to ("remission of sins") in one letter, and in another promised absolution of all penance to those travelling to the Holy Land "only for the salvation of their souls", provided they confessed. His successors used similar phases, such as ("absolution of sins") and ("forgiveness of sins").
Theological debate on indulgences began . Peter Abelard sharply criticized the practice, although most later theologians accepted it. The Fourth Lateran Council codified Crusade indulgences in 1215, declaring that "sins repented by heart and confessed with mouth" would be remitted. The theological basis remained unsettled until , when the "Treasury of Merit" doctrine emerged, which held that the Church could grant indulgences from merit earned through Christ and the martyrs. Debate over the scope of the indulgence continued, with Bonaventure arguing that indulgences did not apply to those dying before fulfilling their vow, and Thomas Aquinas maintaining that penitent crusaders who confessed would attain salvation even if they died before departing.
The warrior lifestyle entailed habitual sin, yet offered few chances for penance. Barefoot pilgrimages stripped knights of their symbols—arms and warhorses. Urban's message allowed them to maintain their identity without jeopardizing salvation. Crusade rhetoric mirrored their values, invoking vassalage and honour. Preachers cast Christ as a feudal lord, summoning knights to defend his stolen patrimony as ("Christ's warriors").
Crusading decisions were often collective, made within noble households led by influential lords. Success brought prestige, and crusading kin could make participation a family tradition. Yet failure meant disgrace or financial ruin. Even in the Late Middle Ages, chivalric ideals fuelled two expeditions: the 1390 Barbary Crusade and the 1396 Crusade of Nicopolis.
During the Fourth Crusade, Doge Enrico Dandolo convinced fellow leaders to capture Zadar, a Catholic city in Dalmatia, and later advocated the assault on Constantinople. After its sack, Venice gained control of several Aegean islands, establishing patrician-led lordships. Marino Sanudo Torsello, a Venetian writer, became a key crusading theorist, and proposed a naval alliance against Aegean pirates, uniting Catholic powers with Genoese and Venetian island lords. Pope John XXII endorsed the plan in 1334.
Following Clermont, Pope Urban barred clergy from accepting vows from those unable to fight and annulled existing ones. Nonetheless, the People's Crusade consisted almost entirely of unarmed commoners, inspired by charismatics like Peter the Hermit. In the First Crusade's noble-led armies, the number of non-combatants nearly matched the number of fighters. The historian Conor Kostick describes them "a slice of European society on the march". Chroniclers like Raymond of Aguilers called common Crusaders as ("the poor or defenceless") and saw their presence as vital for divine favour. Unlike nobles, captured commoners were often tormented or killed rather than ransomed.
Grassroots crusading zeal later inspired mass movements known as popular crusades. These included the 1212 Children's Crusade, led by two charismatic boys; the 1251 and 1320 Shepherds' Crusades, the former sparked by a letter allegedly from the Virgin Mary; and the 1309 Crusade of the Poor. None reached the Holy Land, and both Shepherds' Crusades were forcibly disbanded. In 1456, a peasant Crusader army helped repel the Ottomans at the Siege of Belgrade. This success encouraged future efforts to mobilize peasants in anti-Ottoman crusades, but in 1514 a crusading peasant army in Hungary turned on their lords.
Western Christians often mislabelled Muslims as idol-worshippers or heretics. Until , massacres of Muslims in conquered towns were common. Later, Crusaders rarely sought conversions, instead levying a poll tax akin to the . Church law imposed various restrictions on Muslims, though enforcement is poorly documented. In the Crusader states, most Muslims—Arabic-speaking farmers—lived in self-governed communities under Islamic law. In Iberia, —Muslims under Christian rule—also faced second-class status.
Initially, few Muslims grasped the Crusades' religious nature. The Damascene scholar Ali ibn Tahir al-Sulami was the first to frame them as part of broader "Farang", or Westerner, expansion. He interpreted their success as divine punishment for neglecting . Zengi was among the era's first Muslim leaders receiving honours. Later rulers likewise invoked religious motives in anti-Frankish campaigns. In Iberia, the Almoravids and the Almohads strongly supported . Nonetheless, pragmatic Christian–Muslim alliances remained common throughout the period.
