TEMPLARS HISTORY
The Knights Templar were established c. 1119 and given papal recognition in 1129. It was a Catholic medieval military order whose members combined martial prowess with a monastic life to defend Christian holy sites and pilgrims in the Middle East and elsewhere. The Templars, with headquarters at Jerusalem and then Acre, were an important and elite element of Crusader armies.
Eventually, the Knights Templar became a very powerful body and they came to control both castles and lands in the Levant and across Europe. Accused of heresy, corruption, and performing forbidden practices, the order was attacked by the French king Philip IV (r. 1285-1314) on Friday 13 October 1307 and then officially disbanded by Pope Clement V (r. 1305-1314) in 1312.
Foundation & Early History
The order was formed c. 1119 when seven knights, led by a French knight and nobleman from Champagne, Hugh of Payns, swore to defend Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem and the Holy Land and so created a brotherhood who took monastic vows, which included vows of poverty, and lived together in a closed community with an established code of conduct. In 1120 Baldwin II, the king of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (r. 1118-1131), gave the knights his palace, the former Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount of Jerusalem, for use as their headquarters. The building was commonly referred to as 'The Temple of Solomon' and so the brotherhood quickly became known as 'the Order of the Knights of the Temple of Solomon' or simply the 'Templars'.
Officially recognised as an order by Pope Honorius II (r. 1124-1130) at the Council of Troyes in January 1129 (the first such military order to be created), the Templars were initially considered a branch of the Cistercians. In 1145, knights of the order were granted permission to wear the white hooded-mantle Cistercian monks had made their own. The knights soon adopted their distinctive white cloak and they began to use the insignia of a red cross on a white background. There was no impediment to fighting as regards to religious doctrine, provided that the cause was a just one - the Crusades and defence of the Holy Land being just such a cause - and so the order received the official support of the Church. The first major battle involving Templar knights was in 1147 against the Muslims during the Second Crusade (1147-1149).
Donations to the order came in all forms, but money, land, horses, military equipment, & foodstuffs were the most common.
The order grew thanks to donations from supporters who recognised their important role in the protection of the small Christian states in the Levant. Others, from the humblest to the rich, gave what they could to simply help ensure both a better afterlife and, because donors could be mentioned in prayer services, perhaps a better life in the here and now. Donations came in all forms, but money, land, horses, military equipment, and foodstuffs were the most common. Sometimes privileges were donated which helped the order save on its own expenses. The Templars invested their money, too, buying revenue-producing properties so that the order came to own farms, vineyards, mills, churches, townships or anything else they thought a good investment.
Another boost to the order's coffers was booty and new land acquired as the result of successful campaigns while tribute could also be extracted from conquered cities, lands controlled by Templar castles, and weaker rival states in the Levant. Eventually, the order was able to establish subsidiary centres in most of the states of western Europe, which became important sources of revenue and new recruits.
Money may have poured in from all corners of Europe but there were high costs to be met, too. Maintaining knights, their squires, horses (knights often had four each), and armour and equipment were all drains on the Templars' finances. There were taxes to be paid to the state, donations to the Papacy, and sometimes tithes to the church, as well as payoffs to be made to local dignitaries, while performing masses and other services had their not insignificant costs, too. The Templars also had a charitable purpose and were supposed to help the poor. One-tenth of bread produced, for example, was distributed to the needy as alms. Finally, military disasters resulted in losses of both men and property in enormous quantities. The exact accounts of the Templars are not known, but it is more than likely that the order was never quite as rich as everyone thought they were.
From the mid-12th century, the Templars widened their influence and fought in the crusade campaigns in Iberia (the 'Reconquest') for various rulers in Spain and Portugal. Also operating in the Baltic crusades against pagans, by the 13th century the Knights Templar owned estates from England to Bohemia and had become a truly international military order with tremendous resources at its disposal (men, arms, equipment, and a sizeable naval fleet). The Templars had established a model which would be copied by other military orders such as the Knights Hospitaller and Teutonic Knights. There was one area, though, in which the Templars truly excelled: banking.
