https://youtu.be/J64ZPi1vyyw Persian Blues · André Manoukian Apatride ℗ MadChaman
The Crusades were a series of religious wars launched by Western European Christians between the 11th and 13th centuries, primarily aimed at reclaiming control of the Holy Land (Jerusalem and surrounding areas) from Muslim rule, often justified by the Pope as a “holy war” to defend Christian holy sites; these military expeditions involved large-scale campaigns across the Mediterranean, marked by significant violence and cross-cultural encounters.
https://youtu.be/7jXsPUB-Qf0?list=RD7jXsPUB-Qf0The Crusaders – Mystique Blueshttps://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/187476https://www.britannica.com/event/Crusadeshttps://www.foreignexchanges.news/p/today-in-middle-eastern-history-the-0e8https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/crusades-complete-historyThe drawbridge has been raised, but the Muslim troops have made another bridge on the right. Soldiers with wooden shields rush the wall. In the upper right corner a mine is being dug. In the lower right Tamerlane, in red, is on horseback. Smyrna had been captured from the Turks by the Knights of St. John (the Hospitallers) in 1344, and since then had resisted a number of Ottoman assaults. The siege only lasted for fifteen days. During that time Tamerlane’s men blocked the harbour entrance with stones, preventing any more reinforcements from arriving, while the walls were pounded by siege engines and undermined. Finally, in December 1402 the city fell to an assault. As was almost always the case when he took a city by storm, Tamerlane ordered a massacre of the population and destroyed the fortifications. Timur (1336-1405), historically known as Tamerlane, was a Turk who conquered West, South and Central Asia, and the founder of the Timurid dynasty. Timur envisioned the restoration of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan. He was also a devout Muslim and referred to himself as the Sword of Islam. His armies were multi-ethnic and multicultural, ferocious and feared throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe. Timur is regarded as a military genius and a tactician whose prowess made him one of the world’s great conquerors. He was also a great patron of art and architecture. Timur died during an uncharacteristic winter campaign against the ruling Chinese Ming Dynasty in 1405 at the age of 68. Crusades, Military expeditions, beginning in the late 11th century, that were organized by Western Christians in response to centuries of Muslim wars of expansion.
The objectives of the Crusades were to check the spread of Islam, to retake control of the Holy Land, to conquer pagan areas, and to recapture formerly Christian territories. The Crusades were seen by many of their participants as a means of redemption and expiation for sins.
Between 1095, when the First Crusade was launched by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, and 1291, when the Latin Christians were finally expelled from their kingdom in Syria, there were numerous expeditions to the Holy Land, to Spain, and even to the Baltic; the Crusades continued for several centuries after 1291, usually as military campaigns intended to halt or slow the advance of Muslim power or to conquer pagan areas.
The Crusaders initially enjoyed success, founding a Christian state in Palestine and Syria, but the continued growth of Islamic states ultimately reversed those gains. By the 14th century the Ottoman Turks had established themselves in the Balkans and would penetrate deeper into Europe despite repeated efforts to repulse them.
Crusades were also called against heretics (the Albigensian Crusade, 1209–29) and various rivals of the popes, and the Fourth Crusade (1202–04) was diverted against the Byzantine Empire. Crusading declined rapidly during the 16th century with the advent of the Protestant Reformation and the decline of papal authority.
Hospitallers; Crusades
Capture of the fortress of the Hospitallers at Smyrna, miniature from a Ẓafar-nāmeh (a life of Timur) by Behzād, c. 1490, from Herāt, Afghanistan; in the John Work Garrett Library, Johns Hopkins University.
The Crusades constitute a controversial chapter in the history of Christianity, and their excesses have been the subject of centuries of historiography. Historians have also concentrated on the role the Crusades played in the expansion of medieval Europe and its institutions, and the notion of “crusading” has been transformed from a religio-military campaign into a modern metaphor for zealous and demanding struggles to advance the good (“crusades for”) and to oppose perceived evil (“crusades against”).
https://www.britannica.com/summary/Crusades
The Last Crusade
In 1291, one of the only remaining Crusader cities, Acre, fell to the Muslim Mamluks. Many historians believe this defeat marked the end of the Crusader States and the Crusades themselves.
