Crusading movement

This article is about the theoretical, sociological, institutional, military, and financial dimensions of crusading. For the expeditions themselves, see Crusades.

For other uses, see Crusade (disambiguation) and Crusader (disambiguation).

Pope Urban II's call for the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont (from the late 15th-century Passages d'outremer by Sébastien Mamerot)

The crusading movement began in 1095, when Pope Urban II, at the Council of Clermont, called for the First Crusade to liberate eastern Christians and Jerusalem from Muslim rule. He framed it as a form of penitential pilgrimage, offering spiritual rewards. By then, papal authority in Western Christendom had grown through church reforms, while 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 Christocentric 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, and other opponents of papal authority.

The crusades fostered distinctive institutions and ideologies, deeply impacting 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, though discouraged from combat, participated as pilgrims, proxies for absent men, or suffered as victims. While many crusaders were motivated by indulgences (the remission of sins), material gain also played a part. Crusades were typically initiated through papal bulls, with participants pledging by "taking the cross"—sewing a cross onto their garments. Failure to fulfil vows could result in excommunication. Periodic waves of zeal produced unsanctioned "popular crusades".

Initially funded through improvised means, later crusades received more organised support via papal taxes on clergy and the sale of indulgences. Core crusading forces were heavily armed knights, backed by infantry, local troops, and naval aid from Italian and Baltic 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 expanded Western Christendom's borders and established new states in the Mediterranean and northern Europe. Though some lasted into the early modern period, the Crusader states fell to the Egyptian Mamluks by 1291. 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 leagues" sustained the tradition into the 18th century.

Background

The crusades are commonly defined as religious wars waged by Western European warriors during the Middle Ages to capture Jerusalem. However, their geographic scope, chronological boundaries, and underlying motives remain fluid. The movement fostered distinct institutions and ideologies that shaped medieval society in Catholic Europe and neighbouring regions.

Classical just war theories

A page from an early 12th-century manuscript of The City of God by Augustine

In classical antiquity, Greek philosophers and Roman jurists formulated just war theories that later shaped crusading theology. Aristotle stressed the need for a just end, asserting "war must be for the sake of peace". Roman law required a casus belli—just cause—and held that only legitimate authorities could declare war, with defence, restitution, and punishment considered acceptable grounds. Although the Bible—Christianity's core scripture—presents conflicting views on violence, the 4th-century Christianisation of the Roman Empire gave rise to Christian just war theory. Ambrose, a former imperial official, was the first to equate enemies of the state with those of the Church.

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. He argued that the Bible's prohibition on killing did not apply to wars waged with divine approval; 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 Western Empire's fall in 476.

Tripartite world

From the ruins of the Western Roman Empire, new Christian kingdoms emerged, largely ruled by Germanic warlords. Among this aristocracy, martial prowess and comradeship were core values. Clergy often praised their violence in pursuit of patronage, though the Church still deemed killing sinful and required penance—typically fasting—for absolution.

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-7th century. Islam's holiest text, the Quran, addresses jihad—struggle to spread and defend the faith. In the early 8th century, Muslim forces entered Europe, conquering much of the Iberian Peninsula. Christians under Muslim rule were not forced to convert but had to pay a special tax, the jizya. As conquests stabilised, a threefold civilisational order emerged: a fragmented Western Europe, a weakened Byzantium, and an offensive Islamic world.

Holy wars and piety

Christian resistance to Muslim advance led to the creation of the small Kingdom of Asturias in north-western Iberia. Over time, this resistance evolved into an expansionist movement, regarded by locals as divinely sanctioned—a mission to reclaim lost Christian lands. In the 9th century, repeated invasions by non-Christian groups across Western Europe revived the notion of holy war: conflict authorised by a spiritual leader, pursued for religious aims and rewarded with salvation. Already in 846, Pope Leo IV promised salvation to those defending the papal territories.

As warfare became constant, a new military class of mounted warriors emerged. Known as milites in contemporary texts, they specialised in weapons like the heavy lance. To restrain their violence, church leaders launched the Peace of God movement. Ironically, efforts to curb bloodshed also militarised the Church, as bishops increasingly raised armies to enforce the Peace.

Plan of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in an early 9th-century manuscript of De locis sanctis ('About Sacred Places'), a work by the Irish monk Adomnán

With weak central authority, regional strongmen seized control of parishes and abbeys, 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 indulgences—commuting penance into acts like almsgiving or pilgrimage. Among these, 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.

Church reforms

Main articles: Cluniac Reform and Gregorian Reform

Further information: History of the papacy (1048–1257)

Concern over damnation spurred reform movements within the Church, often led by wealthy monasteries. In 910, Cluny Abbey's foundation charter set a precedent by granting monks the right to freely elect their abbot. The Cluniac Reform spread rapidly, backed by aristocrats who valued the monks' prayers for their souls. Cluniac houses answered solely to papal authority.

The popes, viewed as Peter the Apostle's successors, claimed supremacy over the Church, citing Jesus's praise for his apostle. In reality, Roman noble families controlled the papacy until Emperor Henry III entered Rome in 1053. He appointed reformist clerics who launched the Gregorian Reform for the "liberty of the church", which banned simony—the sale of church offices—and gave cardinals, senior clergy, sole right to elect the pope. 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, though 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.