Medieval Bankers
Regarded as a safe place by locals, Templar communities or convents became repositories for cash, jewels, and important documents. The order had their own cash reserves which were, from as early as 1130, put to good use in the form of interest-gaining loans. The Templars even permitted people to deposit money in one convent and, provided they could show a suitable letter, transfer and then withdraw equivalent money from a different convent. In another early banking service, people could hold what today would be called a current account with the Templars, paying in regular deposits and arranging for the Templars to pay out, on behalf of the account holder, fixed sums to whoever was nominated. By the 13th century, the Templars had become such proficient and trusted bankers that the kings of France and other nobles kept their treasuries with the order. Kings and nobles who embarked on crusades to the Holy Land, in order to pay their armies on the spot and meet supply needs, often forwarded large cash sums to the Templars which could be withdrawn later in the Levant. The Templars even lent money to rulers and thus became an important element in the increasingly sophisticated financial structure of late medieval Europe.
Organisation & Recruitment
Recruits came from all over western Europe, although France was the largest single source. They were motivated by a sense of religious duty to defend Christians everywhere but especially the Holy Land and its sacred sites, as a penance for sins committed, as a means to guarantee entry into heaven, or more earthly reasons such as a search for adventure, personal gain, social promotion or simply a regular income and decent meals. Recruits had to be free men of legitimate birth, and if they wished to become medieval knights they had, from the 13th century, to be of knightly descent. Although rare, a married man could join provided his spouse agreed. Many recruits were expected to make a significant donation on entering the order, and as debts were a no-no, the financial status of a recruit was certainly a consideration. Although some minors did join the order (sent by their parents, of course, in the hope of a useful military training for a younger son who would not inherit the family estate), most new recruits to the Templars were in their mid-20s. Sometimes recruits came late in life. An example is the great English knight Sir William Marshal (d. 1219), who, like many nobles, joined the order just before his death, left them money in his will, and so was buried in Temple Church, London where his effigy may still be seen today.
There were two ranks within the order: knights and sergeants, with the latter group including non-military personnel and laymen. Most recruits were for the second group. Indeed, the number of knights across the order was surprisingly few. There were perhaps only a few hundred full-brother Templar knights at any one time, sometimes rising to 500 knights in times of intense warfare. These knights would have been greatly outnumbered by other soldiers used by the order such as infantry (the sergeants or recruits from vassal lands) and mercenaries (especially archers), as well as squires, baggage bearers, and other non-combatants. Other members of the order included priests, craftsmen, labourers, servants, and even some women who were members of affiliated nunneries.
The order was led by the Grand Master who stood at the top of a pyramid of power. Convents were grouped into geographical regions known as priories.
The order was led by the Grand Master who stood at the top of a pyramid of power. Convents were grouped into geographical regions known as priories. In troubled zones like the Levant, many convents were in castles while elsewhere they were established to control areas of land the order owned. Each convent was managed by a 'preceptor' or 'commander' and reported to the head of the priory in which his convent was situated. Letters, documents and news reports went back and forth between convents, all carrying the seal of the order - most commonly two knights on a single horse - in order to foster some unity between distant branches. Convents typically sent one-third of their revenue to the order's headquarters. The Grand Master resided in the headquarters at Jerusalem, and then Acre from 1191, and Cyprus after 1291. There he was assisted by other high-ranking officials such as the Grand Commander and Marshal along with lesser officials in charge of specific supplies such as clothing. There were occasional meetings or chapters of representatives from across the order and chapters at provincial level, too, but there seems to have been a great deal of autonomy in local convents, and only episodes of gross misconduct were ever sanctioned.
Uniform & Rules
Knights took vows on entering the order, much like in monasteries, although not so strict and without the restriction of always remaining inside their communal accommodation. Obedience to the Grand Master was the most important promise to be made, attendance at church services was compulsory, celibacy too, and communal meals a given (which did, every odd day, include meat). Worldly pleasures were not permitted, and these included such quintessentially knightly pastimes as hunting and hawking and not wearing flashy clothing and arms which normal knights were famous for. For example, belts were often a medium for decoration, but the Templars wore only a simple wool cord belt to symbolise chastity.
Templar knights wore a white surcoat and cloak over their armour, as already mentioned, and carried a red cross on their left breast. The red cross also appeared on the livery of horses and on the order's pennant. This made them distinct from the Knights Hospitaller (who wore a white cross on a black background) and the Teutonic Knights (who wore a black cross on a white background). Templar shields, in contrast, were usually white with a thick black horizontal stripe across the top. Sergeants wore a brown or black mantle or cloak. Another distinguishing feature of Templars was that they all grew beards and had short (by medieval standards) hair.
