Kingdom of Jerusalem

A Crusader state that held the holiest city in Christendom for 88 years and then existed for another century without it. The First Crusade took Jerusalem in 1099 after a siege, and the massacre that followed was remembered in the Islamic world for centuries. The conquerors established a feudal kingdom on the Latin model, with a king whose barons held unusually strong rights - the surviving law books describe a monarchy far more constrained than any in Europe, because the leading crusaders had arrived as equals. The kingdom was always short of manpower and depended on Italian fleets for supply, on the military orders for garrisons, and on the divisions among its Muslim neighbours for survival. Its castles, above all Krak des Chevaliers, are the finest military architecture of the age. Saladin's unification of Egypt and Syria removed the diplomatic space the kingdom had lived in, and at Hattin in 1187 the entire field army was destroyed after being lured into waterless ground; Jerusalem surrendered within months. The Third Crusade recovered the coastal strip but not the city, and the kingdom was governed from Acre thereafter while keeping its name. Frederick II regained Jerusalem briefly by negotiation in 1229. The Mamluks took the remaining territory piece by piece. Acre fell in 1291, ending Crusader rule on the mainland. The title was claimed by European monarchs for centuries afterwards. The kingdom lasted from 1099 to 1291. Jerusalem was its capital until 1187 and Acre afterwards. Its Latin population was always a small minority. Krak des Chevaliers in Syria is a World Heritage site. The Hospitallers and Templars both originated in the kingdom.

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