The First Crusade
On 27 November 1095, Pope Urban II mounted a platform in a field outside Clermont in France and delivered one of the most consequential speeches in medieval history. Drawing on appeals from Byzantine Emperor Alexios I and reports of Seljuk atrocities against Christian pilgrims, Urban called upon the knights of Christendom to take up arms and liberate Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre from Muslim rule. He offered an unprecedented spiritual incentive: full remission of sins for those who undertook the journey. The crowd's response — "Deus vult!" (God wills it!) — became the crusading war cry. The response exceeded anything Urban had planned. A disorganised mass movement, later called the People's Crusade and led by the charismatic preacher Peter the Hermit, set out first and was annihilated in Anatolia by the Seljuks. The main military expedition, comprising perhaps 60,000–100,000 fighters and non-combatants under leaders including Godfrey of Bouillon, Raymond of Toulouse, Bohemond of Taranto, and Robert of Normandy, mustered at Constantinople in late 1096 and early 1097. The relationship with Emperor Alexios was immediately tense: he wanted mercenaries under Byzantine command; they wanted independent conquest. The crusade's military campaign was extraordinary in its hardship and its ultimate success. The siege of Antioch (October 1097–June 1098) nearly destroyed the army through starvation and disease before the city fell. The crusaders then held Antioch against a massive relieving Muslim force, sustained by the morale-shattering discovery of what they believed to be the Holy Lance. By June 1099 they had marched through the Levant and surrounded Jerusalem. On 15 July 1099, after a five-week siege, crusaders breached the walls. The massacre that followed — of Muslims, Jews, and some Eastern Christians — shocked observers across the world and indelibly stained the crusading ideal in Islamic memory. Godfrey of Bouillon, one of the principal leaders, refused the title of King of Jerusalem, calling himself instead "Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre." After his death in 1100, his brother Baldwin took the crown. The crusaders established four Crusader States: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Edessa. These fragile outposts of European feudalism in the Levant would survive for nearly two centuries, dependent on periodic reinforcement from the West and skillful diplomacy with their Muslim neighbours.
- Year: 1095 CE
- Category: Military