Though the Church organized minor Crusades with limited goals after 1291—mainly military campaigns aimed at pushing Muslims from conquered territory, or conquering pagan regions—support for such efforts diminished in the 16th century, with the rise of the Reformation and the corresponding decline of papal authority.
Effects of the Crusades
While the Crusades ultimately resulted in defeat for Europeans and a Muslim victory, many argue that they successfully extended the reach of Christianity and Western civilization. The Roman Catholic Church experienced an increase in wealth, and the power of the Pope was elevated during the Crusades.
Trade and transportation also improved throughout Europe as a result of the Crusades. The wars created a constant demand for supplies and transportation, which resulted in shipbuilding and the manufacturing of various supplies.
After the Crusades, there was a heightened interest in travel and learning throughout Europe, which some historians believe may have paved the way for the Renaissance.
Among followers of Islam, however, the Crusaders were regarded as immoral, bloody and savage. The ruthless and widespread massacre of Muslims, Jews and other non-Christians resulted in bitter resentment that persisted for many years. Even today, some Muslims derisively refer to the West’s involvement in the Middle East as a “crusade.”
There’s no question that the years of warfare and conflict brought by the Crusades had an impact on Middle East and Western European nations for many years, and they still influence political and cultural views held today.
Sources
Timeline for the Crusades and Christian Holy War to c.1350: United States Naval Academy.
The Crusades: A Complete History: History Today.
The Crusades: LordsAndLadies.org.
Crusades: New Advent.
What Were the Crusades and How Did They Impact Jerusalem?: Bible History Daily.
By: History.com Editors
https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/crusades
HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and informative content. All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. Articles with the “HISTORY.com Editors” byline have been written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan, Matt Mullen and Christian Zapata.
The impact of the crusades
by Dr. Susanna Throop
Wall plaque, Ascalon, mid-twelfth to mid-thirteenth century. The Arabic inscription commemorates the wall built as defense against crusaders. The arms of Sir Hugh Wake (Lincoln, England) were later carved over that, confirming the 1241 crusader reconquest of the city (Israel Museum, Jerusalem; photo: Google Arts & Culture)
Wall plaque, Ascalon, mid-twelfth to mid-thirteenth century. The Arabic inscription commemorates the wall built as defense against crusaders. The arms of Sir Hugh Wake (Lincoln, England) were later carved over that, confirming the 1241 crusader reconquest of the city (Israel Museum, Jerusalem; photo: Google Arts & Culture)
It is hard to summarize the impact of a movement that spanned centuries and continents, crossed social lines, and affected all levels of culture. However, there are a few central effects that can be highlighted.
Military orders
First, the earliest military orders originated in Jerusalem in the wake of the First Crusade. A miltary order is a religious order in which members take traditional monastic vows—communal poverty, chastity, and obedience—but also commit to violence on behalf of the Christian faith. Well-known examples include the Knights Templar (officially endorsed in 1129), the Knights Hospitaller (confirmed by papal bull in 1113), and the Teutonic Knights (originated in the late twelfth century).
The military orders represented a major theological and military development, and went on to play central roles in the formation of key political units that still exist today as nation-states.
Fall of Jerusalem, from William of Tyre, History of Outremer, c. 1350, MS. French 352, fol. 62r, Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris)
Fall of Jerusalem, from William of Tyre, History of Outremer, c. 1350, MS. French 352, fol. 62r, Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris)
Territorial expansion
Second, crusading played a major role in European territorial expansion. The First Crusade resulted in the formation of the crusader states in the Levant (the eastern Mediterranean), which were initially governed, and in small part populated, by settlers from Europe.
Crusading in northern and eastern Europe led to the expansion of kingdoms like Denmark and Sweden, as well as the creation of brand-new political units, for example in Prussia. As areas around the Baltic Sea were taken by the crusaders, traders and settlers—mostly German—moved in and profited economically.
In the Mediterranean Sea, crusading led to the conquest and colonization of many islands, which arguably helped ensure Christian control of Mediterranean trade routes (at least for as long as the islands were held). Crusading also played a role in the conquest of the Iberian peninsula (now Spain and Portugal). This was finally completed in 1492, when the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I conquered the last Muslim community on the peninsula—the city of Granada. They expelled Jews from the country in the same year. And of course, they also authorized and supported the expeditions of Christopher Columbus, who—like many European explorers of his day—believed that the expansion of the Christian faith was one of his duties.
Tympanum above the south door of St. George’s Church, Fordington, Dorset, early 12th century (photo: Michael Day, CC BY-NC 2.0)
Tympanum above the south door of St. George’s Church, Fordington, Dorset, early 12th century (photo: Michael Day, CC BY-NC 2.0)
Impact in Europe (religious and secular)
Third, the crusading movement impacted internal European development in a few important ways. The movement helped both to militarize the medieval western Church and to sustain criticism of that militarization. It arguably helped solidify the pope’s control over the Church and made certain financial innovations central to Church operations. And it both reflected and influenced devotional trends. For example, while there was some dedication to St. George from the early Middle Ages, the intensity of that devotion soared in Europe after he reportedly intervened miraculously at the Battle of Antioch in 1098, during the First Crusade.
Secular political theories were influenced by crusading, especially in France and the Iberian peninsula, and government institutions evolved in part to meet the logistical needs of crusading. Credit infrastructures within Europe rose to meet similar needs, and some locales—Venice, in particular—benefitted significantly in economic terms.
It goes without saying that the crusades also had a highly negative effect on interfaith relations.
Impact world-wide
Fourth, the crusading movement has left an imprint on the world as a whole. For example, many of the national flags of Europe incorporate a cross. In addition, many images of crusaders in our popular culture are indebted to the nineteenth century. Some in that century, like the novelist Sir Walter Scott, portrayed crusaders as brave and glamorous yet backward and unenlightened; simultaneously, they depicted Muslims as heroic, intelligent, and liberal. Others more wholeheartedly romanticized crusading.
George Inness, Classical Landscape (March of the Crusaders), 1850, oil on canvas (Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, Massachusetts)
George Inness, Classical Landscape (March of the Crusaders), 1850, oil on canvas (Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, Massachusetts)
These trends in nineteenth-century European culture impacted the Islamic world. Sometimes this influence was quite direct. In 1898 German Emperor Wilhelm II visited the grave of Saladin (Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb, a Muslim leader who led the recapture of Jerusalem in 1187) and was appalled at its state of disrepair. He paid to have it rebuilt, thus helping encourage modern Islamic appreciation of Saladin.
Kaiser Wilhelm II, visit to Jerusalem, 1898 (Library of Congress)
Kaiser Wilhelm II, visit to Jerusalem, 1898 (Library of Congress)
Sometimes the European influence was more diffuse. Modern crusading histories in the Islamic world began to be written in the 1890s, when the Ottoman Empire was in crisis. After the Ottomans, some Arab Nationalists interpreted nineteenth-century imperialism as crusading, and thus linked their efforts to end imperial rule with the efforts of Muslims to resist crusading in previous centuries.
It would be reassuring to believe that nobody in the West has provided grounds for such beliefs, but it would not be true. Sadly, the effects of the crusading movement—at least, as it is now remembered and reimagined—seem to be still unfolding.
It’s often said that winners dictate history. Not so for the medieval holy wars called the Crusades.
Muslim forces ultimately expelled the European Christians who invaded the eastern Mediterranean repeatedly in the 12th and 13th centuries—and thwarted their effort to regain control of sacred Holy Land sites such as Jerusalem. Still, most histories of the Crusades offer a largely one-sided view, drawn originally from European medieval chronicles, then filtered through 18th and 19th-century Western scholars.
But how did Muslims at the time view the invasions? (Not always so contentiously, it turns out.) And what did they think of the European interlopers? (One common cliché: “unwashed barbarians.”) For a nuanced view of the medieval Muslim world, HISTORY talked with two prominent scholars: Paul M. Cobb, professor of Islamic History at the University of Pennsylvania, author of Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades, and Suleiman A. Mourad, a professor of religion at Smith College and author of The Mosaic of Islam.
HISTORY: Broadly speaking, how do Islamic perspectives on the Crusades differ from those of the Christian sources from Western Europe?
Suleiman Mourad: If we wrote the history of the Crusades based on Islamic narratives, it would be a completely different story altogether. There were no doubt wars and bloodshed, but that wasn’t the only or dominant story. There was also coexistence, political compromise, trade, scientific exchange, love. We have poetry and chronicles with evidence of mixed marriages.
Do Muslim perspectives match Western ones in terms of chronology and geography?
Paul Cobb: Chronologically, Muslim sources differ from the Christians because they don’t recognize the Crusades. They recognize the events we call the Crusades today simply as another wave of Frankish aggression on the Muslim world. (I use “Franks” or “Frankish” to refer to western Christians.) For them, the Crusades didn’t begin in Clermont with Pope Urban’s 1095 speech [rallying crusaders], as most historians say, but rather decades earlier. By 1060 Christians were not only nibbling at the edges of the Islamic world, but were actually gaining territory in Sicily and Spain. And whereas most Western historians recognize the 1291 fall of Acre as the end of the main Crusades, Muslim historians don’t see the end of the Frankish threat until, I would say, the mid-15th century, when Ottoman armies conquer Constantinople.
SM: To say the Crusades started in Clermont in 1095 and ended at Acre in 1291, we are fooling ourselves. History is not that clean cut. What came before and after reflected a lot of continuity and not abrupt change.
And geographically?
PC: Muslims saw the Frankish threat as Mediterranean-wide. It’s not just Franks invading Jerusalem, holding it 87 years and leaving, but a long-term and consistent assault on the most exposed areas of the Mediterranean edge of Muslim world—Spain, Sicily, North Africa, and what is now Turkey—over hundreds of years.
As the Crusades began, what were the physical boundaries of the Islamic world?
PC: The Islamic world—that is, those lands that recognized Muslim rulers and the authority of Islamic Law—was much bigger than the land of the Latin Christian west. It stretched from Spain and Portugal in the west to India in the east. And from central Asia in the north to Sudan and the horn of Africa in the south.
Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images
Portrait of Saladin, the first sultan of Egypt and Syria and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. While Saladin led Muslim opposition to the western Crusaders, he also befriended some, like King Baldwin III of Jerusalem.
At that time, the core of the Islamic world was divided between a Shi’ite dynasty in Egypt and a Sunni dynasty in Syria and Iraq. But there was eventually a movement toward unification, right?
PC: Saladin, Islam’s most famous counter-crusading hero, was a very astute politician who knew he had to get his own house in order before he could deal with the Franks. He took over Egypt, then set about reconquering Syria and parts of Iraq. He would go on to ultimately recapture Jerusalem from the crusaders and push them back to a thin strip along the Mediterranean.
Tell me about medieval Islamic civilization. Wasn’t there a flowering in the 9th and 10th centuries?
SM: Actually, Islam’s “golden age” goes much longer, from the 9th to the 14th centuries—and it moves around, from Baghdad to Damascus to Cairo. Within that time, there were golden ages of mathematics and astronomy and medicine, with many advances. One example: A physician named Ibm al-Nafis, who lived in the 13th century in Cairo, was the first person to describe the pulmonary circulation of blood—four centuries before the Europeans discovered that.
