Crusades

The Crusades By: Imre Perler There were 9 Crusades all of them were fought over Jerusalem, "the Holy land" to the Muslims and the Christian. In Jerusalem Mohammed was born by the Dome of the Rock. He prayed at this church everyday and because of this it is considered very holy to the Islamic people. Jerusalem is holy to the Christians because of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem commemorated the hill of crucifixion and tomb of Christ's burial and was visited by many pilgrims.  A holy Musilim Mosque The First Crusade 1095 - 1099 The first crusade was started by "Pope Urban the second with the goal of capturing Jerusalem and the freeing of the Eastern Christians from Islamic rule. Both knights and peasants from many nations of Western Europe travelled over land and by sea towards Jerusalem and captured the city in July 1099, establishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem .   The Second Crusade 1147 - 1149   The success of the Christians in the First Crusade had been largely affected by the disunion among their enemies.  The Second Crusade was the second major crusade launched from Europe, called in 1145 in response to the   fall of the County of Edessa the previous year. The armies of two kings ( Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany ) marched separately across and after crossing Byzantine territory into Anatolia , both armies were separately defeated by the Seljuk Turks .  The Third Crusade  1189–1192 `In 1187 Muslim leader Saladin marched his army to Jerusalem and captured it and this started the Third Crusade. By March 1188, Henry II of England, Richard (Henry's son), Philip II of France, and the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I had sworn crusade vows. The French and English armies were delayed in their departure by mutual suspicion. The German army was not delayed, but their progress was stopped by the death of Frederick I while he was crossing the Goksu river in June 1190. Henry II had died before even leaving on crusade, but Richard and Philip arrived in the Holy Land by the summer of 1191. They laid siege to Acre, which surrendered in July of that year. The two then worked out a compromise for who should control Jerusalem between the feuding parties from the dispute after Baldwin V's death. Philip then returned to the west, leaving behind part of his army. Richard I, however, still tried to reclaim Jerusalem. To prevent delay, Richard killed the prisoners from Acre. However he ended up making a peace treaty with Saladin (signed on September 2, 1192) and left to return to England on October 9, 1192. In 1193, Saladin died.

The Fourth Crusade 1198-1204 The Fourth Crusade (1199–1204) was originally designed to conquer Muslim Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, in April 1204, the Crusaders of Western Europe invaded and conquered the Christian ( Eastern Orthodox ) city of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. This is seen as one of the final acts in the Great Schism between the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church. Constantinople fell to the In 1204 the Crusaders and Venetians attacked Constantinople and sacked the city. The Crusaders never did go on to Jerusalem, and never fought the Ayyubids at all. They took the piles of money and jewels and gold that they had captured in the sack of Constantinople and they went home.

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