Crusade

(proper noun)

One of a series of ostensibly religious campaigns by Christian forces from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, mostly to capture the Holy Land from the Muslims who occupied it.

Related Terms

Examples of Crusade in the following topics:

  • The Fourth Crusade

    • As a result of the First Crusade, four primary crusader states were created: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Tripoli.
    • Under the papacies of Calixtus II, Honorius II, Eugenius III and Innocent II smaller scale crusading continued around the Crusader States in the early 12th-century.
    • On 23 June 1203 the main crusader fleet reached Constantinople.
    • After the failure of the Fourth Crusade to hold Constantinople or reach Jerusalem, Innocent III also launched the first crusade against heretics, the Albigensian Crusade, against the Cathars in France and the County of Toulouse.
    • Around this time, popularity and energy for the crusades declined.

  • The First Crusade

    • The First Crusade (1095–1099) was the first of a number of crusades that attempted to recapture the Holy Lands, called by Pope Urban II in 1095.
    • Subsequently, upon the Crusaders' arrival, the city was subjected to a lengthy siege, and when Arslan had word of it he rushed back to Nicaea and attacked the crusader army on 16 May.
    • At the end of June, the crusaders marched on through Anatolia.
    • Many Crusaders wept upon seeing the city they had journeyed so long to reach.
    • An illustration showing the defeat of the People's Crusade by the Turks

  • The Second Crusade

    • The Second Crusade (1147–1149) was the second major crusade launched against Islam by Catholic Europe, started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa founded in the First Crusade; it was largely a failure for the Europeans.
    • The Second Crusade (1147–1149) was the second major crusade launched from Europe as Catholic holy war against Islam.
    • The crusade in the east was a failure for the crusaders and a great victory for the Muslims.
    • The only Christian success of the Second Crusade came to a combined force of 13,000 Flemish, Frisian, Norman, English, Scottish, and German crusaders in 1147.
    • Despite the distaste for the memory of the Second Crusade, the experience of the crusade had notable impact on German literature, with many epic poems of the late 12th century featuring battle scenes clearly inspired by the fighting in the crusade.

  • The Third Crusade

    • The Third Crusade (1189–1192), also known as The Kings' Crusade, was an attempt by European leaders to reconquer the Holy Land from Saladin.
    • The successes of the Third Crusade allowed the Crusaders to maintain considerable states in Cyprus and on the Syrian coast.
    • The Siege of Acre was one of the first confrontations of the Third Crusade and a key victory for the Crusaders and a serious defeat for Saladin, who had hoped to destroy the whole of the Crusader kingdom.
    • In November 1191 the Crusader army advanced inland towards Jerusalem.
    • In addition, unlike the First Crusade, in the Second and Third Crusades kings led Crusaders into battle.

  • Crisis and Fragmentation

    • To the Byzantines the crusaders were dirty, uneducated brutes.
    • To the crusaders, the Byzantines were untrustworthy, over-pampered schemers.
    • The Byzantines and crusaders agreed that whatever formerly Byzantine lands the crusaders recaptured from the Turks would be returned to Byzantine control.
    • The crusaders went back on this agreement, however, and took the lands for themselves.
    • The crusaders parceled out Byzantine lands among themselves.

  • The Crusades

    • The Crusades were military campaigns sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church during the High and Late Middle Ages.
    • A few crusades such as the Fourth Crusade were waged within Christendom against groups that were considered heretical and schismatic.
    • The origin of the Crusades in general, and particularly that of the First Crusade, is widely debated among historians.
    • Historians have argued that the desire to impose Roman church authority in the east may have been one of the goals of the crusade, although Urban II, who launched the First Crusade, never refers to such a goal in his letters on crusading.
    • Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, where he gave speeches in favor of a Crusade.

  • Pilgrimage Churches

    • The Crusades resulted in the growth and rising wealth of pilgrimage churches, many of which were built in the Romanesque style.
    • One of the effects of the Crusades, which were intended to wrest the Holy Places of Palestine from Islamic control, was to excite a great deal of religious fervor, which in turn inspired great building programs.
    • Likewise, those who did not return from the Crusades could be suitably commemorated by their family in a work of stone and mortar.
    • The Crusades resulted in the transfer of, among other things, a great number of Holy Relics of saints and apostles.
    • Analyze the religious fervor of the Crusades with the extensive creation of pilgramage churches.

  • The Church

    • Several important Romanesque churches were also built in the Crusader kingdoms.
    • In association with the Crusades, the military orders of the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar were founded.
    • The Crusades (1095-1291), which were intended to pry the holy places of Palestine from Islamic control, excited a great deal of religious fervor.
    • The military nobles of Europe, upon safe return from the Crusades, thanked God by the building of new churches or the enhancement of old ones.
    • Likewise, those who did not return from the Crusades could be suitably commemorated by their families in works of stone and mortar.The Crusades resulted in the transfer of a great number of holy relics of saints and apostles, among many other things relocated through the fortunes of war.

  • The Romanesque Period

    • Romanesque art was affected by shifting political powers following the Carolingian period, and the mobility of peoples during the Crusades.
    • The domed churches of Constantinople and Eastern Europe were to greatly affect the architecture of certain towns, particularly through trade and through the Crusades.
    • The result of this was that they could be called upon, not only for local spats, but to follow their lord to travel across Europe to the Crusades.
    • The Crusades, 1095–1270, brought about a very large movement of people, and with them ideas and trade skills, particularly those involved in the building of fortifications and the metal working needed for the provision of arms, which was also applied to the fitting and decoration of buildings .

  • Timeline

    • 1204: Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade sack the Christian Eastern Orthodox city of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire.