Crusades

The Medieval Art of War I

Crusades Fortification History 41 Min Read

“What is the function of orderly knighthood?” wrote the twelfth-century English philosopher John of Salisbury. “To protect the Church, to fight against treachery, to reverence the priesthood, to fend off injustice from the poor, to make peace in your own province, to shed blood for your brethren, and if needs must, to lay down your life.” This was a splendid…

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Crusades Naval 10 Min Read

‘The Profit That God Shall Give’

A typical 12th century Genoese trader, at this time merchant ships relied on sails rather than oars. Such vessels displaced between 10-30 tons and were crewed by 40-60 men.​ The principal route followed by the First Crusade bypassed the Mediterranean and took the army overland through the Balkans and Anatolia;…

Crusades Medieval 7 Min Read

Holy Lance

The ultimate fate of the lance found at Antioch is unclear. Raymond of Aguilers writes that it was carried into battle when the crusaders marched against the Fāțimid-held city of Ascalon (mod. Tel Ashqelon, Israel) in August 1099, while Fulcher of Chartres comments that Raymond of Saint-Gilles kept the relic…

Crusades Medieval 17 Min Read

Outremer’s Demise

Salah ad-Din, or Saladin as he is known in the West, had been born in Tikrit in modern-day Iraq in 1137. Saladin’s forces besiege the walls of Jerusalem. Having set to rights the last of Nur al-Din’s legacy, Saladin faced a Frankish problem rather different from the one that had…

Crusades Medieval 12 Min Read

THE KINGDOM FALLS

Siege of Acre 1291 – Guillaume de Clermont Defending Ptolemais from the Saracen invasion. The fall of Acre signaled the end of the Jerusalem crusades. No effective crusade was raised to recapture the Holy Land afterwards, though talk of further crusades was common enough. By 1291, other ideals had captured…

Crusades Medieval 5 Min Read

Port of Ascalon

General plan of Tell al-Khadra, Ascalon. Having been a port and trade center since the II millennium B.C., the city became famous during the classical era for its temples (Dagon, Apollo, the Heavenly Aphrodite, Atargatis) and many gardens. 1. Cananaean Gate 2. Basilica 3. Bouleuterion 4. Ancient tell 5. Remains…

Byzantine Crusades 27 Min Read

Constantinople 1204

The preaching of Fulk of Neuilly, Peter Capuano, and others bore fruit when Counts Thibaud III of Champagne and Louis I of Blois took the cross at a tournament at Ecry-surAisne on 28 November 1199. Other lords and knights followed suit, including Baldwin IX of Flanders, Hugh of Saint Pol,…

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The Abbasid Caliphate

The Abbasid revolt began a new age for the Umma. Many Muslims had high expectations…

Christians, Muslims and Conflicts Up to the First Crusade Part IV

Indeed, medieval writers referred to crusaders and pilgrims with exactly the same word, peregrinus. As…

Christians, Muslims and Conflicts Up to the First Crusade

20 July 802, the first elephant north of the Alps mentioned in a document since…

Arms and Armor Crusades

The arms and armor of the Christian West, Outremer, and Byzantium had a great deal…