Towards the crusades

See also: Medieval Warm Period

Europe on the eve of the Battle of Manzikert

Four major powers dominated the Mediterranean c. 1000: the Umayyads in Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain), the Fatimids in Egypt, the Abbasids (nominally) in the Middle East, and the Byzantine Empire. Within decades, all experienced serious crises, especially in the east, where climate anomalies triggered famine and instability. In contrast, climate change benefitted Western Europe, fuelling economic and population growth.

Weakened by internal conflict, Al-Andalus fractured into small states, vulnerable to Christian expansion—a process called the Reconquista. 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's floods 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 destabilised the Middle East. The Turkoman chief Tughril I, of the Seljuk clan, 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 Normans, rising from 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. Though 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 in Sicily and Iberia. As these territories were once Christian, papal attention soon turned to Palestine. Pope Gregory VII proposed a campaign to reclaim Jerusalem in 1074, though it never materialised. Two years later, disputes over clerical 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 martyrs. These ideas shaped the notion of penitential warfare: the belief that fighting for a just cause could serve as penance.

Crusades

Main article: Crusades

The fusion of classical just war theory, biblical views on warfare, and Augustine's teaching on legitimate violence provided the Western Church with an ideological framework for military engagement. By the late 11th century, Western Christendom had coalesced into a union of local churches under papal authority. Amid religious revival and heightened concern over sin, the papacy was well positioned to mobilise the warrior class's values, particularly loyalty.

First Crusade

Main article: First Crusade

See also: Siege of Jerusalem (1099)

Siege of Jerusalem during the First Crusade (a miniature from a 14th-century manuscript about the crusades to the Holy Land)

Facing Turkoman incursions, the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos sought military aid from Pope Urban II. Urban saw this as a chance to reassert papal authority. At the Council of Clermont in 1095, he called for a campaign against the Turkomans, offering spiritual rewards to participants. The historian Jonathan Riley-Smith views this as a "revolutionary appeal" that linked warfare to pilgrimage.

Urban's appeal sparked unexpected enthusiasm. In early 1096, 20,000–30,000 poorly organised 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, comprising at least 30,000 warriors 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.

Crusades for the Holy Land

The first Crusaders consolidated their conquests into four states: Edessa, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Tripoli. Their defence prompted new campaigns, the first as early as 1101. Several expeditions, especially those led by monarchs, became numbered. Edessa's fall in 1144 to the Turkoman leader Imad al-Din Zengi triggered the Second Crusade, led by Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, which failed in 1148. Zengi's son, Nur al-Din, unified Muslim Syria and dismantled the Fatimid Caliphate. These lands came under the control of Saladin, an ambitious Kurdish general. In 1187, he destroyed the Jerusalemite field army at Hattin and captured most Crusader territory, including the city of Jerusalem. The resulting crisis triggered the Third Crusade, led by Emperor Frederick I, Richard I of England and Philip II of France. Though 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 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 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 a new crusade in 1248, which ended in defeat. Between 1250 and 1260, the Mamluks supplanted the Ayyubids—Saladin's family—as the dominant Muslim power in the Levant. The Mamluk sultans Baybars and Qalawun waged systematic campaigns against the Crusader states, massacring Christian populations. Louis IX mounted another crusade, but died in 1270. Anarchy followed, and in 1291 Qalawun's son 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.

Other theatres of war

Main articles: Crusades against Christians, Northern Crusades, and Reconquista

Malbork Castle of the Teutonic Order in Prussia

The historian Simon Lloyd notes that "crusading was never necessarily tied" to the Holy Land. As early as 1096, Pope Urban urged Catalan nobles to remain in Iberia, promising equal spiritual rewards. The First Lateran Council in 1123 officially equated campaigns against the Moors (Iberian Muslims) with crusades. The Iberian crusades drove Christian expansion, reducing Al-Andalus to the Emirate of Granada by 1248.

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 only recognised as a crusade in 1147. From then, northern German, Danish, Swedish, and Polish rulers launched papally sanctioned campaigns against Slavic, Baltic 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 Frederick II, his heirs, and rebellious papal vassals. From 1209, Pope Innocent III targeted heretics—Christians who rejected Church doctrine—and crusades were proclaimed after 1261 against the restored Byzantine Empire.

Later crusades

Despite internal divisions, the Reconquista continued, ending with the conquest of Granada by Castile and Aragon in 1492. In the early 14th century, Preussenreise—seasonal anti-pagan expeditions by Catholic nobles in the Baltic—became a hallmark of chivalric culture. The historian Eric Christiansen called these "an interminable crusade". In the western Mediterranean, popes also proclaimed crusades against Christian enemies, including Aragon, Sicily, and rogue mercenaries. During the Western Schism (1378–1417), rival popes called crusades against each other's supporters.

Extensive piracy in the Mediterranean revived anti-Muslim crusading in the mid-14th century. 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, while the Reformation saw indulgences granted to Catholics fighting Protestants, including Irish forces opposing Queen Elizabeth I. Although the Reformation weakened papal authority, the papacy continued to promote anti-Ottoman crusades, helping form coalitions like the Holy League well into the early 18th century.