Brother knights could have their own personal property (movable or fixed), unlike in some other military orders. Things were a little less strict in terms of clothing, too; the Templars being allowed to wear linen in spring and summer (not just wool), a decision no doubt appreciated by members in warmer climes. If any of the regulations of the order, known collectively as the Rule, were not followed, then members were punished which might range from a withdrawal of privileges to flogging and even life imprisonment.
The Crusades
Skilled with the lance, sword and crossbow, and well-armoured, the Knights Templar and other military orders were the best trained and equipped of any members of a Crusader army. For this reason, they were often deployed to protect the flanks, vanguard and rear of an army in the field. The Templars were particularly renowned for their disciplined group cavalry charges when, in tight formation, they blasted through enemy lines and caused havoc which could then be exploited by allied troops following up their advance. They were also highly disciplined both in battle and in camp, with severe penalties imposed on knights not following orders, including expulsion from the order for losing one's sword or horse through carelessness. That being said, the order as a whole could prove difficult for a Crusade commander to keep check on, given that they were often the most zealous and eager troops to win honour and glory.
The Templars were frequently given the task of defending important passes such as at Amanus north of Antioch. They acquired lands and castles which the Crusader states were not able to maintain themselves for lack of manpower. They also rebuilt destroyed or entirely new castles to better defend the Christian East. The Templars never forgot their original function as a protector of pilgrims either, and they manned many small forts along the pilgrim routes in the Levant or acted as bodyguards.
Although involved in many successes such as the siege of Acre in 1189-91, Damietta in 1218-19, and Constantinople in 1204, there were some major defeats along the way, and such was their martial reputation, the Templars could usually expect to be executed if ever captured. At the battle of La Forbie in Gaza in October 1244, an Ayyubid army defeated a large Latin army and 300 Templar knights were killed. 230 captured Templar knights were beheaded after the Battle of Hattin in 1187, won by the army of Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria (r. 1174-1193). More important members of the order, as was typical of the period were offered up for ransom. The Templar castle at Gaza had to be given up in order to gain release of the captured Master after the same battle. Another heavy defeat came at 1250 the battle of Mansourah in Egypt during the Seventh Crusade (1248-1254). The vast network of convents, though, always seemed able to replenish any losses in resources and manpower.
Criticism, Trial & Abolition
Largely a law unto themselves and a powerful military threat, western rulers became wary of the military orders, especially as they began to accumulate a huge network of lands and cash reserves. Like other military orders, the Templars had also long been accused of abusing their privileges and extorting the maximum profit from their financial dealings. They were accused of corruption and succumbing to gross pride and avarice. Critics said they lived too soft a life and wasted money which could be better spent on maintaining troops for Holy War. They were accused of wasting resources to compete with rival orders, especially the Hospitallers. There was, too, the old argument that monks and warriors were not a compatible combination. Some even chastised the order for not being interested in converting Muslims but simply eliminating them. Most of these criticisms were based on ignorance of the affairs of the order, an exaggeration of their actual wealth in real terms, and a general feeling of jealousy and suspicion.
By the end of the 13th century, many considered the military orders too independent for everyone's good and an amalgamation of them into a single body was the best solution to make them more accountable to the Church and individual state's rulers. Then, from around 1307, much more serious accusations against the Templars were circulated. It was said that they denied Christ as God, the crucifixion and the cross. There were rumours that the initiation into the brotherhood involved trampling, spitting, and urinating on a crucifix. These charges were made public, particularly by the government of France. The ordinary clergy, too, were jealous of the order's rights such as those of burial, a potentially lucrative sideline for any local church. The political and religious establishment were joining together with the aim of destroying the Templars. The loss of the Crusader states in the Levant in 1291 may have been a trigger (although many would still have thought it possible to regain them, and for that, the military orders were needed).
On Friday 13 October 1307 King Philip IV of France ordered the arrest of all Templars in France. His motivations remain unclear, but suggestions from modern historians include the military threat of the Templars, a desire to acquire their wealth, an opportunity to gain a political and prestige advantage over the papacy, and even that Philip actually believed the rumours against the order. To the denial of Christ and disrespect of the cross were added further accusations of promoting homosexual practices, indecent kissing, and the worship of idols. Initially, Pope Clement V (r. 1305-1314) defended this unsubstantiated attack on what was, after all, one of his military orders, but Philip managed to extract confessions from several Templars including the Grand Master James of Molay. As a result, the Pope ordered the arrest of all Templars in western Europe, and their property was seized. The Templars were unable to resist except in Aragon where a number held out in their castles until 1308.