The main accomplishment was when, on a large scale, Muslims began to creatively engage with the science and philosophy of the classical Greco-Roman-Byzantine tradition—and began to rethink those ideas. For pretty much the whole apparatus of science, mathematics and logic, Muslim scholars, along with others based in the Muslim world, provided corrections to the Greco-Roman tradition.
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How would you compare European and Islamic civilizations during this time?
PC: The Islamic world was much bigger and more urbanized, with more wealth and cultural patronage, and more ethnic and linguistic diversity. Whereas the cities of western Christendom had populations measured in the thousands—Paris and London would have had maybe 20,000 each—Baghdad likely had hundreds of thousands of citizens.
So we’re talking about an invasion of peoples from a marginal, underdeveloped region of the world to one of the most urbanized, culturally sophisticated zones on the planet. That accounts for the sense of trauma from the Muslim side. How could people from the edge of the known world invade this divinely protected, culturally sophisticated and militarily triumphant region?
There was a lot of soul searching on the part of the Muslims.
Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images
Saladin’s forces recapture Jerusalem from the crusaders, 1187.
If the crusaders’ mandate was to reclaim the Holy Land and regain control of important Christian sites like Jerusalem, what was the importance of this territory for the Islamic world?
PC: Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest cities after Mecca and Medina, was one of its most pious pilgrimage sites. Islamic tradition built on many Christian traditions and revered many of the same figures known from the Bible and elsewhere—including Jesus. So for them, Jerusalem was at the center of a vast sacred landscape that stretched to Palestine and Syria.
SM: There’s a lot of literature that enjoins Muslims to protect the Holy Land and safeguard it as an Islamic space. But many places—in Jerusalem, in Acre, Saidnaya and elsewhere—were claimed by more than one community. These were sacred sites for everyone, not just one group.
Wait. So they were actually sharing sacred sites that, in theory, they were supposed to be fighting over?
SM: Today we have a rigid understanding of sacred sites being for one group, and the others won’t—and shouldn’t—come near it. Back then, there was a more collective approach to sanctity of space. The Islamic theory said, “we should fight these people and protect the Holy Land.” But in practice, they were willing to share. We know for a fact that when the crusaders came, most Muslims did not raise a finger. And to a large extent, the crusaders didn’t interfere with Muslim religious space.
No sooner did the crusaders infiltrate, they were accepted into the political landscape as any others that came: with alliances, wars, treaties, commerce. We have letters from Saladin to the king of Jerusalem, Baldwin III, that convey friendship and deep alliances. The relationship wasn’t dogmatic, it was pragmatic.
What did medieval Muslims think of Europeans?
SM: The broad Muslim perception of Europeans was as cross-eyed barbarians. There were clichés that got repeated up until the 19th century—usually about their lack of cleanliness, the fact that they defecate in the street without any sense of privacy. There is a story about crusader medicine, that they blood-let in order to let the demons out. The people who knew the crusaders gave a much more refined understanding, but the positive narratives were not widely disseminated.
PC: Muslim travelers had a hierarchical world view. In the center was the Islamic world. On its margins, the people of Western Europe weren’t on the extreme edge, but were warming their hands on the fires of civilization. Europe was considered cold and dark and surrounded in mist. In ancient medieval ethnography, geography was destiny. It was believed the Franks were hairy, pale and from the dark and unwashed North. The medieval Islamic world’s view of the west is a mirror of today’s view of Islam by the west: exotic and distant, populated by a fanatical warlike population, slow to develop, economically backwards—with nice monuments and raw materials, but otherwise not much to recommend it.
What do specific accounts say?