Soon after its capture, Crusader leaders described local Christians as "heretics" in a letter to Pope Urban. In 1099, Catholic clergy temporalily excluded native clerics from officiating at the Holy Sepulchre. In the Crusader states, Eastern Christians paid a poll tax, signalling their subordinate status, although their self-governance was reinforced and some retained considerable landholdings.
Orthodox Christians, or Melkites, formed the majority of Palestine's native Christian population and were also prominent in northern Syria. Regarded as schismatics rather than heretics, they received limited recognition. Although most Orthodox bishops had fled Palestine before 1099, scattered references suggest the presence of an Orthodox hierarchy under Frankish rule. Monasticism experienced a revival under Byzantine patronage.
Unlike the Catholics and Orthodox, certain eastern Christian communities rejected the Christology of the Council of Chalcedon. Among them, the Armenians—concentrated in northern Syria and Cilicia—were most respected by the Franks, thanks to their autonomous lordships. Many welcomed the Crusaders, and Armenian aristocrats formed marriage alliances with them. This cooperation led to a tenuous church union with Rome (1198) and ultimately to the Frankish Lusignans' rule over Cilician Armenia. Syriac (or Jacobite) Christians, mainly rural and Arabic-speaking, were viewed with suspicion and condescension; yet the Jacobite patriarch Michael the Syrian praised Frankish religious tolerance contrasting it with Byzantine policy. Another distinct group, the Maronites of Mount Lebanon, entered into communion with Rome, forming the first Eastern Rite Catholic Church in 1181.
Byzantine–Frankish relations were variable. Following the Fourth Crusade, successor states like Epiros and Nicaea led Greek resistance, although temporary Greek–Frankish alliances were not uncommon. In Frankish Greece, many Greek (aristocrats) retained lands and fought alongside Franks. Peasants suffered harsher conditions than under Byzantine rule. Orthodox bishops refusing papal supremacy were replaced by Catholic appointees, but Greek monasteries received papal protection. Latin conquest reinforced Orthodox identity, and persistent local resistance ultimately thwarted attempts to church reunification.
In northeastern Europe, Catholic and Orthodox churches coexisted in major trade centers, and the schism did not impede dynastic intermarriage. Catholic missionary activity only intensified after the Fourth Crusade. Despite occasional alliances between Crusaders and Rus' leaders, lasting control over Rus' lands was never achieved.
Further east, the Old Prussians, Latvians, and Curonians had long resisted Christianisation. They lived in rural communities led by strongmen who thrived on trade and raiding. Crusaders employed coercion, bribery, and promises of protection to gain converts among them; and sought to protect these converts from exploitation but achieved little.
The Lithuanians, largely taxpaying peasants under native lords, unified in the 13thcentury under Grand Prince Mindaugas. Baptized in 1253, he received a royal crown from Pope Innocent IV but later reverted to paganism. He and his successors expanded into Orthodox Rus'. In 1386, Grand Prince Jogaila married Queen Jadwiga of Poland, becoming King WładysławII. The subsequent mass conversion of Lithuanians to Catholicism eroded the Teutonic Knights' justification for crusade. In 1410, Polish-Lithuanian forces decisively defeated the Knights in the Battle of Grunwald. The waned, with the last non-German Crusaders entering the Baltic in 1413.
In the eastern Baltic, Finnic peoples lived in small rural communities, sustained by farming, slave-raiding, and fur-hunting. Legend has it that Saint Erik led a crusade to Finland in the 1150s, but the earliest confirmed expedition was only authorized by Pope Gregory IX in 1237. Danish Crusaders conquered Estonia in 1219, but by mid-century, German knights and burghers dominated the region's politics.