A trial followed in Paris in 1310, after which 54 brothers were burned at the stake. In 1314 the Grand Master of the order, James of Molay, and the preceptor of Normandy, Geoffrey of Charney, were burned too, again in Paris, the former still protesting his innocence as he was marched to his funeral pyre. The fate of the order as a whole, though, was decided by the 1311 Council of Vienne. Investigations carried out in the previous three years into the order's affairs across Europe were considered, as were confessions (likely acquired through torture), which were uneven in nature - most knights in France and Italy, and three from England confessing to all charges but none doing so in regard to the most serious accusations from Cyprus or the Iberian peninsula. A group of knights called to hear their defence were, in the event, not called, and when Philip arrived at the council, the Pope officially declared the order terminated on 3 April 1312, although the reason was for the damaging loss of its reputation rather than any verdict of guilt. Physical evidence for the accusations - records, statues of idols etc. - was never produced. In addition, many knights later retracted their confessions even when they were already condemned and to do so served no purpose.
The majority of former Templar knights were pensioned off and banned from joining any other military order. Many of the assets of the Templars were passed onto the Knights Hospitaller by order of the Pope on 2 May 1312. However, a lot of land and money ended up in the pockets of nobles, especially in Castille. The attack on the Templars, otherwise, had little effect on the other military orders. The discussion to combine them all into a single unit came to nothing, and the Teutonic Knights, probably more deserving of criticism than any other order, was saved by its close connections to secular German rulers. The Teutonic Knights moved their headquarters from Vienna to more remote Prussia while the Knights Hospitaller wisely moved their headquarters to the greater safety of Rhodes, both moves coming in 1309 and probably ensuring their continued existence in one form or another down to the present day.
The Northern or Baltic Crusades were military campaigns organised by popes and western rulers to convert pagans to Christianity in the 12th to 15th century. Unlike in the Holy Land, where military campaigns were aimed at liberating former Christian lands from Muslim rule, the crusades in Prussia, Livonia (modern Estonia) and Lithuania were aimed at converting the local pagan population.
The order of Teutonic Knights dominated the campaigns of the Northern Crusades from the mid-13th century and carved out its own militarised state in Prussia. Although the order did eventually convert the region to Christianity, the religious motive was essentially an excuse to acquire land and riches. The 15th century saw new challenges in the region from the Poles, Russians, and Ottoman Turks, and so the Baltic Crusades, having achieved their goal, were replaced by secular warfare.
Expanding the Crusade Ideal
Another arena for the crusades, besides the traditional campaigns to capture Jerusalem and other Middle East cities from Muslim control from the late 11th century onwards, was the Baltic and those areas bordering German territories which continued to be pagan. As with the Crusades in the Levant, rulers seized the opportunity to combine the religious benefits of crusading - crusaders had their sins remitted - with the thirst for territorial expansion and material wealth in the form of land, furs, amber, and slaves. In addition, the Northern Crusades, first conducted by Saxons and directed against the pagan Wends (western Slavs), provided a new facet to the Crusader movement: active conversion of non-Christians as opposed to liberating territory held by infidels.
Pope Eugenius III officially declared that the first Baltic Crusade would, like that in the Middle East, earn its combatants a remission of sins.
The German Empire had a long tradition of sending Christian missionaries to states on its north-eastern frontier, a hotspot of many wars against the pagan states of eastern Europe. Adding fuel to the cause, atrocities against Christians and the murder of missionaries in these territories had been reported by such figures as the archbishop of Magdeburg in 1108. When the Second Crusade (1149-1147) was called by Pope Eugenius III (r. 1145-1153) in December 1145 in order to recapture Edessa in Upper Mesopotamia, many German nobles preferred, instead, to first sort out the infidels in their own backyard rather than march off to fight those in the Levant. An assembly in Frankfurt in March 1147 decided that the Baltic would be the priority, and the decision was given a seal of approval by the influential abbot Bernard of Clairvaux. In April, Pope Eugenius III officially declared that such a crusade would, like that in the Middle East, earn its combatants a remission of sins. The Pope then went a step further with the following infamous statement of intolerance:
We utterly forbid that for any reason whatsoever a truce should be made with these tribes, either for the sake of money, or for the sake of tribute, until such time as, by God's help, they shall be either converted or wiped out. (quoted in Phillips, 89)
The Crusader movement was now an armed missionary campaign, and Eugenius even made the remission of sins benefit entirely dependent on pagans being successfully converted to Christianity. The starkness of the Pope's statement may reflect the traditional difficulty in converting the region, especially the Wends. There had been many instances of a profession of faith being later rescinded (considered a worse offence than being an infidel), of pagan practices carrying on anyway or even being mixed in with Christian ones, and of campaigns being abandoned in favour of temporary monetary gains. This new Crusade was designed to be the last in the Baltic.