Theory and theology

Main article: Crusade indulgence

Pope Urban II's call at Clermont introduced a remarkably novel concept for most listeners. Though Western Christians had accepted divinely sanctioned warfare, its full theological and legal justification was still evolving. Urban emphasised the expedition’s military character, but his envoys largely presented it as a pilgrimage.

Sinners' (temporal) punishment in the Purgatory (a page from the early 15th-century Alsatian manuscript of the Golden Legend)

Initially seen as a unique event prompted by divine intervention, the expanding movement soon required stronger legal foundations. Canon lawyers developed frameworks to support papal authority. The Decretum Gratiani, an influential collection of church law, permitted warfare c. 1140—but only against heretics. Within decades, jurists like Huguccio extended this to Muslims, citing just intent, recovery of Christian lands, and retaliation for violence. Though originally framed as defensive, the Northern Crusades soon focused on conversion. Crusades against Christian opponents of the papacy were justified as necessary to remove obstacles to the defence of the Holy Land.

Soon after Clermont, the chronicler Guibert of Nogent wrote that "God has instituted in our times holy wars" so 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 remissio peccatorum ('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 peccatorum absolutionem ('absolution of sins') and venia peccatorum ('forgiveness of sins').

Theological debate on indulgences began c. 1130. Peter Abelard sharply criticised the practice, though 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 c. 1230, when the "Treasury of Merit" doctrine emerged. It held that the Church could grant indulgences from merit earned through Christ and the martyrs. Debate over the indulgence's scope continued. Bonaventure argued indulgences did not apply to those dying before fulfilling their vow, while Thomas Aquinas maintained that penitent crusaders who confessed would attain salvation even if they died before departing.

Crusaders

See also: List of principal crusaders

A crusader's motives are inherently difficult to determine. While contemporary sources emphasise religious fervour, secular ambitions also played a role, since holding conquests required sustained Western presence. Many participants, including non-combatants, enlisted for pay. Most saw no contradiction between piety and material gain, such as booty. Some sought fame, while the historian Jonathan Phillips notes the appeal of long-distance travel. The medievalist Andrew Jotischky suggests figures like the robber baron Thomas of Marle saw crusading as an opportunity for unpunished violence.

Knights and aristocrats

A page from the 12th-century Summa Vitiorum ('Summa of Vice') by William Perault. The allegory presents a knight prepared to fight the seven deadly sins.

Born into the French nobility, Pope Urban directed his appeal at Clermont to the country's military elite. By then, the milites—once a broad category—had become a distinct warrior caste, though knighthood would not be fully equated with nobility until the late 12th century. Aristocrats valued visible piety, and crusading offered a new outlet for what Madden calls their "simple and sincere love of God". 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 jeopardising 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 milites Christi ('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.

Clergy

Although violence conflicted with their vocation, clerics often joined crusades. At Clermont, Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy was the first to vow the journey to Jerusalem. The Fourth Lateran Council explicitly permitted clerics to join for up to three years without forfeiting their benefices. Secular clergy typically served as chaplains or administrators, while senior churchmen led troops. Influential prelates also helped initiate the Northern Crusades. Despite vows like stabilitas voci ('stability of place'), monks joined too. Cistercians and Premonstratensians occasionally took up arms, especially in the Baltic.

Patricians

Urban elites played a vital role in several crusades. Fleets from Genoa, Pisa, and Venice helped establish and secure the Crusader states. In return, they gained commercial privileges, city quarters, and at times rural estates. Lübeck supported the conquest of Prussia, while Iberian towns owed military service under royal charters—often replaced by a special tax called fonsadera.

Excerpt from the Pactum Warmundi about the Venetians' privileges (1123–24)

In every city ...the Venetians shall have a church and one entire street of their own; also a square and a bath and an oven to be held forever by hereditary right, free from all taxation as is the king's own property.

William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea

During the Fourth Crusade, Doge Enrico Dandolo convinced fellow leaders to seize 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 crusasing theorist. He proposed a naval alliance against Aegean pirates, uniting Catholic powers with Genoese and Venetian island lords. Pope John XXII endorsed the plan in 1334.

Commoners

Shepherds attack a fortress during the 1320 Shepherds' Crusade (a miniature from the late 14th-century Chroniques de France ou de St-Denis).

The historian Christopher Tyerman observes that crusading was "as much as a phenomenon of artisans as of knights, of carpentry as much as of castle". Commoners filled essential roles in crusader armies as foot soldiers, sailors, archers, engineers, and squires. They were typically young men of modest means who joined for pay. Thus, the romantic image of crowds leaving their work to join the crusade is largely unfounded.

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 unauthorised preachers like Peter the Hermit, whom many viewed as a living saint. In the First Crusade's noble-led armies, 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 pauperes ('the poor or defenceless') and saw their presence as vital for divine favour. Another label, rustici, reflected their rural origin. 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 mobilise peasants in anti-Ottoman crusades, but in 1514 a crusading peasant army in Hungary turned on their lords.

Enemies and contacts

Muslims

A double page from a 12th-century manuscript of the Quran, placed in the madrasa of Nur al-Din in Damascus

Muslim legal experts divided the world into Dar al-Islam (the Muslim world) and Dar al-harb (non-Muslim lands). Border regions like Syria and Iberia became jihad battlegrounds, attracting volunteers—mujahideen and ghazis—from across Dar al-Islam. Accounts on Christian experiences in the Holy Land on the eve of the Crusades vary. Attacks on pilgrims likely shaped perceptions of danger, though Asbridge highlights that interfaith violence mirrored broader political and social turmoil.