In 1207, Pope InnocentIII urged Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, to eradicate heresy. His reluctance or inability to comply led to excommunication by the papal legate Peter of Castelnau, who was soon murdered. In response, Innocent declared a crusade. Northern French crusaders invaded Occitania, committing atrocities against both Cathars and Catholics. Though the campaigns strengthened French influence, they failed to eliminate heresy. That was eventually achieved by Mendicant orders, and secular authorities.
The Stedinger Crusade in northern Germany targeted peasants accused of heresy for refusing to pay the tithe (church tax). Hungarian rulers led Bosnian Crusade into Bosnia, allegedly home to a Cathar antipope. In contrast, the radical in northern Italy were swiftly crushed by crusading forces.
The Mongols believed in a Tengri mandate to conquer the world. The Mongol invasion of Eastern and Central Europe in 1239–42 shocked Western Christendom. Although Pope GregoryIX called for a crusade, the Mongols withdrew from Europe following the death of Ögedei Khan, Genghis's successor, in 1242. In the Middle East, Mongol forces sacked Baghdad and destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258. Seeking protection, Hethum I and Bohemond VI of Antioch submitted to Hulegu, the Mongol (ruler of the Middle East). The Ilkhanate's expansion ended in 1260 when Mamluk forces defeated Hulegu's army in the Battle of Ain Jalut.
Jewish migration to Western Europe coincided with the pre-Crusade economic boom. Coming from developed Islamic economies, Jewish merchants brought advanced commercial expertise. Free from canon law's anti-usury rules, they came to dominate moneylending, fuelling antisemitism. Local rulers valued Jewish economic contributions and offered protection, though often fragile.
Organized pogroms began in the Rhineland during the First Crusade, reportedly driven by vengeance Jewish deicide and desire for Jewish property. In Jerusalem, Crusaders massacred Jews, though communities in other towns—such as Tyre and Ascalon—survived. Jewish pilgrimage to the Holy Land intensified, with hundreds of western Jews settling there during the Crusades era. Crusade preaching repeatedly provoked antisemitic violence. In 1146, the monk Radulph incited pogroms, halted only by Bernard of Clairvaux. Anti-Jewish riots erupted in England in 1189–90.
Gender bias prevailed on all sides. Christian chroniclers highlighted women's supportive roles—delivering water or stone missiles—but rarely mentioned female fighters. Muslim and Byzantine writers, in contrast, often depicted armed Crusader women as symbols of barbarity. Muslim sources also condemned the freedoms women enjoyed in Frankish societies. Crusaders were expected to abstain from sex; and women, including wives, were often expelled before major battles.
Women left behind were vulnerable to abuse by kin or neighbours. Some Crusaders made formal arrangements with relatives or religious institutions to protect their wives and daughters; others entrusted wives or mothers with managing their estates. Raids by both Christian and Muslim forces frequently targeted women. After battles or sieges, victors often captured enemy women and children. The First Crusade was exceptional: crusaders often massacred entire populations of captured towns. In the Baltic, the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle praised the slaughter of pagan women and children as divinely sanctioned. Rape of captured women both by crusaders and their enemies was common. Noblewomen were typically ransomed, albeit for less than men; other women were enslaved or forced into marriage.
High male mortality in the Crusader states meant that women often inherited fiefs, though they were expected to marry. Some inherited thrones: between 1186 and 1228, for example, four queens ruled Jerusalem. In Frankish Greece, the wives of Achaean barons captured at the Battle of Pelagonia formed the "Parliament of Dames" in 1261 to negotiate peace with the Byzantines.
Crusades were promoted by clerics. Papal legates addressed nobles at major assemblies, though early village and town preaching was unstructured. Pope InnocentIII later coordinated propaganda through local committees, though subsequent popes preferred less formal methods. From the early 13thcentury, mendicant friars assumed responsibility for preaching. By the century's end, many used manuals by propagandists like Humbert of Romans. Crusade-promotional sermons often began with Exemplum.
An extraordinary tax for Holy Land defence was first introduced in France and England in 1166. The 1188 "Saladin tithe" imposed a tenpercent levy on income and property, though compliance varied. In 1199, Pope InnocentIII ordered church revenues taxed for crusading. Pope Gregory X defined collection procedures in 1274, but clergy often resisted.