PC: Most famously there was an Arabic author named Ibrahim Ibn Ya’qub, who traveled around Europe in the 10th century, and his work was quoted by others. He left first-hand accounts of France, Italy and Germany, among other places. We learn, for example, of lushness of the land in Bordeaux, feasting practices in Germany, even whaling practices near Ireland. For all these, he was pleased by the land, but appalled by the people he met. “They do not bathe except once or twice a year, with cold water,” he wrote. “They never wash their clothes, which they put on once for good until they fall into tatters.” What you have is a classic strategy by which one society “others” another society—much as Europeans did to Muslims.
SM: Those who lived with the crusaders at close range sometimes gave a subtler picture. A diplomat named Usama ibn Munqidh went to crusader territories and befriended the leaders. He writes about visiting a court, and being very impressed with it. He liked that it wasn’t fully autocratic.
Photo12/UIG/Getty Images
Jerusalem was one of the holiest places in the eastern Mediterranean—for Muslims, Christians and Jews alike.
What did Muslims think of Templar knights?
PC: They were aware of the Templars’ special status as elite holy warriors and considered them their most fearsome Frankish opponents. They also saw them as principled, fanatically loyal and unwaveringly fierce. It’s a backhanded compliment that after the battle of Hattin in 1187—the great defeat of the Franks at the hands of Saladin, who was usually magnanimous—he insisted the Templar prisoners be executed because they were seen as such a dire threat.
On the other side, Usama Ibn Munqidh tells the story of a Frank, recently arrived to the Holy Land, who harassed him about how he was praying when he was in a Templar chapel. And the Templars apologized and helped Usama. Hosting him to pray was part of a diplomatic code.
SM: The Templars represented to the Muslims a model blending religiosity and militancy that was novel. To give a modern parallel, they were perceived not unlike the way Muslims today might think of Isis: that they are too fanatic for their taste. They bring to their fighting a kind of religious zeal, and they bring to their religion a kind of militancy.
Are jihad and crusade related?
PC: There is a family resemblance because they share roots in monotheism, where God is a jealous God. And both Crusades and Jihad offered martyrdom to those who die. But while they look alike, they have some important differences. Crusades were directed at the liberation of sacred land considered rightfully Christian, whereas Jihad was about rescuing souls.
SM: I personally don’t find any structural difference between the two. Jihad has an Islamic concept: religiously sanctioned aggression. The Crusades were precisely that.
What was the impact of the Crusades in the Muslim world?
SM: The legacy of the Crusades in the Muslim world is that a lot of Muslims think of where they are today in terms of Western encroachment. For some, the Crusades are seen not just as a medieval threat, but as a present one—a perpetual Western attempt to undermine Islam. It could be physical colonialism or cultural colonialism.
The groups that paid the biggest price of the crusader experience were the local (non-European) Christians. By the time the crusaders were kicked out, the dominant ruling dynasties happened to be Sunni. Many Shi’ites and local Christians felt their best option was to convert. After the crusader period, the Middle East becomes far less Christian and far less Shi’ite.
https://www.history.com/news/why-muslims-see-the-crusades-so-differently-from-christiansWhy are the Crusades still relevant today in the Middle East?
PC: It’s a bit like what Mark Twain said: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.” Modern ideologues might draw on the Crusades to justify contemporary conflict as part of some millennium-long continuum. But the truth is, crusaders and Muslims fought for their own goals, not for the ones that motivate us today.
SM: Three words: politics of religion.
HISTORY Vault: The Crusades: Crescent and the Cross
In 1095, Pope Urban II launched an unprecedented military campaign to seize back Jerusalem from Muslim hands. Over 60,000 Christian warriors would spend years journeying and fighting to reclaim the Holy City in the name of God.
Crusades were also called against heretics (the Albigensian Crusade, 1209–29) and various rivals of the popes, and the Fourth Crusade (1202–04) was diverted against the Byzantine Empire. Crusading declined rapidly during the 16th century with the advent of the Protestant Reformation and the decline of papal authority.
Hospitallers; Crusades
Capture of the fortress of the Hospitallers at Smyrna, miniature from a Ẓafar-nāmeh (a life of Timur) by Behzād, c. 1490, from Herāt, Afghanistan; in the John Work Garrett Library, Johns Hopkins University.
