925th Anniversary First Crusade Siege of Jerusalem

The Siege of Jerusalem took place from June 7 to July 15, 1099, during the First Crusade. This successful siege saw the Crusaders take Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate and laid the foundations for the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

November 27, 1095 - Urban's call to crusade - the full text

On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II delivered his speech at Clermont Ferrand, aimed at arrousing the people to start an armed pilgrimage to deliver the Holy Land from the hands of the "pagans", a pilgirmage that later became known as the First Crusade. Of this speech several quite different versions have been delivered to our time by primary sources. Below are the version of Fulcher of Chartres and the one of Robert the Monk. 

The Crusades - from chaos to shared ideal in Christian Europe

"Following the collapse of the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century, Christian Europe had wrestled with increasingly senseless and uncontrollable violence. Muslim and Viking invasions during that time caused internal disintegration that eliminated all centralized power. By the 11th century, knights--even kings--had become indistinguishable from brigands." How did the Crusades change this?

A new Jerusalem in medieval Scandinavia

"(...) There seems to have been a concerted effort in Scandinavia from the beginning of the twelth century to turn the wilderness in the North into a new Jerusalem. As in many other western European countries at the same time, round churches were built in imitation of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and relics were brought in huge quantities from the Holy Land to Scandinavia, not least the Holy Cross. 

The 1074 call for Crusade by Pope Gregory VII

The 1095 speech by Pope Urban II delivered at Clermont Ferrand is well known. This speech aimed at arrousing the people to start a armed pilgrimage to deliver the Holy Land from the hands of the "pagans", that later became known as the First Crusade. Less well known is the speech with a similar purpose delivered in 1074, so about 20 years earlier, by Pope Gregory VII. In this speech the Pope suggested a military expedition to assist the Byzantine empire against the Seljuk Turks, following the defeat of the Byzantine army under Emperor Romanos IV Diogene by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert in 1071. The very first call to crusade?

900 Years Council of Nablus, January 16, 1120 - synod, parliament and Templar kick-off

Very soon after the First Crusade, European troops began to return to their homelands, having fulfilled their promise to liberate the Holy Land. This put extra strain on the remainders, who faced continued challenges ranging from locusts plagues to repeated Saracen incursions.

To face up to these challenges, the Council of Nablus was convened. This council of ecclesiastic and secular lords of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem was held on January 16, 1120. It was convened by Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and King Baldwin II of Jerusalem.

The council established twenty-five canons (decrees) dealing with both religious and secular affairs. As such it provided the first written laws for the kingdom. Therefore it can be considered both a parliament and an ecclesiastical synod.

The Nablus Council was probably also where Hugues de Payens obtained permission from King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem to found the Knights Templar. But direct reference to the Templars as such or their recognition as a group is missing in the decrees. There is only mention that "Achardus, prior of the Temple of the Lord", was present. This probably pertains to Achardus de Aroasia, "prior Templi Domini" (Vita S. Joh., episcopus Morinorum; AA.SS.: in the 12th century, January 27). 

Another source mentions: "1120 - Jan. 14 – Sept. 13 (Jan. 16. Nablus?). King Baldwin II leases part of his palace in Jerusalem (the Temple of Solomon) to the Templars." This would support that by in 1120 giving the proto-Templars a proper headquarters at the Temple compound, the King did -possibly at Nablus- arrange the kick-off of the Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici, later known as the Knights Templar.

The full text of the Nablus Canons, of which at present only one copy remains in the Vatican Library (MS Vat. Lat. 1345), is quoted below (source):

Here begins the Council of Nablus

In the 1120th year of the Incarnation of the Lord - after, as our sins demand, the country of Jerusalem was devastated by many calamities and for four years it was laid waste, with its crops consumed by locusts and its walls by frequent Saracen assaults and plots, and with so many of its pilgrims and citizens murdered - a man of dove-like innocence and a pupil of humility, the patriarch Warmund, and a son of good fortune, Baldwin, the second King of the Latins of Jerusalem, readying to meet the danger threatening the citizens with prayers of piety and works of justice, prodded by Divine Inspiration to raise up the Church and fix firm the country, entered into counsel with the prelates of the Church and the leading men of the kingdom in the second year of his reign and of his patriarchate, on the 17th Kalends of February [January 16],  at the city of Nablus of Samaria. And, as the need of the land demanded, for the correction of the fallen people, they established the decrees which we have written below.

What Triggered the Crusades - the Church's Point of View

In March 1095, the devastation incurred by the onstorming Seljuk Turks in the Byzantine territories forced Emperor Alexius I to ask Pope Urban II for help. This request inspired Urban’s preaching of the crusades later that year at the church council of Clermont. 

920th Anniversary First Crusade Siege of Jerusalem

The Siege of Jerusalem took place from June 7 to July 15, 1099, during the First Crusade. This successful siege saw the Crusaders take Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate and laid the foundations for the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The fall of Muslim Jerusalem to the Muslims 1098

In the Crusader story, a strange event just prior to the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusader army in July 1099, seems to be scarcely mentioned. This is the taking of Jerusalem from its Muslim Seljuk Turkish ruler (since 1073) by the Muslim Fatimid ruler of Egypt.

