.
The Jewish connection to Jerusalem is an ancient and powerful one. Jerusalem appears in the Jewish Bible 669 times and Zion 154 times. All over the world Christians sing the hymn Jerusalem. However in Islam Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Qur'an a single time, it is not once mentioned in prayers, it is not the place to which they pray, it never served as capital of a sovereign Muslim state, and it never became a cultural or scholarly centre. Yet pursuing Muslim expansionism that led to the Crusades, the Muslim army of Omar conquered Jerusalem, in 638. There they built the Dome of the Rock, followed by the al-Aqsa mosque nearby. Today that expansionism continues, Muslims are taking over the birthright of the Jews, much of the ancient city Jerusalem is being destroyed by Muslim building works and the Jews feel threatened and are distraught by the devastation around them.
It was this same Muslim expansionism that led the Crusaders to the Holy Land and Jerusalem. Their first objective was to ensure the safety of pilgrims visiting the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem and to establish Christian rule in Palestine which had always been the home of Jews and Christians alike. To do this it was necessary to check the spread of Islam, to retake control of the Holy Land, to conquer pagan areas, to quell heretical Christians in Europe itself and to recapture former Christian territories. The European nations joined forces to achieve these aims against the Muslims.
Previously the mild rule of the early Saracens had for centuries allowed a Christian protectorate, first established under Charlemagne, to exist in Jerusalem, and many monarchs, including our own Alfred, sent offerings to the holy places. But this was ended in 1010 by the fanatical caliph, Hakim, who destroyed the sanctuary. The protectorate passed in 1021 to the Greek Church and in 1071 the Saracens were themselves overcome by a rougher tribe, the Seljukian Turks.
Christian pilgrimage became difficult and dangerous, and in 1095 the appeals of Pope Urban II., seconded by the preaching of Peter the Hermit, led to the undertaking of an enterprise which in various forms had already been proposed by more than one pontiff. The turbulent warriors of Europe received a new impulse. Instead of being restrained by the Church with peaceful admonitions, as in the institution of the Truce of God, their warlike ardour was encouraged, organised, and dedicated to what was proclaimed to be the highest and holiest service. The Deus vult of Clermont found its echo in the hearts of princes and commoners alike. In 1095 several undisciplined hosts including those of Walter the Penniless I and Peter the Hermit, set out for the East but perished on the way.
In 1096-97 a great army under Godfrey de Bouillon, Bohemund of Otranto, and other leaders, concentrating on Constantinople, fought its way through Asia Minor, taking Antioch in 1098, and Jerusalem in 1099. A Christian kingdom was established with Godfrey as its first head, his brother Baldwin as prince of Edessa (Upper Mesopotamia), and Bohemund ruling at Antioch. Godfrey died in 1100 and was succeeded by Baldwin; Bohemund was captured by the enemy, and a great French expedition sent for the relief of Antioch was almost entirely destroyed. During the next half-century, in spite of reinforcements, including fleets from Genoa, Norway, and Venice, the Christians in Syria were hard-pressed. To assist in the defence of Jerusalem were formed the orders of Hospitallers of St. John, (St John Ambulance) and Knights Templars, afterwards so widely renowned.
In 1144 Edessa was lost, and the second crusade, under Louis VII. of France and Conrad III. of Germany, ended disastrously, and its failure for a time discouraged European effort, while the Moslem pressure increased on all sides.
In 1184-85 the monarchy of the city of Jerusalem was offered to the kings of France and England in turn, to induce them to come to the rescue, but nothing was done in either country beyond the levying of a special yearly tax (which is said to have been the precursor of our modern system of taxation). Two years later the great Saladin, sultan of Egypt, who had long been maturing his plans, having captured Damascus in 1174 and Aleppo in 1183, now swept down through Galilee with an immense force, defeated the Christians at Tiberias and Hattin and took Jerusalem, Oct. 1187. The news was received in Europe with consternation and rage. Fresh Crusades were set on foot, of which the most important was that led by Philip of France, Frederick of Germany, and Richard I. of England.
The Germans went through Asia Minor, losing their emperor on the way by drowning; the French and English journeyed by sea to Acre, which had already been besieged nearly two years by Guy de Lusignan. Richard I distinguished himself in the capture of the city, but quarrelled with his allies, who left him to carry on the war alone. After a year of brilliant but useless exploits, he made a truce with Saladin, and returned to Europe.