The Crusades constitute a controversial chapter in the history of Christianity, and their excesses have been the subject of centuries of historiography. Historians have also concentrated on the role the Crusades played in the expansion of medieval Europe and its institutions, and the notion of “crusading” has been transformed from a religio-military campaign into a modern metaphor for zealous and demanding struggles to advance the good (“crusades for”) and to oppose perceived evil (“crusades against”).
https://www.britannica.com/summary/Crusades
The Last Crusade
In 1291, one of the only remaining Crusader cities, Acre, fell to the Muslim Mamluks. Many historians believe this defeat marked the end of the Crusader States and the Crusades themselves.
Though the Church organized minor Crusades with limited goals after 1291—mainly military campaigns aimed at pushing Muslims from conquered territory, or conquering pagan regions—support for such efforts diminished in the 16th century, with the rise of the Reformation and the corresponding decline of papal authority.
Effects of the Crusades
While the Crusades ultimately resulted in defeat for Europeans and a Muslim victory, many argue that they successfully extended the reach of Christianity and Western civilization. The Roman Catholic Church experienced an increase in wealth, and the power of the Pope was elevated during the Crusades.
Trade and transportation also improved throughout Europe as a result of the Crusades. The wars created a constant demand for supplies and transportation, which resulted in shipbuilding and the manufacturing of various supplies.
After the Crusades, there was a heightened interest in travel and learning throughout Europe, which some historians believe may have paved the way for the Renaissance.
Among followers of Islam, however, the Crusaders were regarded as immoral, bloody and savage. The ruthless and widespread massacre of Muslims, Jews and other non-Christians resulted in bitter resentment that persisted for many years. Even today, some Muslims derisively refer to the West’s involvement in the Middle East as a “crusade.”
There’s no question that the years of warfare and conflict brought by the Crusades had an impact on Middle East and Western European nations for many years, and they still influence political and cultural views held today.
Sources
Timeline for the Crusades and Christian Holy War to c.1350: United States Naval Academy.
The Crusades: A Complete History: History Today.
The Crusades: LordsAndLadies.org.
Crusades: New Advent.
What Were the Crusades and How Did They Impact Jerusalem?: Bible History Daily.
By: History.com Editors
https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/crusades
HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and informative content. All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. Articles with the “HISTORY.com Editors” byline have been written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan, Matt Mullen and Christian Zapata.
The impact of the crusades
by Dr. Susanna Throop
Wall plaque, Ascalon, mid-twelfth to mid-thirteenth century. The Arabic inscription commemorates the wall built as defense against crusaders. The arms of Sir Hugh Wake (Lincoln, England) were later carved over that, confirming the 1241 crusader reconquest of the city (Israel Museum, Jerusalem; photo: Google Arts & Culture)
Wall plaque, Ascalon, mid-twelfth to mid-thirteenth century. The Arabic inscription commemorates the wall built as defense against crusaders. The arms of Sir Hugh Wake (Lincoln, England) were later carved over that, confirming the 1241 crusader reconquest of the city (Israel Museum, Jerusalem; photo: Google Arts & Culture)
It is hard to summarize the impact of a movement that spanned centuries and continents, crossed social lines, and affected all levels of culture. However, there are a few central effects that can be highlighted.
Military orders
First, the earliest military orders originated in Jerusalem in the wake of the First Crusade. A miltary order is a religious order in which members take traditional monastic vows—communal poverty, chastity, and obedience—but also commit to violence on behalf of the Christian faith. Well-known examples include the Knights Templar (officially endorsed in 1129), the Knights Hospitaller (confirmed by papal bull in 1113), and the Teutonic Knights (originated in the late twelfth century).
The military orders represented a major theological and military development, and went on to play central roles in the formation of key political units that still exist today as nation-states.