The summer of 1098 saw the much-fought-over fortress city in Egyptian hands. The Fatimid Emir (commander) al-Afdal Shahinshah had taken Jerusalem from the Seljuk Turks after a 40-day siege, on orders of Vizier (minister of state) al-Musta’li, ruler of Egypt.

Crusading for the sake of commerce - the Genoa case

"There were another body of crusaders, outside the knightly class, to whom it is worth turning in any discussion of the economic gains and losses of the First Crusade. By the end of the eleventh century a growing social milieu was beginning to assert itself in parts of Europe: the urban manufacturer and merchant.

Number of participants of the First Crusade

"The most thorough discussion of the number of combatants on the First Crusade is that offered by John France and this study cannot improve on his painstaking assembly of the relevant data and the plausible manner in which it assessed. However, the estimates of the size of the Crusader army vary considerably.

Crusading, an act of love

"Upon leaving for the crusade, very many property owners made substantial donations to the church, in return for ready coin with which to finance their involvement on the expedition. These transactions were recorded and churches and monasteries preserved the charters throughout the centuries, being ever diligent on such matters.

Prologue of the Crusades - Jerusalem and the Seljuks

"When the Muslim Seljuks, a Turkish steppe tribe, spectacularly defeated an army of the Byzantine Empire at the Battle of Manzikert in ancient Armenia in August 1071 CE, a series of events followed which would lead to centuries of East-West warfare couched in religious terms: the Crusades.

Medieval Frankish society well in touch with the Holy Land

On her "Real Crusader History Blog" Dr. Helena P. Schrader reviews "Frankish rural settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem" by Ronnie Ellenblum (2003) as quoted below:

"In this seminal work, Ronnie Ellenblum, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, challenges the assumptions of prominent 20th-century scholars concerning the composition and character of crusader settlement and society.  (...) Ellenblum’s research enabled the “reconstruction” of entire villages ― property by property ― identifying in the process the origins and vocations of many of the inhabitants. This survey turned up roughly 200 Frankish settlements, most of which had never been heard of before either because the settlements themselves had since been abandoned, ruined and overgrown, or because their Frankish origins were hidden behind modern Arabic names and more recent construction.

One of Ellenblum’s chief theses is that: “The Franks…were very successful settlers and were not only fighters and builders of fortifications.  The migrants who settled in the Kingdom of Jerusalem established a network of well-developed settlements…includ[ing] the construction of developed castra [towns], of ‘rural burgi,’ and monasteries, of castles that served as centers for seigniorial estates, of smaller castles, manor houses, farmhouses, unfortified villages, parochial systems etc.”

Even more important, Ellenblum proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the claim of earlier historians such as Prawer and Smail “that the Franks were completely unaware of what went on in their fields (save when it came to collecting their share of the crops), and had no contact with the local inhabitants, is not based on written or archeological sources and is certainly not accurate.” (Emphasis added.) (...) This book makes all previous conclusions about Frankish society obsolete, and any depiction of Frankish Palestine that does not take Ellenblum’s conclusions into account can be dismissed as inaccurate."

Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge OCR Advanced Sciences)

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Crusade on the 11th century Mediterranean Sea

Long before pope Urban II made his ímpassioned plea at Clerrnont, the Italian cities were fighting the Saracens on land and sea. 

Who were the first Norwegian crusaders?

"Several thousand Norwegians answered the call of the Pope to undertake the perilous journey to Jerusalem. What do we know about them?  

Frisian ("Dutch") participation in the Crusades

"Frisian*) participation in the Crusades is attested from the very beginning of the First Crusade, but their presence is only felt substantially during the Fifth Crusade (1217–1221). They participated in almost all the major Crusades and the Reconquista.

The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, Templar predecessor?

The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem (Latin: Ordo Equestris Sancti Sepulcri Hierosolymitani, OESSH), also known as the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, is a Roman Catholic papal order of knighthood, which was founded as the Order of Canons of the Holy Sepulchre. 

It traces its roots to Duke Godfrey of Bouillon, "Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre", leader of the First Crusade and first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was recognized in 1113 by a Papal Bull by Pope Paschal II.

Lessons in Crusader cuisine

The natural harbor at Apollonia Fortress in Israel never developed into a port as large as Acre, where dozens of ships would anchor in the 13th century, to be loaded with locally- produced sugar bound for Europe. But the ruins of Apollonia are enough to make one see that the constant movement of people, raw materials and cooking techniques was already occurring hundreds of years before the word “globalization” became part of the modern vocabulary.
 

Counts of (West Frisian) Holland, the cursades and the Templars

Proof seems to be missing of participation from Holland in de Crusades. This appears to be false. Until about 1300 the former county Holland was still calles 'Frisia'. The name Holland dates back to 1101, and even then it was a limited area only. The counts of Holland were called the counts of West Friesland. About Frisians who participated in the Crusades, sufficient information is to be found in the sources.