From 1199, donations were also gathered via church chests. In 1213, InnocentIII introduced a new mechanism, allowing anyone—except monks—to vow a crusade and redeem it financially. This practice of purchasing indulgences continued into the early modern period. With the spread of printing in the mid-15thcentury, indulgence sheets were mass-produced with blanks for beneficiaries' names.
Heavily armored knights formed the Crusader armies' backbone. The historian John France calls them the "masters of close-quarter warfare". In the east, they primarily confronted mounted archers and relied on infantry, particularly bowmen and spearmen, for support. Franks also employed native light cavalry, or , to harass enemy troops. In the north, Teutonic Knights deployed converted Prussians for raids on pagan settlements. Spanish almogavars—agile raiders—fought with daggers, short lances, and darts.
Naval support came mainly from Italian city-states and the Byzantines in the Levant. Egypt maintained the sole Muslim fleet in the region, but its small vessels posed little threat to Western dominance. After Emperor FrederickI's failed overland expedition, major Levantine crusades were done by sea. In the north, large Christian merchant ships, carrying up to 500people, easily outmatched Baltic long-ships and raiding vessels.
Throughout conquered territories, castles served military and administrative functions, merging Western and local designs. In the Levant, early Norman-style towers gave way to the local layout of walled courtyards, which evolved into concentric castles with layered defences. on rocky hills, with towers and a keep, represent—according to Phillips—"the most spectacular examples of Frankish military architecture". In Iberia, over 2,000castles were raised along frontiers. The Teutonic Knights first built timber in the Baltic, but by switched to stone, then brick for its availability and lower cost.
The idea of warrior-monks aligned with contemporary chivalric and ecclesiastical ideals. By , Bernard of Clairvaux praised the Templars as a "new knighthood". Their model inspired other groups, especially in borderlands of Latin Christianity. In the Holy Land, nursing confraternities became militarized, giving rise to orders such as the Knights Hospitaller, Teutonic Knights, Knights of Saint Thomas, and Lazarists. In Iberia, royal patronage supported orders, such as Calatrava, Santiago, Alcántara, and Aviz. In the Baltic, bishops founded the Sword Brothers and the Order of Dobrzyń, both later absorbed by the Teutonic Order.
Military orders were structured by function: knight-brothers and servientes (military servants} fought; priest-brothers provided spiritual care; nobles could temporarily join for spiritual rewards. The Templars and Hospitallers grew into transnational institutions, led by elected grand masters and owning estates throughout Western Christendom. Their convent networks facilitated the flow of goods and cash, with the Templars especially active in finance.
The orders were occasionally criticized for greed, pride, or adopting non-Christian customs. After the Crusader states fell, criticism increased because many orders lost their justification for existence. The Knights Templar, focused solely on fighting Muslims, faced intense scrutiny. In 1307, Philip IV of France ordered their mass arrest on charges of apostasy, idolatry, and sodomy. Despite the lack of physical evidence, the Order was dissolved at the Council of Vienne in 1312. The Hospitallers survived but shifted focus to naval defence in the Mediterranean. The Teutonic Knights endured under Habsburgs leadership in Germany despite pressures by the Reformation. In Iberia, the military orders gradually secularized, aligning with the crown of Spain and Portugal and receiving papal exemption from monastic obligations.
Cyprus, a day's sail from Syria, was a vital crusading base and refuge. From 1269, its kings claimed Jerusalem, although the Sicilian Angevins contested this from 1277. The Black Death and shifting trade routes led to decline . A Cypriot Crusade on Alexandria provoked Genoese reprisals, leading to the sack of the main port of Cyprus, Famagusta. After the Lusignan dynasty ended in 1474, the island Venetian Cyprus but fell to the Ottomans in 1570–71.
The Hospitallers captured the island of Rhodes from the Byzantines in 1306–1309. It was heavily fortified using income from overseas estates. Rhodes resisted Mamluk and Ottoman attacks but was taken by the Ottoman Sultan SuleimanII in 1522. In 1530, Emperor CharlesV granted the Hospitallers the islands of Malta and Gozo. They withstood the 1565 Great Siege of Malta, but lost the islands to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798.