The Wends Crusade
Before the Crusader army even set off, an additional motivator was provided by the Wends themselves who, realising trouble was around the corner, launched a pre-emptive strike on the Christian-held port of Lubeck. Between June and September of 1147, a Saxon-Danish army then attacked the pagan settlements of Dobin and Malchow, both in modern northeast Germany. Dobin got off the lightest when its population agreed to be baptised, so ending the fighting. Malchow fared rather worse, its temple with pagan idols was burnt down and the surrounding territories destroyed. After a failed siege at Demmin on the River Peene, the next target was Stettin on the River Oder in Pomerania, but the people there managed to persuade the Crusaders to hold off an attack by showing crucifixes from the city's walls. The overall campaign, despite its lofty aim and papal backing, fared little better than the usual annual raiding parties sent into the area. Neither was the Crusade helped by the divisive mistrust between the Danes and Saxons. The paltry net result was the conversion of one chieftain and the acquisition of booty while the Wends leader Prince Niklot remained in power and, despite the promises, his subjects continued as practising pagans. It was certainly not what Eugenius had envisaged.
Teutonic Knights: Prussia & the Baltic
The Baltic would continue to be an arena for Crusades in the following centuries, especially with the arrival of the military order of Teutonic Knights from the 13th century. Between 1193 and 1230 Saxon Crusader armies were sent to defend Christian missions in Livonia, although once again it was more a case of a land grab than a religious mission and, despite military successes, long-term conversion or subjugation of the natives was not achieved. The Teutonic Knights would continue this work, absorb such local military orders as the Swordbrothers (in 1237) and fight an essentially non-stop campaign in Prussia from 1245 to the 15th century, continuously attacking the neighbouring Lithuanians and the Livonians further north.
The Teutonic Knights were a formidable fighting force of professional knights and infantry. Their heavy cavalry backed by a disciplined corps of crossbowmen capable of firing devastating mass salvos swept all before them. The knights were also far more adept at siege warfare than the peoples they faced, and they were master diplomats able to form handy alliances for mutual benefit against traditional enemies. There were frequent guerrilla attacks and regular localised revolts, including one major one in 1260, but the order was helped by an influx of Crusaders from other western and central European states, including some star names like Rudolf of Habsburg, Otto III of Brandenburg and King Ottokar II of Bohemia. Once more, the backing of the Pope proved essential, and the crusader ideal of defending Christianity was usefully transformed into one of conversion and taking the lands of those who did not accept the faith. The Teutonic Order's success in Prussia, which they essentially made into a state of their own (the Ordensstaat), was evident in its gradual transformation into a wholly German territory which institutionalised both war and religion; indeed, the region, at least for outsiders, came to epitomise German culture more than any other in later centuries.
New lands, mostly ports & along rivers, were then settled with migrant Germans, & churches & monasteries were built.
Although military campaigns (reisen) were largely restricted to the winter season when marshes and lakes were frozen, the Teutonic order was hugely successful in gaining new territory, notably Danzig and eastern Pomerania in 1308 and northern Estonia in 1346, bought from the Danish king Valdemar IV (r. 1340-1375). New lands, mostly ports and along rivers, were then settled with migrant Germans, churches and monasteries were built (especially by the Cistercians), and the acquisitions defended via the construction of castles as part of a systematic colonisation. Lithuania was attacked with success, the cause there ending when the grand prince Jogailo (aka Jogaila) promised in 1386 to convert his pagan people to Christianity, a process formally completed in 1389.