Another crusade, starting from Venice in 1202, became involved in Venetian and Byzantine intrigues, and instead of reaching Jerusalem assisted the deposed Isaac Angelus to regain the Greek throne; a few months later Constantinople was stormed by the Crusaders, and a Latin empire established under Baldwin of Flanders, 1204.
In 1212 occurred the strangest and most pathetic events of the day. A ‘children's crusade,' was started by a French boy named Etienne, near Venddme, who, announcing that he had a divine mission, was joined as he went southward by 30,000 other children. They embarked at Marseilles; two of their vessels foundered near Sardinia, the rest reached Alexandria, where the children were seized and sold as slaves, few of them ever regaining their liberty.
At about The same time another boy named Nicholas, in Germany, led a similar expedition into Italy, but this did not end so miserably. Some died by the way, but many returned home, and others found service in Itallian town and villages. The fact of parents allowing their children to take part in such enterprises shows, perhaps, more plainly than anything else, the ignorant credulity and fanaticism of those days. A crusade under Andrew of Hungary and others (1217-21) against the Moslem power in Egypt was a failure, but that of Frederick II., undertaken in 1228 while he was under the ban of the pope, was successful. By diplomacy, not fighting, he regained Jerusalem and the south of Palestine, which remained in Christian hands until 1244, when it was finally lost.
The seventh crusade, led by Louis IX. of France (St. Louis), in 1248, was like that of 1217 directed against Egypt, and proved even more disastrous. Louis, with the greater part of his army, was captured, and had to pay 800,000 pieces of gold as a ransom. Even after this, in 1270, he headed another crusade, but died at Tunis. Among those who joined this expedition was Prince Edward of England (afterwards Edward I.), who a few months later led his own followers to Acre, but achieved no results. He was the last royal crusader, except Peter of Cyprus, who in 1365-67 carried on a holy war in Egypt and Syria, but was assassinated. Even when Constantinople was captured by Mohammed II in 1453 Pius II. failed in trying to raise a crusade for its recovery. The Templars were suppressed, but the Hospitallers, at Rhodes and afterwards Malta, long continued to be a bulwark against Turkish advance in the Mediterranean.
Though the Crusades failed in effecting the objects for which they were intended, they indirectly worked great and unforeseen benefits for Christendom. While princely adventurers and their turbulent followers left Europe to seek for fame and conquest in the East astute monarchs were establishing the reign of law in the West. The Church, by preaching a theocratic movement which was unsuccessful, injured its own prestige, and, what is more, by the increased knowledge and breadth of view introduced by intercourse with another and in some respects a higher civilisation, a perceptible advance was made in Europe towards that freedom of thought which led in after years to the revolt against papal authority. The Templars themselves were accused of latitudinarianism and heresy. Trade was greatly stimulated; the merchants and mariners of the Mediterranean, especially of Venice and Genoa, found the demand for the shipping increased manifold, for the transport of armies and the bringing of new and rare commodities from the East.
European craftsmen and soldiers learned valuable lessons from Saracen skill in art and in war. Sugar, cotton, and many other articles now of everyday use first became known in Europe through the Crusades. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries rumours of a mysterious Christian potentate in Central Asia, Prester John, led to the sending of various missions, first in search of him as a possible ally and afterwards to attempt the conversion of the Mongols. Prester John was not found, nor the Mongols converted, but the missionary journeys of Carpini in 1245, and Rubruquis in 1252, and the trading journeys of Nicolo Polo and his son Marco, gave European geographers their first real knowledge of central Asia. Up to that time the wildest legends, such as those of Sir John Mandeville, had passed as truth.
The bibliography of the Crusades both as to contemporary records and modern compilations, is very extensive. See E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776-88; T. Archer and C. H. Kingsford, The Crusades, 1894; S. Lane-Poole, Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1898; Villehardouin and De Joinville, Memoirs of the Crusades (Everyman's Library), 1908; E. Barker, The Crusades, 1923; C. Erdmann, Die Entstehung des Kreuzzuggedankens, 1935; H. Belloc, The Crusade, 1937; P. Rousset, Les Origines et les caracteres de la premiere croisade, 1946; and Sir W. Scott's novel, The Talisman, 1825.
.