Fall of Jerusalem, from William of Tyre, History of Outremer, c. 1350, MS. French 352, fol. 62r, Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris)
Fall of Jerusalem, from William of Tyre, History of Outremer, c. 1350, MS. French 352, fol. 62r, Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris)
Territorial expansion
Second, crusading played a major role in European territorial expansion. The First Crusade resulted in the formation of the crusader states in the Levant (the eastern Mediterranean), which were initially governed, and in small part populated, by settlers from Europe.
Crusading in northern and eastern Europe led to the expansion of kingdoms like Denmark and Sweden, as well as the creation of brand-new political units, for example in Prussia. As areas around the Baltic Sea were taken by the crusaders, traders and settlers—mostly German—moved in and profited economically.
In the Mediterranean Sea, crusading led to the conquest and colonization of many islands, which arguably helped ensure Christian control of Mediterranean trade routes (at least for as long as the islands were held). Crusading also played a role in the conquest of the Iberian peninsula (now Spain and Portugal). This was finally completed in 1492, when the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I conquered the last Muslim community on the peninsula—the city of Granada. They expelled Jews from the country in the same year. And of course, they also authorized and supported the expeditions of Christopher Columbus, who—like many European explorers of his day—believed that the expansion of the Christian faith was one of his duties.
Tympanum above the south door of St. George’s Church, Fordington, Dorset, early 12th century (photo: Michael Day, CC BY-NC 2.0)
Tympanum above the south door of St. George’s Church, Fordington, Dorset, early 12th century (photo: Michael Day, CC BY-NC 2.0)
Impact in Europe (religious and secular)
Third, the crusading movement impacted internal European development in a few important ways. The movement helped both to militarize the medieval western Church and to sustain criticism of that militarization. It arguably helped solidify the pope’s control over the Church and made certain financial innovations central to Church operations. And it both reflected and influenced devotional trends. For example, while there was some dedication to St. George from the early Middle Ages, the intensity of that devotion soared in Europe after he reportedly intervened miraculously at the Battle of Antioch in 1098, during the First Crusade.
Secular political theories were influenced by crusading, especially in France and the Iberian peninsula, and government institutions evolved in part to meet the logistical needs of crusading. Credit infrastructures within Europe rose to meet similar needs, and some locales—Venice, in particular—benefitted significantly in economic terms.
It goes without saying that the crusades also had a highly negative effect on interfaith relations.
Impact world-wide
Fourth, the crusading movement has left an imprint on the world as a whole. For example, many of the national flags of Europe incorporate a cross. In addition, many images of crusaders in our popular culture are indebted to the nineteenth century. Some in that century, like the novelist Sir Walter Scott, portrayed crusaders as brave and glamorous yet backward and unenlightened; simultaneously, they depicted Muslims as heroic, intelligent, and liberal. Others more wholeheartedly romanticized crusading.
George Inness, Classical Landscape (March of the Crusaders), 1850, oil on canvas (Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, Massachusetts)
George Inness, Classical Landscape (March of the Crusaders), 1850, oil on canvas (Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, Massachusetts)
These trends in nineteenth-century European culture impacted the Islamic world. Sometimes this influence was quite direct. In 1898 German Emperor Wilhelm II visited the grave of Saladin (Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb, a Muslim leader who led the recapture of Jerusalem in 1187) and was appalled at its state of disrepair. He paid to have it rebuilt, thus helping encourage modern Islamic appreciation of Saladin.
Kaiser Wilhelm II, visit to Jerusalem, 1898 (Library of Congress)
Kaiser Wilhelm II, visit to Jerusalem, 1898 (Library of Congress)
Sometimes the European influence was more diffuse. Modern crusading histories in the Islamic world began to be written in the 1890s, when the Ottoman Empire was in crisis. After the Ottomans, some Arab Nationalists interpreted nineteenth-century imperialism as crusading, and thus linked their efforts to end imperial rule with the efforts of Muslims to resist crusading in previous centuries.