Western Christians often mislabelled Muslims as idol-worshippers or heretics. Until c. 1110, massacres of Muslims in conquered towns were common. Later, Crusaders rarely sought conversions, instead levying a poll tax akin to the jizya. 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, mudejares—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 "Frankish", or westerner, expansion across the Mediterranean. He interpreted their success as divine punishment for neglecting jihad. Zengi was among the era's first Muslim leaders receiving jihadist honours; later rulers likewise invoked religious motives in campaigns against the Franks. In Iberia, the Almoravids and the Almohads strongly supported jihad. Nonetheless, pragmatic Christian–Muslim alliances remained common throughout the period.

Eastern Christians

Detail of the Greek Orthodox Mar Elias Monastery near Bethlehem. Its restoration was financed by the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenus during the crusading period.

The liberaton of eastern Christians was declared a central aim of the First Crusade, yet initial encounters proved disappointing. Emperor Alexios, anticipating disciplined mercenaries or manageable allies, was unsettled by the Crusaders' influx. Alarmed by their territorial ambitions, he secured oaths guaranteeing the return of reconquered Byzantine lands. Nonetheless, Bohemond retained Antioch—a former Byzantine provincial capital—for himself. 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. While 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 some 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 contrsting 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, though temporary Greek–Frankish alliances were not uncommon. In Frankish Greece, many Greek árchontes (aristocrats) retained lands and fought alongside Franks, while peasants suffered harsher conditions than under Byzantine rule. Orthodox bishops refusing papal supremacy were replaced by Catholic apointees, though 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.

Pagans

Pope Innocent IV's papal bull about the baptism and coronation of the Lithuanian ruler Mindaugas

Trade in raw materials and slaves had long connected Christian and pagan communities in the Baltic region, though rivalry over trade routes often sparked armed conflict. From c. 1100, intensified German colonisation and unequal access to resources triggered more frequent clashes between the Slavic Wends and their Christian neighbours. In 1146, while promoting the Second Crusade, the Cistercian Bernard of Clairvaux encountered Saxon reluctance to abandon anti-Wendish campaigns. Adopting their perspective, he convinced Pope Eugenius III to proclaim the Wendish Crusade. The Wends' structured society—with principalities, towns, and a priestly hierarchy—eased their eventual integration into Christendom.

Further east, Baltic peoples had long resisted Christianisation. Groups such as the Old Prussians, Latvians, and Curonians lived in rural communities led by strongmen who thrived on trade and raiding. Crusaders employed coercion, bribery, and promises of protection to gain converts. Papal legates sought to protect these converts from exploitation but achieved little.

The Lithuanians, largely taxpaying peasants under native lords, unified in the 13th century under Grand Prince Mindaugas. Baptised in 1253, he received a royal crown from Pope Innocent IV, but later reverted to paganism. He and his successors expanded into Orthodox Rus', seizing principalities like Polotsk and Kyiv. In 1386, Grand Prince Jogaila married Queen Jadwiga of Poland, becoming King Władysław II. The subsequent mass conversion of Lithuanians to Catholicism eroded the Teutonic Knights' justification for crusade. In 1410, Polish-Lithuanian forces decisively defeated the Knights at Grunwald. The Preussenreise 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. According to legend Eric IX of Sweden led the first crusade to Finland in the 1150s, though the earliest confirmed expedition was authorised 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.

Western dissidents

Crusaders massacre Cathars at the beginning of the Albigensian Crusades (a miniature from the late 14th-century Chroniques de France ou de St-Denis).

The Gregorian Reform failed to satisfy those seeking a purer, simpler Christianity. Increased trade carried dualist ideologies westward. These movements rejected the Incarnation, distinguishing between an incorruptible God and an evil creator of the material world. In Western Europe, their adherents became known as Cathars or Albigensians. Catholic churchmen saw heresy as a fundamental threat to the faith and to salvation. In 1179, the Third Lateran Council sanctioned force against heretics and granted indulgences to those who fought them. Yet, in southern France, Cathars were deeply embedded in Occitan society, and local elites were unwilling to act against heretical friends or kin.

In 1207, Pope Innocent III 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 attrocities against both Cathars and Catholics. Though the campaigns strengthened French influence, they failed to eliminate heresy. That was eventually achieved by mendicant friars, inquisitors and secular authorities.

A crusade in northern Germany targeted peasants accused of heresy for refusing to pay the tithe (church tax). Hungarian rulers led two failed crusades into Bosnia, allegedly home to a Cathar antipope. In contrast, the radical Apostolici in northern Italy were swiftly crushed by crusading forces.

Mongols

Mongols displaying the severed head of the Silesian prince Henry the Pious after the Battle of Legnica (from a mid-15th-century Legend of his mother St Hedwig)

Western Europeans first learned of the Mongol conquests during the Fifth Crusade. In 1206, Temüjin, a skilled military commander, was proclaimed Genghis Khan, uniting the Mongol tribes under a paramount ruler. Some tribes followed the Eastern Syrian (Nestorian) Church, which had split from mainstream Christianity in 431. Fragmentary reports of Mongol advances revived legends of Prester John, a mythical eastern Christian ruler seen as a potential ally against Islam.

