The Crusades
1071 O.S. – 1291 O.S.83 items
crusadesmedievalClermont to Acre, told from both sides
Two centuries of holy war over the Levant, from Pope Urban II’s sermon at Clermont in 1095 to the Mamluk storming of Acre in 1291, with the Byzantine defeat at Manzikert in 1071 as a prologue. Nine numbered crusades, the four crusader states they built, and the Muslim rulers who pushed them back into the sea: Zengi, Nur ad-Din, Saladin and the Mamluk sultans.
Two calendars
Events the Franks recorded carry Julian dates, the calendar of their chronicles and charters. Events told by the Arabic chroniclers, Ibn al-Qalanisi, Ibn al-Athir and Bahaʾ al-Din ibn Shaddad, carry hijri dates: Saladin entered Jerusalem on 27 Rajab 583, which the app draws on Friday 2 October 1187. The app’s hijri is the tabular calendar, which can sit a day off the sighted month the chroniclers lived by, so where the two disagree the item keeps the Frankish date and its note gives the hijri one. One date, the massacre at Mainz, is in the Hebrew calendar, as the Jewish chronicles of 1096 give it.
How to read it
Bands for each crusade, for the counties of Edessa and Tripoli, the principality of Antioch and the kingdom of Jerusalem, and for the Ayyubid sultanate, the Latin empire of Constantinople and the reign of Baybars.
On the map, the First Crusade’s march from Cologne to Jerusalem, the Fourth’s voyage from Venice to Constantinople, and Louis IX’s from Aigues-Mortes to Egypt.
Filter by tag to follow one thread:
battles,sieges,violence,diplomacy,religion,military ordersorbooksfor the chroniclers themselves.
Death tolls are given only as a named source gives them, with the range where the sources disagree.
Items
The Seljuks rout the Byzantines at Manzikert
- ≈ 23 years, 6 months
Alexios I’s envoys ask for help at Piacenza
Urban II preaches the crusade at Clermont
Massacre of the Jews of Mainz
The People’s Crusade is destroyed at Civetot
Nicaea surrenders to the Byzantines
Battle of Dorylaeum
Antioch falls to Bohemond
Peter Bartholomew finds the Holy Lance
The crusaders rout Kerbogha
Massacre at Maʿarrat al-Nuʿman
The barefoot procession around Jerusalem
The crusaders take Jerusalem
Victory at Ascalon
Baldwin I is crowned at Bethlehem
Tripoli falls after a long siege
The Hospitallers win papal protection
The Field of Blood
The Templars receive their Rule at Troyes
Zengi takes Edessa
Bernard of Clairvaux preaches at Vézelay
Crusaders take Lisbon
Saladin becomes vizier of Egypt
Nur ad-Din dies
A leper king routs Saladin at Montgisard
Usama ibn Munqidh writes his memoir
Battle of Hattin
Saladin takes Jerusalem
Audita tremendi calls the Third Crusade
Frederick Barbarossa drowns in the Saleph
Richard takes Cyprus
Richard the Lionheart lands at Acre
Acre surrenders
Richard executes the prisoners of Acre
Battle of Arsuf
Richard and Saladin make peace at Jaffa
Saladin dies in Damascus
The Teutonic Knights become a military order
The crusaders take Zara
The first assault on Constantinople
The Children’s Crusade
Francis of Assisi visits Sultan al-Kamil
Frederick II regains Jerusalem by treaty
Ibn al-Athir dies in Mosul
Khwarazmians sack Jerusalem
Battle of La Forbie
Battle of Mansurah
Louis IX is taken prisoner
The Mamluks kill the last Ayyubid sultan of Egypt
Battle of ʿAyn Jalut
Baybars takes Antioch
Louis IX dies before Tunis
Krak des Chevaliers surrenders
Edward survives an assassin’s dagger
Qalawun takes Tripoli
Acre falls
The Templars abandon Atlit