By the end of the 14th century, lacking political unity and behind the west in terms of technology, much of the Baltic had been forcibly converted to Christianity. Thereafter, it became clear that the Teutonic Knights were mostly interested in politics, land, and booty, rather than conversion as the wars continued and pushed into Livonia. Indeed, the Teutonic Knights were frequently accused of slaughtering Christians, trashing secular churches, impeding conversions, and trading with heathens. It was said that many pagans in central Europe resisted Christianization only because they did not want to live under the brutal regime of the Teutonic Knights. The Teutonic Order was not alone in their ambitions in the region as Danish and Swedish kings used the same ideological cloak to invade northern Estonia and Finland in the 13th and 14th century.
Decline of the Teutonic Order
In the 15th century, when the Lithuanians and Poles joined forces with the Russians and Mongols, along with several other smaller allied states, the Teutonic order was threatened with extinction. At the First Battle of Tannenberg, 15 July 1410, an army of Teutonic Knights was wiped out, and in 1457 the headquarters of a now much-reduced and largely secular order had to be relocated to Konigsberg. The Teutonic order still continued at its Livonian branch into the 16th century and now primarily focused on battling, without much success, Orthodox Russians and Ottoman Turks. When the order was fully secularized in 1525 (Prussian branch) and 1562 (Livonian branch), crusading in the Baltic was over.
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The Crusades were a series of military campaigns organised by popes and Christian western powers to take Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control and then defend those gains. There were eight major official crusades between 1095 and 1270, as well as many more unofficial ones.
Although there were many crusades, none would be as successful as the first, and by 1291 the Crusader-created states in the Middle East were absorbed into the Mamluk Sultanate. The idea of crusading was applied more successfully (for Christians) to other regions, notably in the Baltic against European pagans and in the Iberian Peninsula against the Muslim Moors.
Involving emperors, kings, and Europe's nobility, as well as thousands of knights and more humble warriors, the Crusades would have tremendous consequences for all involved. The effects, besides the obvious death, ruined lives, destruction and wasted resources, ranged from the collapse of the Byzantine Empire to a souring of relations and intolerance between religions and peoples in the East and West which still blights governments and societies today.
The Causes of the Crusades
The 11th century First Crusade (1095-1102) set a precedent for the heady mix of politics, religion, and violence that would drive all the future campaigns. The Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081-1118) saw an opportunity to gain western military aid in defeating the Muslim Seljuks who were eating away at his empire in Asia Minor. When the Seljuks took over Jerusalem (from their fellow Muslims, not the Christians who had lost the city centuries earlier) in 1087, this provided the catalyst to mobilise western Christians into action. Pope Urban II (r. 1088-1099) responded to this call for help, motivated by a desire to strengthen the Papacy and milk the prestige to become the undisputed head of the whole Christian church including the Orthodox East. Taking back the Holy City of Jerusalem and such sites as the Holy Sepulchre, considered the tomb of Jesus Christ, after four centuries of Muslim control would be a real coup. Consequently, the Pope issued a Papal Legate and set in motion a preaching campaign across Europe, which appealed for western nobles and knights to sharpen their swords, suit up and get themselves over to the Holy Land to defend Christendom's most precious sites and any Christians there in danger.
The defence of Christians & the faith, warriors were promised by the Pope, brought a remission of sins & a fast-track route to Heaven.
The warriors who 'took the cross', as the oath to crusade was known, and made the incredibly arduous journey to fight in a foreign land were motivated by any number of things. First and foremost was the religious aspect - the defence of Christians and the faith, they were promised by the Pope, brought a remission of sins and a fast-track route to Heaven. There were also ideals of chivalry and doing the right thing (although chivalry was in its infancy at the time of the First Crusade), peer and family pressure, the chance to gain material wealth, perhaps even land and titles, and the desire to travel and see the great holy sites in person. Many warriors had far less glamorous ambitions and were simply compelled to follow their lords, some sought to escape debts and justice, others merely sought a decent living with regular meals included. These motivations would continue to guarantee large numbers of recruits throughout all subsequent campaigns.
The First Crusade
Against all odds, the international military expedition of the First Crusade overcame the difficulties of logistics and the skills of the enemy to recapture first Antioch in June 1098 and then the big one, Jerusalem on 15 July 1099. With their heavy cavalry, shining armour, siege technology, and military know-how, the western knights sprung a surprise on the Muslims that would not be repeated. The slaughter of Muslims after the fall of Jerusalem would not be forgotten either. There had been a few cock-ups along the way, like the annihilation of the People's Crusade, a band of non-professional rabble, and a fair amount of deaths due to plagues, disease, and famine, but overall the success of the First Crusade astonished even the organisers themselves. Multinational cooperative warfare could reap dividends, it seemed, and this was the moment when the merchants started to show an interest in the crusades too.