The Mongols, however, believed in a divine mandate to conquer the world. Their invasion of eastern and central Europe in 1239–40 shocked Western Christendom. Pope Gregory IX called for a crusade, but the Mongols withdrew following the death of Ögedei Khan, Genghis's successor, in 1242. In 1258, Mongol forces sacked Baghdad and destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate. Seeking protection, Hethum I of Cilician Armenia and Bohemond VI of Antioch submitted to Hulegu, the Mongol il khan (ruler of the Middle East). The Ilkhanate's expansion ended in 1260 when Mamluk forced defeated Hulegu's army in Palestine.

Jews

Main article: History of the Jews and the Crusades

See also: Blood libel

Roman legislation under Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, and Augustine's theology shaped Western Christian views of Judaism. Constantine upheld Judaism's legality but imposed restrictions on its practicioners, while Augustine asserted that Jews were divinely preserved yet punished with dispersion for rejecting Jesus. Jewish migration to Western Europe coincided with the pre-crusade economic boom. Originating 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. As early as 1010, distorted reports of the Holy Sepulchre's destruction triggered antisemitic violence in some towns. Organised pogroms began in the Rhineland during the First Crusade, reportedly driven by vengeance for Christ's death 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 crusading 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.

Women

Main article: Women in the Crusades

Ida of Lorraine's farewell to her sons Godfrey of Bouillon and Baldwin of Boulogne departing for the First Crusade (a miniature from a 13th-century manuscript of the Roman d'Alexandre)

Women were involved in the movement from the outset. Though popes discouraged their participation, female servants always accompanied the armies. Washerwomen received special papal approval early on. Women needed permission from a father or husband to join a crusade, while men, from 1209, could go without their wives' consent. Occasionally, high-ranking women led troops or conducted key diplomatic negotiations. In the Baltic, female settlers helped defend towns and villages. Sex workers also followed the armies but were often expelled during purification efforts.

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 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; others were enslaved or forced into marriage.

High male mortality in the Crusader states meant women often inherited fiefs, though they were expected to marry. Some inherited thrones: between 1186 and 1228, 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.

Crusading and societies

Tyerman notes that crusading "paraded across society in recruitment, funding and social rituals of support". The movement was accompanied by processions, priestly blessings, charity, and artifacts. Coinciding with the so-called "Twelfth-Century Renaissance", it also inspired literary works.

Declaration and promotion

Crusades were typically proclaimed by the pope, the sole authority to grant crusade indulgences. Crusade bulls articulated the aims, urged participation and detailed spiritual and temporal rewards. They were read in all Catholic churches from Pope Alexander III's time. Pope Gregory IX authorised the Dominicans to preach Baltic crusades without further approval, a privilege later extended to the Franciscans and Teutonic clergy.

Excerpts from the papal bull proclaiming the Third Crusade (1187)

We have heard and tremble at the severity of the judgment that the Divine hand has executed over the land of Jerusalem. ... Because of some disagreement that came about in that country through human malice from diabolical instigation, Saladin entered that area with a great many armed men ..., and our side was overcome, the Lord's Cross was captured...

Pope Gregory VIII, Audita tremendi

Crusades were promoted by clerics. Papal legates addressed nobles at major assemblies, while early village and town preaching was unstructured. Pope Innocent III later cooperated propaganda through local committees, though subsequent popes preferred less formal methods. From the early 13th century, mendicant friars assumed responsibility for preaching. By the century's end, many used manuals by propagandists like Humbert of Romans. Crusade sermons often began with moral anecdotes.

Taking the cross

Crusaders took public vows, usually followed by a ceremony where a cloth or silk cross—typically red—was sewn onto their cloak. By "taking the cross", they pledged to follow Christ's call: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me". This reflected the 11th-century imitatio Christi ('imitation of Christ') movement. Pilgrim emblems like staff and pouch were often also distributed.

The cross had to be worn until return; premature removal was sanctioned by church authorities, with rare exceptions like illness, poverty, or incapacity. By the late 12th century, crusaders were widely known as crucesignati ('signed with the cross').

Privileges

Early secular privileges are poorly documented. According to a collection of canon law, crusaders and their goods were "under the Truce of God". Guibert of Nogent notes Pope Urban extended protection to crusaders and their households. In 1107, the canonist Ivo of Chartres still called this legal treatment "new". The First Lateran Council formalised it, protecting the crusaders' "houses and households", and ordering latae sententiae, or automatic, excommunication but enforcement was inconsistent. Pope Eugenius III also suspended lawsuits against crusaders and interest payment on their debts.

Finances

Pope Innocent III: by sanctioning the redemption of crusading vows for cash, he created a massive new source of income for crusading (a fresco in St. Benedict's Cave at the Subiaco Abbey, c. 1219)

The historian Simon Lloyd notes that crusading was "crippingly expensive". Though precise figures are lacking, estimates suggest a knight spent over four years' income. Aristocrats sold commodities—typically timber—or granted civic privileges for cash. While selling inherited estates was rare, lands were often mortgaged or pledged via vifgage, allowing creditors repayment from property income. Others secured funds through gifts or loans from kin or lords. In Iberia, parias (tributes from Muslim rulers) helped fund Christian forces.

