Crusades
Warfare Frankish Greece 1204-1380 I
Frankish Greece, 1204–61 The Fourth Crusade (1202-04), consisting of a land army composed of French and Italian troops and a powerful Venetian naval fleet, had originally been planned as an offensive against Egypt. Through a combination of greed, political intrigue and mutual distrust, the expedition ended up attacking the Greeks instead. After the Crusade captured Constantinople in 1204, those members…
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The Castilian Crusade: Quesada and the Conquest of Córdoba
In the summer of 1229, while Jaime I was engaged in the Mallorcan crusade, the Almohads in Morocco engaged in civil war and two competitors for leadership appeared in al-Andalus. Ibn Hūd, who acknowledged the ʿAbbāsid caliph of Baghdad, and ruled Granada, Almería, Jaén, Córdoba, Málaga, and Seville, seemed at…
Jaime I’s Crusades to Peñíscola and Mallorca
Jaime I While the other Christian rulers were crusading against the collapsing Almohad empire, a ten-year truce with the Almohads concluded in 1214 enabled Jaime I of Aragón to survive a troubled minority. Acknowledging that the Muslims might attack the young king, Pope Honorius III in 1222 offered full remission…
The First Crusade of Fernando III
Fernando III remained aloof from the crusading efforts of Archbishop Rodrigo and Alfonso IX because he needed to establish himself firmly on the throne, but the crisis of the Almohad regime soon induced him to take up arms against the Muslims. The death of Caliph al-Mustanṣir in January 1224 opened…
The Reconquista 1212–1222
An extraordinary transformation of the political landscape occurred in the nearly forty years following the Crusade of Las Navas de Tolosa. As the Almohads struggled to survive in Morocco, Spanish Muslims asserted their independence, but the Christians, taking advantage of Muslim disunity, demanded tribute, set rival Muslim leaders against one…
The Kingdom of Acre
On his return to Italy, Frederick met with greater success in confounding the plans of the Pope than he had in overcoming the opposition of the Pope’s allies in Outremer. The papal army besieging Capua under the two old-timers, John of Brienne and Cardinal Pelagius, retreated and then disintegrated as…
Order of Sword Brothers
The Livonian Brothers of the Sword were a military order established by their second bishop, Bishop Albert of Riga, in 1202. Pope Innocent III sanctioned the establishment in 1204 for the second time. The membership of the order comprised German “warrior monks”. Following their defeat by the Samogitians and Semigallians…