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Line 53: − + − + + + + + + − Legends tell of a so-called [[Childrens Crusades|Children's Crusade]], where a mass of peasant children, enthused at the notion of a holy war, embarked to the Holy Land, only to be captured by greedy Genovese merchant men and sold into slavery before ever leaving Europe. Historians, though divided, generally consider this event to be a fiction.+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
→The Fifth Crusade
This was effectively the last crusade sponsored by the papacy; later crusades were sponsored by individuals.
This was effectively the last crusade sponsored by the papacy; later crusades were sponsored by individuals.
== The Fifth Crusade ==
==Minor Crusades==
The [[Fifth Crusade]] and the [[Crusade of St. Louis]] both nearly succeeded in regaining Jerusalem by way of attacking Egypt and failed only through the greed of men like [[Robert of Artois]].
In addition to the four main crusades there were several minor ones.
===The People's (Peasants') Crusade (1095-96)===
As soon as the pope issued his appeal in 1095 preachers like Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless fanned out across Western Europe, reaching pious common people in rural areas, including many peasants. They aroused such an enthusiasm among the peasants that neither the secular lords nor the local clergy could stop the people from marching east, filled with hopes for freedom from serfdom and the zest for adventure. Thousands of peasants set off with few supplies or weapons and no money, and no idea of the enormous distance to be traveled. They believed that God would provide the guidance for direction and the sustenance for life. More prosperous farmers and burghers were also involved. Five uncoordinated bands trekked across the Balkan region toward Constantinople. The Byzantine Christians welcomed them reluctantly and even contemptuously, for the pilgrims robbed them and raided their farms and villages. The Byzantine army fought them in pitched battles; most peasants never reached Constantinople. The thousands who did arrive were militarily useless and unwelcome. The Emperor Alexius temporarily fed and housed them outside the city, then hurried them across the Bosporus into Asia Minor. There the peasants were all killed by the Turkish forces.<ref> Sir Steven Runciman, "The First Crusade: Constantinople to Antioch," in M. W. Baldwin, ed. ''The first hundred years'' (1969) pp. 281-85 [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/History/History-idx?type=turn&entity=History.CrusOne.p0313&isize=M online edition];
Frederic Duncalf, "The Peasants' Crusade," ''The American Historical Review,'' Vol. 26, No. 3 (Apr., 1921), pp. 440-453 [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762(192104)26%3A3%3C440%3ATPC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P in JSTOR]</ref>
===The Children's Crusade (1212)===
Even more pathetic that the peasant crusade of 1095-96 was a movement in France and Germany which attracted large numbers of peasant teenagers and young people (few were under age 15). They were convinced they could succeed where older and more sinful crusaders had failed: the miraculous power of their faith would triumph where the force of arms had not. Many parish priests and parents encouraged such religious fervor and urged them on. The pope and bishops opposed the the attempt but failed to stop it entirely. A band of several thousand youth and young men led by a German named Nicholas set out for Italy. About a third survived the march over the Alps and got as far as Genoa; another group came to Marseilles. The luckier ones eventually managed to get safely home, but many others were sold as lifetime slaves on the auction blocks of Marseilles slave dealers.<ref>Dana C. Munro, "The Children's Crusade," ''The American Historical Review,'' Vol. 19, No. 3 (Apr., 1914), pp. 516-524 [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762(191404)19%3A3%3C516%3ATCC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-C in JSTOR]; and Norman P. Zacour, "The Children's Crusade," in R. L. Wolff, and H. W. Hazard, eds., ''The later Crusades, 1189-1311'' (1969) pp. 325-342, esp. 330-37 [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/History/History-idx?type=article&did=HISTORY.CRUSTWO.I0023&isize=M online edition] </ref>
===The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221)===
Instigated by Pope Innocent III in 1215, this crusade was led in 1217 by John Brienne, king of Jerusalem, with the object of conquering Egypt. In 1219 the crusaders captured Damietta. The sultan of Egypt offered to exchange Jerusalem for Damietta but this was rejected. After an unsuccessful assault on Cairo in 1221, the defeated crusaders surrendered Damietta in return for the freedom to retreat.<ref> Thomas C. Van Cleve, "The Fifth Crusade," in R. L. Wolff, and H. W. Hazard, eds., ''The later Crusades, 1189-1311'' (1969) pp. 377-428 [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/History/History-idx?type=goto&id=History.CrusTwo&isize=M&page=377 online edition]</ref>
===The Sixth Crusade (1228-1229)===
The sixth or " Diplomatic Crusade" was led by Emperor Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire. He began in 1228, but fought no battles. Instead, by negotiation he obtained Jerusalem and a strip of territory from Acre to Jerusalem for the Christians. In 1225 he married Yolanda, the young heiress to the kingdom of Jerusalem; upon her death in 1228, Frederick crowned himself king of Jerusalem.