From the mid-12th century, taxation became crucial. An extraordinary tax for Holy Land defence was introduced in France and England in 1166. The 1188 "Saladin tithe" imposed a ten percent levy on income and property, though compliance varied. In 1199, Pope Innocent III 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, Pope Innocent III 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-15th-century, indulgence sheets were mass-produced with blanks for beneficiaries' names.

Warfare and military architecture

See also: List of Crusader castles

Command during most crusades was divided and uncertain, with desertion common. Still, morale was often sustained by visions, processions, and relics. While raids and battles were familiar to both Middle Eastern and Western warfare, most crusaders lacked experience in urban sieges, typical of Levantine warfare. Crusaders generally avoided pitched battles where defeat risked catastrophic losses. Siege warfare used trebuchets, towers and battering rams; Muslim defenders employed Greek fire, countered by crusaders with vinegar-soaked hides. From the late 13th century, strategic planning for Holy Land campaigns distinguished between an initial campaign (passagium particulare) to secure a foothold and the full-scale passagium generale.

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 Turcopoles, 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 transport to the Levant came mainly from Italian city-states and the Byzantines. Egypt maintained the sole Muslim fleet in the region, but its small vessels posed little threat to Western dominance. After Emperor Frederick I's failed overland expedition, major Levantine crusades travelled by sea. In the north, large Christian merchant ships, carrying up to 500 people, easily outmatched Baltic long-ships and raiding vessels.

Throughout conquered territories, castles served military and administrative functions. These merged Western and local designs. In the Levant, early Norman-style towers gave way to the local castra layout of walled courtyards. This evolved into concentric castles with layered defences. Spur castles on rocky hills, with towers and a keep, represent—according to Phillips—"the most spectacular examples of Frankish military architecture". In Iberia, over 2,000 castles were raised along frontiers. The Teutonic Knights first built timber blockhouses in the Baltic, but by c. 1250 swithced to stone, then brick for its availability and lower cost.

Military orders

Main article: Military order (religious society)

Late 13th-century fresco from San Bevignate depicting the Templars battling Muslim warriors

Tyerman argues that the military orders were "crusading's most original contribution to the institutions of medieval Christendom". These religious communities followed monastic rules but were committed to armed defence of Christianity. The first emerged when the French knight Hugues de Payens and fellow knights pledged to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. Taking the monastic vows of chastity, poverty and obedience in 1119, they formed a confraternity. Official recognition came in 1120, and they became known as the Knights Templar after their headquarters in the former Al-Aqsa Mosque, associated with the Temple of Solomon.

Though unprecedented, the idea of warrior-monks aligned with chivalric and ecclesiastical ideals. By c. 1130, 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 militarised, 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 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. Clerics and scholars occasionally criticised the orders for greed, pride, or adopting non-Christian customs. After the Crusader states fell, criticism increased because many orders lost their justification for existence. The Templars, 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, shifting focus to naval defence in the Mediterranean. The Teutonic Knights endured under Habsburg leadership in Germany despite pressures by the Reformation. In Iberia, the military orders gradually secularised, aligning with the crown of Spain and Portugal and receiving papal exemption from monastic obligations.

New states

Crusader states and Cyprus

Main articles: Crusader states and Kingdom of Cyprus

The four Crusader states secured Catholic rule in the Holy Land, sustained by Western military and financial aid. Edessa, the earliest and weakest, fell after a failed alliance with Zengi's Muslim rivals, the Artuqids. Internal strife undermined Jerusalem, leaving it vulnerable to Saladin's conquest, though the Third Crusade regained much of the coast. Antioch and Tripoli entered personal union after a succession war. After Frederick II's crusade, absentee monarchs left Jerusalem under regents, sometimes chosen by their opponents. By the Mamluk advance, the Frankish East had fragmented into competing lordships and communes.

Cyprus, a day's sail from Syria, was a vital crusading base and refuge. From 1269, its kings claimed Jerusalem, though the Sicilian Angevins contested this from 1277. The Black Death and shifting trade routes led to decline c. 1350. A Cypriot crusade on Alexandria provoked Genoese reprisals, leading to the sack of Cyprus's main port, Famagusta. After the Lusignan line ended in 1474, the island passed to Venice, but fell to the Ottomans in 1570–71.

Frankish Greece

Main article: Frankokratia

Months before Constantinople's sack, the leaders of the Fourth Crusade agreed to partition the Byzantine Empire: an elected emperor would receive a quarter, the rest going to other Frankish leaders and Venice. More stable than the Crusader states, Frankish Greece attracted more Western settlers. Demand for wheat, olive oil and silk enriched the lords of the Peloponnese, turning the court of the Villehardouin princes of Achaea into a center of chivalric life. Achaea survived the Byzantine revival under Angevin protection until the Despotate of the Morea annexed it in 1430. Achaea's former vassal, the Duchy of Athens was first seized by mutinous Catalan mercenaries, later by the Acciaioli, a Florentine banking dynasty, but fell to the Ottomans in 1460. Despite Ottoman pressure, Venice retained parts of its overseas empire into the 18th century.

