Crusades

Leaders of the First Crusade.

In the late 11th century, crusaders marched on Jerusalem to wrest the Holy City from Muslim control. Writing for HistoryExtra, Dr Simon John explores the weeks leading up to the assault – and its bloody climax…

King Richard the Lionheart battling the Saracens

Guy de Lusignan was King of Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. His overconfident Crusader forces, became trapped in a waterless desert area, and thus became easy prey for the Ayyubid forces of Sultan Salah-ud-din al-Ayyubi in The Battle of Hattin in 1187. As a direct result of the battle, Islamic forces re-conquered Jerusalem and several other Crusader-held cities.These Christian defeats prompted the Third Crusade, which began two years after the Battle of Hattin.

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns organised by Christian powers in order to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control. There would be eight officially sanctioned crusades...

The Battle of Elchingen, Ney crossing the bridge at Elchingen on October 15 …

Painting by Frederic Schopin (1804-1880) depicting the First Crusade — "Battle delivered under the walls of Antioch between the crusaders led by Bohemond and the army of Karbouka, general of the Sultan of Persia, June 1098"

The so-called "Crusades" began when Pope Urban II stepped onto a rostrum in November 1095 CE and made a speech. What do we know about what he said and why people responded as they did? How did one speech spark such violence?

Balian-of-Ibelin