As the Crusades spread geographically, criticism intensified, especially over campaigns against Christians for diverting focus from the Holy Land. Some Occitan even equated anti-heretic crusaders with Muslim foes. The Levantine crusades' failure prompted the chronicler Salimbene di Adam to conclude they lacked divine support. Driven by despair, the troubadour Austorc d'Aorlhac and the Templar Ricaut Bonomel approached apostasy in their lyrics. In 1274, Humbert of Romans produced a full rebuttal to anti-Crusade critics.
From the Reformation, anti-Catholic theologians attacked crusading. Martin Luther denounced indulgences and papal authority. Though he initially viewed the Ottoman threat as divine retribution, the 1529 Siege of Vienna led him to support a major Christian campaign. The Catholic theologian Erasmus also criticized indulgence preaching and clerical involvement in warfare, but supported a secular offensive against the Ottomans.
The most remarkable project was the rebuilding of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, redesigned in the style of Western pilgrimage churches to enclose the Aedicule, Calvary, and Christ's Prison within one complex. The fusion of local and Western architectural traditions is well illustrated by the Armenian Cathedral of Saint James. Coastal towns had multi-storey houses in Western Mediterranean style, with shops or loggias below and residences above. Frankish settlers often lived in newly founded villages laid out in rectangular plans.
Western architectural development is especially visible in Cyprus. The Saint Sophia Cathedral in Nicosia (now Selimiye Mosque) was built in early Gothic, though with terraced roofs. The Venetian governors' palace in Famagusta features a Renaissance façade. Urban eastern Christian churches also adopted Western styles. In Frankish Greece, monastic orders and nobles erected Gothic monasteries and rebuilt existing buildings in Gothic style, and Gothic features also appeared in Epirus. In the Baltic, public buildings reflected Western styles, characterized by simplicity and precision.
From Frankish Greece, little remains. A cycle of frescoes portraying Francis of Assisi survives in Istanbul's Kalenderhane Mosque, and a wall painting of Saints Anthony and James in a gatehouse at Acronauplia. In the Baltic, the celibate or endogamous elites rejected local traditions, preserving a distinctly Catholic and German culture.
Although the First Crusade remained the most extensively recorded, subsequent expeditions inspired new works by Odo of Deuil, Otto of Freising, and Oliver of Paderborn. Whereas early narratives were in Latin, three chroniclers of the Fourth Crusade—Geoffrey of Villehardouin, Robert of Clari, and Henri de Valenciennes—wrote in Old French. Many chroniclers focused on individuals, reflecting personal or ideological loyalties. Several authors blended prose and verse in the hybrid form.
A distinct literary genre emerged around the Crusader states. William of Tyre's chronicle—later translated into Old French—sought to rally Western support and sustain Frankish morale. The Chronicle of the Morea, central to Frankish Greece's history, survives in French, Greek, Aragonese, and Italian. In the Baltic, the chronicler Henry of Livonia sympathized with Christianized natives, whereas the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle glorified Crusader brutality.
After the First Crusade, Byzantine writers increasingly treated Western Europeans as a single group, using terms like . Niketas Choniates and other chroniclers acknowledged Latin military skill but portrayed them as barbarians. Clashes between German crusaders and Byzantines during the Second Crusade inspired two poems likening the crusaders to wild beasts. The political marriage of the Byzantine princess Theodora to the Crusader Henry Jasomirgott also drew hostile poetry, with her mother Eirene calling her son-in-law a "flesh-eating beast". Later, Byzantine vernacular literature absorbed motifs—knights, love, and adventure—from chivalric romances.
The earliest Armenian reference to the Crusades—a 1098 colophon to a legal text—speaks of the arrival of "the western nation of heroes". Chroniclers such as Matthew of Edessa cast the Crusades in apocalyptic terms, associating Frankish rule with the fourth kingdom in Daniel's prophecy. In 1144, the prelate Nerses Shnorhali composed a Lament for the Fall of Edessa, voicing hope for Islam's future downfall. The Cilician noble Smbat's Chronicle shows familiarity with Western customs.