Order states

Main articles: State of the Teutonic Order, Hospitaller Rhodes, and Hospitaller Malta

The Teutonic Order was granted Kulmerland in Prussia by a Polish duke in the 1220s, soon gaining autonomy over future conquests. In 1237, it absorbed Livonia through merger with the Sword Brothers. After the Crusader states fell, the Order focused on the Baltic, attracting German settlers with land and privileges. After Tannenberg, Polish incursions and internal strife weakened its control, and by 1438, Livonia acted independently. Prussia became a Protestant duchy in 1525, Livonia in 1561.

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 Suleiman II in 1522. In 1530, Emperor Charles V granted the Hospitallers the islands of Malta and Gozo. They withstood the 1565 Great Siege of Malta, losing the islands only to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798.

Criticism

Main article: Criticism of crusading

Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses against indulgences (1517)

Opponents of the Gregorian Reform, such as Sigebert of Gembloux, condemned penitential warfare, but their voice lost in the euphoria following the First Crusade. The concept was equally alien to Byzantines; Anna Komnene openly scorned the crusades and their participants. Mainstream Catholic criticism targeted specific aspects, such as the risks posed by crusaders' absences. The rise of military orders also drew objections from those who viewed monasticism as incompatible with knighthood. Millenarian thinkers like Joachim of Fiore saw the crusades as transient, predicting the Muslims' voluntarily conversion.

As the crusades spread geographically, criticism intensified, especially over campaigns against Christians for diverting focus from the Holy Land. Some Occitan troubadours even equated anti-heretic crusaders with Muslim foes. The Levantine crusades' failure prompted the chronicler Salimbene di Adam to conclude they lacked divine support. In 1274, the Dominican friar Humbert of Romans produced a full rebuttal to anti-crusade critics. Driven by despair, the troubadour Austorc d'Aorlhac and the Templar Ricaut Bonomel approached apostasy in their lyrics.

From the Reformation, anti-Catholic theologians attacked crusading. Martin Luther denounced indulgences and papal authority, and urged the Teutonic Knights to marry. 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 criticised indulgence preaching and clerical involvement in warfare, but supported a secular offensive against the Ottomans.

Architecture

Ruins of the walled courtyard of the Catholic Bellapais Abbey in Cyprus

The destruction of Christian shrines by the Turkomans featured prominently in Pope Urban's speech at Clermont. After capturing Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Nazareth—three of Christendom's holiest sites—the Franks launched ambitious construction programs. The archaeologist Denys Pringle observes that a "coherent and distinctive" architectural style emerged, shaped by the abundance of stone, scarcity of timber, and preference for flat-roofed designs. 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. Gothic features also appeared in Epirus. In the Baltic, public buildings reflected Western styles, characterised by simplicity and precision.

Arts

Ivory front cover of the Melisende Psalter

In the three northern Crusader states, figurative art survives almost solely on coinage, while Jerusalem left a much richer artistic legacy. These artefacts reveal significant Byzantine influence, although the earliest surviving decorations exhibit Western stylistic features. By the mid-12th century, both the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the Nativity were decorated with mosaics. Western artists working on illuminated manuscripts in Jerusalem also embraced Byzantine aesthetics. The finest example is the Melisende Psalter, commissioned by King Fulk for Queen Melisende c. 1135. Jotischky describes Frankish sponsorship of icons as perhaps the clearest sign of "Byzantine tastes in crusader arts", with surviving works primarily housed in Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai and in Cyprus.

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 the Great 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.

Literature

Further information: Crusade song

The movement inspired what the historian Elizabeth Lapina calls "an unusually large and varied body" of narrative sources. Early accounts of the First Crusade revived the tradition of comprehensive military history last seen in antiquity. The Deeds of the Franks, completed by 1104, became the basis for later accounts by Raymond of Aguilers, Fulcher of Chartres, and Robert of Rheims. These pro-papal writers portrayed Pope Urban as the key instigator, while the German chronicler Albert of Aachen credited Peter the Hermit.

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. While 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 blended prose and verse in the hybrid prosimetra 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 sympathised with Christianised natives, while the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle glorified crusader brutality.

Excerpt from the Prologue to the Song of Antioch

Christians should take the sign of the Cross for His sake and seek revenge on the descendants of Antichrist. Our Lord asks you to go to Jerusalem to kill and confound the wicked pagans who refuse to believe in God and adore His works or pay heed to His commandments.

Anonymous, Song of Antioch

A page from a manuscript of the Song of My Cid

Text of the page from the Song of My Cid

Robert of Rheims's chronicle inspired verses in the Song of Antioch, a French epic poem recounting Antioch's siege. This work launched a semi-historical cycle of crusade epics. Only 179 vernacular songs survive, mostly in Occitan, using traditional forms like sirventes, pastorellas, and planhs. The literary scholar Linda Paterson highlights the Occitan Marcabru's praise of the Iberian crusades as especially powerful. Most French and Occitan songs date to the Third Crusade. In Iberia, the Song of My Cid recounts the exploits of the Castilian noble Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar.

Though medieval Muslim scholars never treated the crusades as a distinct subject, Muslim poets like Ibn al-Khayyat warned of the "polytheists" threat. Only two Muslim texts record daily contact with Franks: the aristocrat Usama ibn Munqidh's memoir and Ibn Jubayr's pilgrimage account. Some Arabic epics—such as the tale of the warrior woman Dhat al-Himma—also reference the crusades.

