Consequences of the Crusades for the peoples of the East. Consequences of the Crusades

Federal Agency for Education

State educational institution higher professional education

"Nizhny Novgorod State Linguistic University named after Dobrolyubov"

Translation faculty

Culture and history of France

« Crusades»

Performed:

1st year full-time student

training gr. 115 FPU

Baturina Yu.V.

Nizhny Novgorod

Introduction

1. Background and reason for the crusades

1.1 Background in the East

1.2 Background in the West

1.3 Reason for the Crusades. Clermont Cathedral 1095

2. The course and order of the crusades to the East

2.1 First crusade

3. Results and consequences of the crusades

3.1 The fall of crusader power in the East

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Crusades - a series of military campaigns of Western European knights against the "infidels" - Muslims, pagans, Orthodox states and various heretical movements. The purpose of the first crusades was the liberation of Palestine, primarily Jerusalem (with the Holy Sepulcher), from the Seljuk Turks, but later the crusades were also carried out for the sake of converting the Baltic pagans to Christianity, suppressing heretical and anti-clerical movements in Europe (Cathars, Hussites, and so on). ) or solving the political problems of the popes.

The name "crusaders" appeared because the participants in the crusades sewed crosses on their clothes. It was believed that the participants in the campaign would receive the forgiveness of sins, so not only knights went on campaigns, but also ordinary people and even children. The first to accept the idea of ​​liberating Jerusalem from Turkish oppression was Pope Gregory VII, who wished to personally lead the campaign. Up to 50,000 enthusiasts responded to his call, but the pope's struggle with the German emperor left the idea hanging in the air. Gregory's successor, Pope Victor III, updated his predecessor's call, promising absolution, but not wanting to personally participate in the campaign. The inhabitants of Pisa, Genoa, and some other Italian cities that suffered from Muslim sea raids equipped a fleet that sailed to the coast of Africa. The expedition burned two cities in Tunisia, but this episode did not receive a wide response.

The true inspirer of the mass crusade was a simple impoverished hermit Peter of Amiens, nicknamed the Hermit, originally from Picardy. When visiting Golgotha ​​and the Holy Sepulcher, the spectacle of all kinds of oppression of the Palestinian brothers in faith aroused in him the strongest indignation. Having obtained letters from the patriarch with a plea for help, Peter went to Rome to Pope Urban II, and then, wearing rags, without shoes, with an uncovered head and a crucifix in his hands, he went around the cities and towns of Europe, preaching wherever possible about the campaign for the liberation of Christians and the Holy Sepulcher. Ordinary people, touched by his eloquence, mistook Peter for a saint, considered it happiness even to pluck a piece of wool from his donkey as a keepsake. Thus the idea spread quite widely and became popular.

The first crusade began shortly after the passionate sermon of Pope Urban II, held at a church council in the French city of Clermont in November 1095. Shortly before this, the Byzantine emperor Alexei I Komnenos turned to Urban with a request to help repel the attack of the militant Seljuk Turks (named after their leader, the Seljuk). Perceiving the invasion of Muslim Turks as a threat to Christianity, the Pope agreed to help the emperor, and also, wanting to win over public opinion in the fight against another contender for the papal throne, he set an additional goal - to win back the Holy Land from the Seljuks. The pope's speech was repeatedly interrupted by outbursts of popular enthusiasm and exclamations of "That's God's will! That's what God wants!" Urban II promised the participants the cancellation of their debts and care for the families left in Europe. Right there, in Clermont, those who wished to take solemn oaths and, as a sign of a vow, sewed crosses on their clothes from strips of red fabric. Hence the name "Crusaders" and the name of their mission - "Crusade".

The first campaign on the wave of general enthusiasm generally achieved its goals. Subsequently, Jerusalem and the Holy Land were again captured by the Muslims and the Crusades were undertaken to liberate them. The last (ninth) Crusade in its original meaning took place in 1271-1272. The last campaigns, which were also called "crusades", were undertaken in the 15th century and were directed against the Hussites and the Ottoman Turks.

Chapter 1

1.4 Background in the East

Christianity initially combined peace messages: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who offend you. Offer the other to the one who slaps you on the cheek, and do not prevent the one who takes your coat from you to take your shirt. To everyone who asks of you, give, and from the one who takes what is yours, do not demand back.”

In the 4th century, St. Basil the Great, by his 13th canon, proposes to excommunicate soldiers who have been killed in war for three years, and his 55th canon also excommunicates those who resisted robbers by the force of the sword. And even in the 10th century, Patriarch Polievkt of Constantinople excommunicated soldiers for 5 years who defended their Orthodox homeland from the invasion of Muslims (Turks).

The Crusades against Muslims continued for two centuries, until the very end of the 13th century. Both Christianity and Islam alike considered themselves called to dominate the world. The rapid success of Islam in the first century of its existence threatened a serious danger to European Christianity: the Arabs conquered Syria, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. The beginning of the 8th century was a critical moment: in the East, the Arabs conquered Asia Minor and threatened Constantinople, and in the West they tried to penetrate beyond the Pyrenees. The victories of Leo the Isaurian and Charles Martel stopped the Arab expansion, and the further spread of Islam was stopped by the political disintegration of the Muslim world that began soon. The caliphate was divided into parts that were at enmity with each other.