The Crusader States
To defend the territory now in Christian hands, four Crusader States were formed: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, County of Edessa, County of Tripoli, and Principality of Antioch. Collectively, these were known as the Latin East or Outremer. The trade between the West and East, which went through these states, and the lucrative contracts to ship crusaders to the Levant attracted the merchants of such cities as Venice, Pisa, Genoa, and Marseille. Military orders sprang up in the Crusader States, such as the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller, which were able bodies of professional knights who lived as monks and who were given the job of defending key castles and passing pilgrims. Unfortunately for Christendom, the Crusader States always suffered a shortage of manpower and bickering between the nobles who had settled in them. Theirs was not to be an easy existence over the next century.
The Second Crusade
In 1144 CE the city of Edessa in Upper Mesopotamia was captured by the Muslim Seljuk leader Imad ad-Din Zangi (r. 1127-1146), the independent ruler of Mosul (in Iraq) and Aleppo (in Syria), and many Christians were killed or enslaved. This would spark off another crusade in the 12th century to get it back again. The German king Conrad III (r. 1138-1152) and Louis VII, the king of France (r. 1137-1180), led the Second Crusade of 1147-9, but this royal seal of approval did not bring success. Zangi's death only brought an even more determined figure on the scene, his successor Nur ad-Din (sometimes also given as Nur al-Din, r. 1146-1174), who sought to bind the Muslim world together in a holy war against the Christians in the Levant. Two big defeats at the hands of the Seljuks in 1147 and 1148 knocked the stuffing out of the Crusader armies, and their last-ditch attempt to salvage something honourable from the campaign, a siege of Damascus in June 1148, was another miserable failure. The next year Nur ad-Din captured Antioch, and the County of Edessa ceased to exist by 1150.
The Reconquista
In 1147, the Second Crusaders had stopped off at Lisbon en route to the East to assist King Alfonso Henriques of Portugal (r. 1139-1185) capture that city from the Muslims. This was part of the ongoing rise of the northern Christian statelets in Iberia who were eager to push the Muslim Moors out of southern Spain, the so-called Reconquista (the Reconquest, although the Muslims had been there since the early 8th century). The popes were more than happy to support this campaign and widen the idea of crusading to include the Moors as yet another enemy of the West. The same spiritual benefits were offered to those who fought in the Middle East or Iberia. The Spanish and Portuguese nobility were also keen to have the backing of a higher authority and the manpower and financial resources it promised. New local military orders sprang up, and the campaigns were remarkably successful so that only Granada remained in Muslim hands after the mid-13th century.
The Baltic campaigns involved a new aspect of Crusading: the active conversion of non-Christians as opposed to liberating territory held by infidels.
The Northern Crusades
A third arena for the crusades, again backed by the popes and wider Church infrastructure, was the Baltic and those areas bordering German territories which continued to be pagan. The Northern Crusades of the 12th to 15th century were first conducted by a Saxon army led by German and Danish nobles who selected the pagan Wends (aka Western Slavs) as their target in 1147. This was a whole new facet of crusading: the active conversion of non-Christians as opposed to liberating territory held by infidels. The crusades would continue thereafter, largely conducted by the military order of Teutonic Knights who called upon knights from across Europe to help them. The order in effect carved out its own state in Prussia and then moved on to what is today Lithuania and Estonia. Quite often brutally converting pagans and probably more motivated by land and wealth acquisition than anything else, the Crusades were so successful in their aims that the Teutonic Knights did themselves out of a job and, by the end of the 14th century, had to focus instead, and with much more meagre results, on the Poles, Ottoman Turks, and Russians.
The Third Crusade
Back in the Middle East, the fate of the three remaining Crusader States was becoming even more precarious. The new star Muslim leader, Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt and Syria (r. 1174-1193) won a great victory against a Latin East army at the Battle of Hattin in 1187 CE and then immediately took Jerusalem. These events would bring on the Third Crusade (1189-1192). Perhaps the most glamorous of all the campaigns, this time there were two western kings and an emperor in command, hence its other name of 'the Kings' Crusade'. The three big names were: Frederick I Barbarossa, King of Germany and Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1152-1190) Philip II of France (r. 1180-1223) and Richard I 'the Lionhearted' of England (r. 1189-1199).