After the First Crusade, Byzantine writers increasingly treated Western Europeans as a single group, using terms like Latini. 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 marriage of the Byzantine princess Theodora to the crusader Henry Jasomirgott also drew hostile poetry, with her mother, Eirene calling her son-in-law as 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. Laments commemorating the pogroms entered the Ninth of Av liturgy c. 1200. Jewish pilgrims such as Benjamin of Tudela recorded their journey in travelogues, while an unknown Jew from France who settled in the Holy Land in 1211 wrote a treatise urging others to reclaim it for Judaism.

Legacy and modern perceptions

Scholars disagree on how the movement shaped relations among Western, Islamic, and Orthodox cultures. Though the campaigns caused suffering and deepened religious tensions, their violence was typical for the era. The Crusades' impact on intercultural exchange remains uncertain, as trade and other factors also spread ideas and technologies. The sack of Constantinople severely damaged Catholic–Orthodox relations, hindering cooperation against the Ottomans. Few existing institutions, mostly Catholic or Protestant offshoots of former military orders, trace their origins to the crusading period. The idea of Christian violence as an act of love persists in some interpretations, such as Liberation theology.

The movement extended Western Christendom's frontiers in Iberia and the Baltic, promoting Catholic settlement and liturgical unity. It also gave rise to national heroes and symbols, such as Denmark's flag, the Dannebrog. Though the Crusades failed to halt Ottoman expansion, they delayed it; a final Ottoman push into Central Europe was repelled by a crusading force. Into the 20th century, France and Britain invoked the Crusades to justify ambitions in the Middle East. Today, they often symbolise a long-standing civilisational conflict. After 9/11, President George W. Bush controversially called the war on terror a crusade. Muslim fundamentalists often label both Christian and Muslim adversaries as "crusaders", while terms like "neo-Crusades" appear in popular discussions about Western or Russian military presence in the Middle East. Anti-Zionists frequently draw parallels between the Crusader states and modern Israel.

Across Western Europe, statutes, frescoes, and stained glass commemorated the crusades. Crusaders often donated relics to local churches. During the Romantic period, medieval crusading literature inspired artists, as seen in the 1830s decoration of five Versailles rooms with 120 paintings. 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. For over two centuries, Polish–Teutonic conflicts have inspired Polish artists and filmmakers.

Historiography

Main article: Historiography of the Crusades

See also: List of sources for the Crusades

Title page of the third edition of The Historie of the Holy Warre by Thomas Fuller (1647)

Western Crusade historiography's first phase began with early First Crusade accounts and continued until c. 1600, amid ongoing Muslim–Christian conflict. Medieval Catholic historians interpreted the Crusades through an irredentist lens, framing them as efforts to reclaim Christian territory. A second phase began in 1611 with Jacques Bongars's publication of primary sources, later used by Thomas Fuller, who completed a general Crusade history in 1639. Scholarship reflected strong ideological leanings: Protestant writers like Fuller were critical, while Catholic historians such as the Jesuit Louis Maimbourg were more sympathetic. Over time, terminology shifted—by the 18th century, neutral terms like Kreuzzug, croisade, and crusade replaced earlier expressions like "holy war". Enlightenment thinkers grew increasingly critical, exemplified by Voltaire's reference to the "madness of the crusades" (1751).

The third phase, beginning c. 1800, 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). Current scholarly debates focus on defining crusades, assessing participants' motives, and interpreting the movement through colonial or integrative models. Recent critiques also challenge earlier Eurocentric narratives.

Muslim historiography largely overlooked the topic until 1899, when the Egyptian Sayyid ʿAli al-Ḥarīrī wrote the first Arabic account. Today, the al-hurub al-salibyya ('wars of the cross') are central to education in Egypt and Jordan—though 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 stavrósforía ('bearing of the cross') within Byzantine history, while Greek Cypriot scholars emphasise 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.

See also

• History of Christianity
• Religious violence
• Christianity and violence

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Further reading

• Boas, Adrian J., ed. (2016). The Crusader World. The Routledge Worlds. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-82494-1.
• Horowitz, Michael C. (2009). "Long Time Going:Religion and the Duration of Crusading". International Security. 34 (27). MIT Press: 162–193. doi:10.1162/isec.2009.34.2.162. JSTOR 40389216. S2CID 57564747. Archived from the original on 2022-08-16. Retrieved 2022-08-16.
• Maier, C. (2000). Crusade Propaganda and Ideology: Model Sermons for the Preaching of the Cross. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511496554. ISBN 978-0-521-59061-7.
• Nicholson, Helen J, ed. (2005). Palgrave Advances in the Crusades. Palgrave Advances. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-1237-4.
• Polk, William R. (2018). Crusade and Jihad: The Thousand-Year War Between the Muslim World and the Global North. The Henry L. Stimson Lectures Series. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-3002-2290-6.
• Riley-Smith, Jonathan (2001). "The crusading movement". In Hartmann, Anja V.; Hauser, Beatrice (eds.). War, Peace and World Orders in European History. Routledge. pp. 127–140. ISBN 978-0-415-24440-4.
• Tuck, Richard (1999). The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820753-5.
• Tyerman, Christopher (1995). "Were There Any Crusades in the Twelfth Century?". The English Historical Review. 110 (437). Oxford University Press: 553–577. doi:10.1093/ehr/CX.437.553. JSTOR 578335.