East Meets West
The Crusades
The Crusades: Causes
European Expansionism
 Conversion of Vikings and Magyars removes
pressure on Europe
 Agricultural advances increase food supply
 Battle of Hastings, 1066
 Capture of Toledo from Moslems, 1087
 Capture of Sicily from Moslems, 1091
Europe 1000-1100
The Crusades: Causes
Roman-Byzantine Rivalry
 Great Schism, 1064
 Cluniac (Benedictine) Reform causes church in
West to be more attentive to business and
provides impetus to attempts to reassert control
The Crusades: Causes
Events in Moslem World
 Battle of Manzikert, 1071.
 Byzantines lose Anatolia to Turks.
 Loss foreshadows eventual end of
Byzantine Empire.
 Turks disrupt pilgrim traffic.
Call for a Crusade
 Urban II calls for Crusade, 1095
 Objectives
 Drive Turks from Anatolia
 Obligate the Byzantines
 Provide occasion for healing Great Schism on
Rome's terms
 Capture Holy Land
Major Events of Crusades
 I Crusade 1097-1098
 Achieves all major objectives in Holy Land
 Turkish threat blunted, though not eliminated
 Area not strategic to Moslems, could have been
held indefinitely with a little skill.
 Initial gains lost through diplomatic bungling.
 Crusaders attempt to destabilize neighbors
Major Events of Crusades
 II Crusade, 1147-1148
 Military failure, discredits Crusaders as military
threat
 III Crusade, 1189-1191
 Well-known in literature (Robin Hood)
 Involved Richard I of England, Phillip II of
France, Frederick I of Holy Roman Empire
 Saladin on Moslem side.
Major Events of Crusades
IV Crusade, 1199-1204
 Western-Greek relations always strained,
mutual contempt.
 To finance crusade, Crusaders work for
Venetians
 Crusaders sack Constantinople, 1204
 Chance to heal Great Schism utterly lost.
 In 1453, when attacked by Turks, Byzantines
preferred surrender to asking Rome for aid.
Major Events of Crusades
• V Crusade
1218-1219
– Capture Damietta, swap for Jerusalem
– Moslems agree
– Crusaders try to conquer Egypt, are routed
• VI Crusade
1229
– Frederick II of Germany did little fighting and a lot of
negotiation
– Treaty gave the Crusaders Jerusalem and all the other
holy cities and a truce of ten years
– He was widely condemned for conducting the Crusade
by negotiating rather than fighting.
Major Events of Crusades
• VII Crusade
1248-1254
– Led by Louis IX of France
– Nearly an exact repeat of the Fifth Crusade
• VIII Crusade
1270
– Led by Louis IX of France
– Louis’ brother, Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily, had
strategic plans of his own and diverted the expedition to
Tunisia, where Louis died.
– The last Crusader cities on the mainland of Palestine
fell in 1291
– One small island stronghold lasted until 1303.
Where else in military history can
we find a war that was won four
times and still lost?
Crusades died out
 Lack of interest, rising European prosperity
 Repeated military defeats
 Discredited by "crusades" against Christians
(e.g., Albigensians)
Effects of Crusades
 Fatal weakening of Byzantine Empire
 Vast increase in cultural horizons for many
Europeans.
 Stimulated Mediterranean trade.
 Need to transfer large sums of money for troops
and supplies led to development of banking
techniques.
 Rise of heraldic emblems, coats of arms
 Romantic and imaginative literature.
Effects of Crusades
 Knowledge introduced to Europe
 Heavy stone masonry, construction of castles
and stone churches.
 Siege technology, tunneling, sapping.
 Moslem minarets adopted as church spires
 Weakening of nobility, rise of merchant
classes
 Enrichment was primarily from East to
West--Europe had little to give in return.