Despite the royal pedigree, things got off to the worst possible start for the Crusaders when Frederick drowned in a river on his way to the Holy Land in June 1190. Richard's presence did finally end the siege of Acre in the Christians' favour in July 1191, after the English king had already caused a stir by capturing Cyprus en route. Marching towards Jaffa, the Christian army scored another victory at the Battle of Arsuf in September 1191, but by the time the force got to Jerusalem, it was felt they could not take the city, and even if they did, the still largely intact army of Saladin would almost certainly and immediately take it back again. The end result of the Third Crusade was a mere consolation prize: a treaty which allowed Christian pilgrims to travel to the Holy Land unmolested and a strip of land around Acre. Still, it was a vital foothold and one which inspired many future crusades to expand it into something rather better.
Later Crusades
The subsequent crusades were very much a story of the Christians shooting their crossbows into their own feet. The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) somehow managed to identify Constantinople, the greatest Christian city in the world, as the prime target. Papal ambitions, the financial greed of the Venetians, and a century of mutual suspicion between the East and the Western parts of the former Roman Empire all created a storm of aggression that resulted in the sacking of the Byzantine Empire's capital in 1204. The Empire was carved up between Venice and its allies, its riches and relics spirited away back to Europe.
The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221) saw a change of strategy as the western powers identified the best way to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims - now dominated by the Ayyubid dynasty (1174-1250) - was to attack the enemy's soft underbelly in Egypt first. Despite the success, after an arduous siege, of taking Damietta on the Nile in November 1219, the westerners' lack of regard for local conditions and proper logistical support spelt their doom at the Battle of Mansourah in August 1221.
The Sixth Crusade (1228-1229) saw negotiation achieve what warfare had not. Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (r. 1220-1250), who had been much criticised for not participating in the Fifth Crusade, managed to strike a deal with al-Kamil, then the Sultan of Egypt and Syria (r. 1218-1238), and Jerusalem was handed over to Christian control with the proviso that Muslim pilgrims could freely enter the city. Al-Kamil was having his own problems in controlling his large empire, especially rebel Damascus, and Jerusalem had no military or economic value at that time, only a religious significance, making it a cheap bargaining chip to avoid a distracting war with Frederick's army.
The Seventh Crusade (1248-1254) was launched after a Christian army was defeated at the battle of La Forbie in October 1244. Led by the French king Louis IX (r. 1226-1270), the Crusaders repeated the strategy of the Fifth Crusade and achieved only the same miserable results: the acquisition of Damietta and then total defeat at Mansourah. Louis was even captured, although he was later ransomed. The French king would have another go in the Eighth Crusade of 1270.
In 1250 the Mamluk Sultanate had taken over from the Ayyubid Dynasty, and they had a formidable leader in the gifted former general Baibars (r. 1260-1277). Louis IX once more attacked North Africa, but the king died of dysentery attacking Tunis in 1270, and with him so too did the Crusade. The Mamluks, meanwhile, extended their domination of the Near East and captured Acre in 1291, so definitively eliminating the Crusader States.
The Consequences of the Crusades
The Crusades had tremendous consequences for all those involved. Besides the obvious death, destruction and hardships the wars caused, they also had significant political and social effects. The Byzantine Empire ceased to be, the popes became the de facto leaders of the Christian Church, the Italian maritime states cornered the Mediterranean market in East-West trade, the Balkans were Christianized, and the Iberian peninsula saw the Moors pushed back to North Africa. The idea of crusading was stretched even further to provide a religious justification for the conquest of the New World in the 15th and 16th century. The sheer cost of the crusades saw the royal houses of Europe grow in power as that of the barons and nobles correspondingly declined. People travelled a little more, especially on pilgrimages, and they read and sang songs about the crusades, opening up a little wider their view of the world, even if it turned out to be a prejudiced one for many.
In the longer term, there was the development of the military orders, which eventually became tied with chivalry, many of which exist in one form or another today. Europeans developed a greater sense of their mutual common identity and culture, which also resulted in a sharper degree of xenophobia against non-Christians - Jews and heretics, in particular. Literature and art perpetuated crusading legends on both sides - Christian and Muslim, creating heroes and tragedies in a complex web of myth, imagery, and language which would be applied, very often inaccurately, to the problems and conflicts of the 21st century.
