The Three Crusades

The Three Crusades

There were three Crusades and they all took different routes from western Europe to Palestine.

THE FIRST CRUSADE - The first crusade began in A.D. 1095.

Pope Urban II mounted a platform outside the church at

Clermont, France. The crowd shouted “Deus vult!” in response to the pope’s plea. Knights and peasants alike vowed to join the expedition to the Holy Land. For knights, the Crusade was a welcome chance to employ their fighting skills. For peasants, the Crusade meant freedom from feudal bonds while on the

Crusade. All were promised immediate salvation in heaven if they were killed freeing the Holy Land from non-Christians.

Adventure and the possibility of wealth were other reasons to join the Crusade. The First Crusade heightened already existing hatred of non-Christians and marked the onset of a long period of

Christian persecution of the Jews. During the First Crusade, which began in A.D. 1096, three armies of Crusader knights and volunteers traveled separately from western Europe to the eastern Mediterranean. On the way, many of them killed Jews and sometimes massacred entire Jewish communities. The three armies finally met in Constantinople in A.D. 1097. From there the Crusaders made their way to Jerusalem, enduring the hardships of desert travel as well as quarrels among their leaders. In June A.D. 1099, the Crusaders finally reached the city. After the siege of almost two months Jerusalem fell.

Crusaders swarmed into the city and killed most of its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants. The success of the First Crusade reinforced the authority of the Church and strengthened the self-confidence of western Europeans. The religious zeal of the

Crusaders soon cooled, however, and many knights returned home. Those who stayed set up feudal states in Syria and

Palestine. Contact between the Crusaders and the relatively more sophisticated civilizations of the Byzantines and the

Muslims would continue for the next 100 years and become major factor in ending the cultural isolation of western Europe.

THE SECOND CRUSADE - Less than 50 years after the First

Crusade, the Seljuks conquered part of the Crusader states in

Palestine. Pope Eugenius IV called for a Second Crusade to regain the territory. Eloquent sermons by the monk Bernard of

Clairvaux persuaded King Louis VII of France and Holy Roman

Emperor Conrad III to lead armies to Palestine. The Second

Crusade, which lasted from A.D. 1147 to A.D. 1149, was unsuccessful. Louis VII and Conrad III quarreled constantly and were ineffective militarily. They were easily defeated by the

Seljuks.

THE THIRD CRUSADE - A diplomatic and forceful leader named

Saladin united the Muslim forces and then captured Jerusalem in

A.D. 1187.