People & Histories
1095–1291

The Crusades

Popes call Western Christians to armed pilgrimage to recover Jerusalem, launching two centuries of holy war that also turned on Jews, Orthodox Christians and heretics, until Muslim rulers drive the crusaders out in 1291.

  • The Crusades: A History — Jonathan Riley-Smith, Yale University Press
  • The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives — Carole Hillenbrand, Edinburgh University Press (1999)
  • Crusades — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • Saladin — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • European Jewry and the First Crusade — Robert Chazan, University of California Press (1987)
  • Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes — Eamon Duffy, Yale University Press (2014)
  • The Orthodox Church — Timothy Ware, Penguin (1993)
  • Francis of Assisi: A New Biography — Augustine Thompson, Cornell University Press (2012)
  • Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World — Edward W. Said, Pantheon (1981)

Well established warfaithpersecutionempire

Part of the story of Catholicism and Islam.

At Clermont in November 1095, Pope Urban II answered an appeal from the Byzantine emperor by calling the knights of Western Europe to march east, help their fellow Christians against the Seljuk Turks and liberate Jerusalem, promising remission of sins to those who went. The response astonished everyone. In July 1099 the First Crusade took Jerusalem, slaughtering much of its Muslim and Jewish population, and set up crusader states along the coast of Syria and Palestine.

  • The Crusades: A History — Jonathan Riley-Smith, Yale University Press
  • Crusades — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives — Carole Hillenbrand, Edinburgh University Press (1999)

Along the way, crusading bands massacred the Jews of the Rhineland in 1096, despite some bishops’ efforts to protect them; see the Rhineland massacres.

  • European Jewry and the First Crusade — Robert Chazan, University of California Press (1987)

At first the divided Muslim rulers of the region responded slowly. Unity came under the Turkish ruler Zangi, who took Edessa in 1144, his son Nur al-Din, and then Saladin, who joined Egypt and Syria. At Hattin in July 1187 Saladin destroyed the crusader army, and in October he took Jerusalem. Unlike the crusaders in 1099, he allowed most inhabitants to ransom themselves and leave.

  • The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives — Carole Hillenbrand, Edinburgh University Press (1999)
  • Saladin — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • The Crusades: A History — Jonathan Riley-Smith, Yale University Press

Later crusades failed to hold the Holy Land. The Fourth Crusade, diverted from its goal, sacked Christian Constantinople in 1204, deepening the schism with the Orthodox. The idea of crusade was also turned against heretics in southern France (the Albigensian Crusade, from 1209) and pagans in the Baltic. In 1291 the Mamluk sultans of Egypt took Acre, the last major crusader stronghold.

  • The Crusades: A History — Jonathan Riley-Smith, Yale University Press
  • The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives — Carole Hillenbrand, Edinburgh University Press (1999)
  • The Orthodox Church — Timothy Ware, Penguin (1993)

Not every Catholic of the age saw holy war as the way: in 1219, during the Fifth Crusade, Francis of Assisi crossed the lines in Egypt to preach to the sultan al-Kamil, who received him courteously. On the “Day of Pardon” in March 2000, John Paul II asked forgiveness for the use of violence in the service of truth, a confession that included the Crusades.

  • Francis of Assisi: A New Biography — Augustine Thompson, Cornell University Press (2012)
  • Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes — Eamon Duffy, Yale University Press (2014)

Carole Hillenbrand shows that medieval Muslim writers saw the crusaders as one threat among many, and the Mongols as a far worse one. The Crusades took on their present symbolic weight mostly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, under European colonialism. So when a Western leader casually calls something a “crusade”, many Muslims hear a reference to a long history of invasion.

  • The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives — Carole Hillenbrand, Edinburgh University Press (1999)
  • Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World — Edward W. Said, Pantheon (1981)

How it's seen
Traditional Catholic view

A penitential armed pilgrimage, called to help Eastern Christians against Turkish attack and to free the holy places after centuries of Muslim expansion. Many crusaders acted from sincere, costly piety, even if the movement was marred by atrocities.

  • The Crusades: A History — Jonathan Riley-Smith, Yale University Press

Muslim memory

An unprovoked invasion by brutal "Franks" who massacred the people of Jerusalem in 1099, resisted by heroes such as Nur al-Din and Saladin. In modern times it is often read as the first chapter of a long Western assault on Islam.

  • The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives — Carole Hillenbrand, Edinburgh University Press (1999)
  • Crusades — Encyclopaedia Britannica

Jewish memory

The Crusades began with the massacre of the Rhineland Jewish communities in 1096 and brought further killings of Jews in Jerusalem in 1099 and in Europe during later crusades. They are mourned in Jewish liturgy to this day.

  • European Jewry and the First Crusade — Robert Chazan, University of California Press (1987)

Western view

Long celebrated in Europe as a chivalrous holy war to recover Christ's tomb and aid Byzantium after centuries of Muslim expansion. Most historians today stress the violence and mixed motives, while some argue modern Muslim memory overstates how much medieval Muslims cared.

  • The Crusades: A History — Jonathan Riley-Smith, Yale University Press
  • Crusades — Encyclopaedia Britannica

Why it matters today

Catholicism

The Crusades remain one of the most argued-about chapters of Catholic history. For some Catholics they were a defensive response to Muslim conquest; for others, and for most historians, a tragic fusion of faith and violence. Pope John Paul II included them among the wrongs for which he asked forgiveness in 2000, and they still shape how many Muslims, Jews and Orthodox Christians see the Catholic Church.

Islam

"Crusade" is a loaded word for many Muslims. In the twentieth century the Crusades became a symbol of Western aggression against the Muslim world, and leaders from Nasser to militant groups have cast colonialism and modern wars as new crusades. Saladin, who retook Jerusalem, is a hero across the region.