The Rhineland massacres sparked a literary response unprecedented in European Jewish history. The Mainz Anonymous, one of the earliest Hebrew accounts, inspired subsequent chronicles, including Eliezer ben Nathan's. Kinnot commemorating the pogroms entered the Ninth of Av liturgy . Jewish pilgrims such as Benjamin of Tudela recorded their journey in travelogues, and an unknown Jew from France who settled in the Holy Land in 1211 wrote a treatise urging others to reclaim it for Judaism.
The movement extended Western Christendom's frontiers in Iberia and the Baltic, promoting Catholic settlement and liturgical unity. Political expansion sometimes brought language change or even language death, as seen in the near-total disappearance of Arabic documents in formerly Muslim territories in Iberia by 1290 and the loss of Old Prussian by 1680. Crusading also gave rise to national heroes and symbols, such as Denmark's flag, the Dannebrog. Few existing institutions, mostly offshoots of former military orders, trace their origins to the crusading movement. The idea of Christian violence as an act of love persists in some interpretations, such as liberation theology.
Into the 20thcentury, France and Britain invoked the Crusades to justify ambitions in the Middle East. Today, they often symbolize a long-standing civilisational conflict. After 9/11, President George W. Bush controversially called the war on terror a crusade. Muslim fundamentalists often label adversaries as "crusaders", and terms like "neo-Crusades" appear in popular discussions about Western or Russian military presence in the Middle East. Anti-Zionism frequently draw parallels between the Crusader states and modern Israel.
Crusaders often donated relics to churches, and across Western Europe, statutes, frescoes, and stained glass commemorated the crusades. During the Romantic period, medieval crusading literature inspired artists, as seen in the 1830s decoration of five Versailles rooms with 120paintings. Major works like Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso influenced later writers. Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1819) and The Talisman (1825) shaped popular depictions despite historical inaccuracies. To this day, Crusades-themed exploit and reinterpret medieval imagery as both source and mirror of modern nations and conflicts. Depictions of the Crusades in modern cinema frequently draw historians' criticism; for instance, the argument of Riley-Smith that in Kingdom of Heaven, the director Ridley Scott conveyed a historical perspective akin to Osama bin Laden's.
The third phase, beginning , was shaped by nationalism and Romanticism, prompting a more positive reassessment. Landmark works included Friedrich Wilken's History of the Crusades from Eastern and Western Sources and Joseph-François Michaud's History of the Crusades. In the 1830s, Leopold von Ranke introduced modern source criticism, later applied by Heinrich von Sybel to the First Crusade. International collaboration advanced with the 1875 founding of the Société de l'Orient Latin ("Society of the Latin East"). Critical editions of source material supported influential histories by René Grousset (1930s) and Steven Runciman (1950s). Major later surveys include the Wisconsin Collaborative History of the Crusades (1955–1989) and the Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades (1995). Early-21st-century scholarly debates focus on defining the Crusades, assessing participants' motives, and interpreting the movement through colonial or integrative models, and earlier Eurocentrism narratives are increasingly being challenged.
Muslim historiography largely overlooked the topic until 1899, when the Egyptian Sayyid ʿAli al-Ḥarīrī wrote the first Arabic account. Today, the ("wars of the cross") are central to education in Egypt and Jordan—although Jordan places less emphasis on religious aspects. The Syrian historian Soheil Zakkar compiled a four-volume encyclopaedia framing the anti-Frankish campaigns as a struggle for Arab liberation.
Greek historians have mainly studied the ("bearing of the cross") within Byzantine history, but Greek Cypriot scholars emphasize that the Third Crusade severed Cyprus from Byzantium and introduced an anti-Orthodox, repressive regime. In Israel, where Crusader-era sites are widespread, Joshua Prawer's work established Crusade studies as a distinct academic field.
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