===The Seventh Crusade (1248-1250)===
Led by King Louis IX of France (reigned. 1226-1270) and directed against the Arabs of Egypt, this crusade was a complete failure. The crusaders were decisively defeated en-route to Cairo and King Louis was captured; the Arabs demanded and received a huge ransom for the release of the hapless king.<ref> Joseph R. Strayer, "The Crusades of Louis IX," in R. L. Wolff and H. W. Hazard, eds., ''The later Crusades, 1189-1311'' (1969) pp. 487-521 [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/History/History-idx?type=goto&id=History.CrusTwo&isize=M&submit=Go+to+page&page=487 online edition]; Peter Jackson, ''The Seventh Crusade, 1244-1254'' (2007) [http://www.amazon.com/Seventh-Crusade-12441254-Texts-Translation/dp/0754657221/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205399558&sr=8-5 excerpt and text search]</ref>
===The Eighth Crusade (1270)===
Ignoring his advisers, King Louis IX again attacked the Arabs in Tunis in North Africa. He picked the hottest season of the year for campaigning and his army was devastated by disease. The king himself died, ending the last major attempt to free the Holy Land.<ref> Joseph R. Strayer, "The Crusades of Louis IX," in R. L. Wolff and H. W. Hazard, eds., ''The later Crusades, 1189-1311'' (1969) pp. 487-521 [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/History/History-idx?type=goto&id=History.CrusTwo&isize=M&submit=Go+to+page&page=487 online edition]</ref>
===Other Medieval Crusades===
At the time people used "crusade" to describe other religious wars waged against heretics, such as Hussites and Albigensian, as well as Moors in Spain and pagans in the Baltic region.
====The Albigensian Crusade (13th century)====
Pope Innocent III in 1209 called for a war against the Albigensians, a religious sect which had sprung up in southern France, centered near the cities of Albi and Toulouse in Provence.<ref> Essentially, the Albigensians believed in a non-Christian dualist doctrine: there was a coexistence, they affirmed, between good and evil, represented by such opposites as God and the Evil One, light and darkness, soul and body, afterlife and earthly life.</ref> A bloody series of campaigns ended with Provence in ruins (1229) and the heretics defeated. In 1233 Pope Gregory IX placed the Dominicans in charge of investigating the remnants of Albigensianism with the legal power to name and condemn any surviving heretics. This marked the start of the [[Inquisition]].
====Teutonic Knights (1229-1525)====
A German religious and military order originally founded during the siege of Acre in the Third Crusade and modeled after the Knights Templars and Hospitalers, the Teutonic Knights moved to eastern Europe early in the 13th century.<ref>Charles Moeller, "Teutonic Order," [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14541b.htm ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' (1912) vol 14 online]</ref> There, under their grand master, Hermann von Salza, they became powerful and prominent. In 1229, responding to an appeal from the [[Poland, history|Duke of Poland]], they began a crusade against the pagan Slavs of Prussia. They became sovereigns over lands they conquered over the next century. In a series of campaigns, the Teutonic Knights gained control over the whole Baltic coast, founding numerous towns and fortresses and establishing Christianity.<ref> Edgar N. Johnson, "The German Crusade on the Baltic," in [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/History/History-idx?type=article&did=HISTORY.CRUSTHREE.I0028&isize=M H. W. Hazard, ed. ''The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries''] (1975) pp 545-85</ref>
===Crusades in Spain (711-1492)===
Muslims crossed from Africa into Spain early in the eighth century and in 711 at the battle of Río Barbate, they defeated the Visigoths and pressed forward to capture Toledo. By 718, the Moors (the name given North African Muslims by the Spaniards) had completed their conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, except for small Christian remnants in the Pyrenees. They remained on for the next 674 years until driven out by Spanish and Portuguese Christians.
The period of the Spanish Crusades began in the eleventh century when a religious revival was initiated by Cluniac monks in the small kingdoms in the north of Spain, which had recovered some of their lost territory. The revival expressed itself in a growing hatred for the infidel. Slowly yet steadily, at first sparked mainly by Burgundians and Normans from France, the Christians began to force the Moors out of northern and central Spain. Known as the [[Wars of the Reconquest]], these centuries-long conflicts intensified the Catholic sentiments of the people, developing an intense, even fanatical unity of religion and patriotism which was long characteristic of the Spaniards.
By the middle of the 15th century, the last bastion of Moorish power on the peninsula was the kingdom of Granada in southwestern Spain. When the marriage of Isabella, Queen of Castile, to Ferdinand, Prince of Aragon, in 1469 united Spain, they vigorously began their last campaign against the Moors. In January 1492 the Spanish entered the city of Granada and Moorish power ended in Europe. The expulsion of the Moors from Spain may be considered the last of the many medieval crusades.<ref> Charles Julian Bishko, "The Spanish and Portuguese Reconquest, 1095-1492" in [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/History/History-idx?type=goto&id=History.CrusThree&isize=M&page=396 H. W. Hazard, ed. ''The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries''] (1975) pp 396-456</ref>
==Long-term Impact==
==Long-term Impact==