In the second half of the 10th century, the Byzantine Empire even got the opportunity to return something of what had been lost earlier: Nicephorus Phocas conquered Crete, part of Syria, Antioch from the Arabs. In the 11th century, things changed again in a way that was unfavorable to Christians. The Byzantine throne after the death of Basil II (1025) was occupied by weak emperors, who were constantly replaced. The weakness of the supreme power turned out to be all the more dangerous for Byzantium, because just at that time the eastern empire began to face a serious danger both in Europe and in Asia. In Western Asia, the Seljuks made their offensive movement to the West. Under the leadership of Shakir-bek (died in 1059) and Toghrul-bek (died in 1063), they subjugated most of Iran and Mesopotamia to their power. Shakir's son Alp-Arslan devastated Armenia, then a significant part of Asia Minor (1067-1070) and captured Emperor Roman Diogenes (1071) under Manzikert. Between 1070 and 1081, the Seljuks took Syria and Palestine from the Egyptian Fatimids (Jerusalem - in 1071-1073, Damascus in 1076), and Suleiman, the son of Kutulmish, the cousin of Togrul-bek, took all of Asia Minor from the Byzantines by 1081; Nicaea became its capital. Finally, the Turks also took Antioch (1085). Again, as in the 8th century, the enemies were right under Constantinople. At the same time, the European provinces of the empire were subjected (since 1048) to incessant invasions of the Pechenegs and the Uzes, who sometimes made terrible devastations under the very walls of the capital. The year 1091 was especially difficult for the empire: the Turks, with Chakha at the head, were preparing an attack on Constantinople from the sea, and the Pecheneg army stood on land near the capital itself. Emperor Alexei Comnenus could not hope for success, fighting with his troops alone: ​​his forces were largely exhausted for last years in the war with the Italian Normans, who were trying to establish themselves in the Balkan Peninsula.

1.5 Background in the West

In the West, by the end of the 11th century, a number of reasons created a mood and atmosphere favorable for the call to fight against the infidels, with which Emperor Alexei I Comnenus turned there: the religious feeling was extremely intensified and an ascetic mood developed, which found expression in all kinds of spiritual exploits, between other and in numerous pilgrimages.

In addition, in 1054 there was a Schism of the Christian Church (1054) - Catholics and Orthodox anathematized each other.

Especially many pilgrims have long been sent to Palestine, to the Holy Sepulcher; in 1064, for example, the archbishop of Mainz Siegfried went to Palestine with a crowd of seven thousand pilgrims. The Arabs did not interfere with such pilgrimages, but Christian feeling was sometimes strongly offended by manifestations of Muslim fanaticism: for example, the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1009. Even then, under the impression of this event, Pope Sergius IV preached a holy war, but to no avail (after the death of Al-Hakim, however, the destroyed temples were restored). The establishment of the Turks in Palestine made the pilgrimage of Christians much more difficult, expensive and dangerous: the pilgrims were much more likely to become victims of Muslim fanaticism. The stories of the returning pilgrims developed in the religious masses of Western Christianity a sense of sorrow for the sad fate of the holy places and a strong indignation against the infidels. In addition to religious inspiration, there were other motives that powerfully acted in the same direction. In the 11th century, the passion for movement, which was, as it were, the last echoes of the great migration of peoples (Normans, their movements), had not yet completely died out. The establishment of the feudal system created in the knightly class a significant contingent of people who did not find application for their forces in their homeland (for example, the younger members of the baronial families) and were ready to go where there was hope of finding something better. The oppressive socio-economic conditions attracted many people from the lower strata of society to the Crusades. In some Western countries (for example, in France, which gave the largest contingent of crusaders) in the 11th century, the situation of the masses became even more unbearable due to a number of natural disasters: floods, crop failures, epidemic diseases. The rich trading cities of Italy were ready to support crusading enterprises in the hope of significant trade benefits from the establishment of Christians in the East.

1.6 Cause of the Crusades. Clermont Cathedral 1095

The papacy, which had just strengthened its moral authority in the whole West by the ascetic reform and assimilated the idea of ​​God's one kingdom on earth, could not but respond to the call addressed to it from Constantinople, in the hope of becoming the head of the movement and, perhaps, receiving spiritual authority. in the East. Finally, Western Christians have long been stirred up against the Muslims by fighting them in Spain, Italy, and Sicily. For all of southern Europe, the Muslims were a familiar, hereditary enemy. All this contributed to the success of the appeal of Emperor Alexios I Comnenus, who was already in relations with Pope Urban II around 1089 and was apparently ready to put an end to the ecclesiastical contention in order to receive help from the Latin West. There was talk of a council at Constantinople for this purpose; Pope freed Alexei from excommunication, until then lying on him as on a schismatic. When the pope was in Campania in 1091, Alexei's ambassadors were with him. In March 1095, the pope once again listened to the ambassadors of Alexei (at the cathedral in Piacenza), and in the autumn of the same year a council was convened in Clermont (in France, in Auvergne). In the mind of Pope Urban II, the idea of ​​helping Byzantium took on a form that was especially to please the masses. In a speech he delivered at Clermont, political element was relegated to the background before the religious element: Urban II preached a campaign for liberation from the infidels of the Holy Land and the Holy Sepulcher. The speech of the pope in Clermont on November 24, 1095 was a huge success: many immediately vowed to go against the infidels and sewed crosses on their shoulders, which is why they got the name “crusaders”, and the Campaigns - “crusades”. Thus was given an impetus to a movement that was destined to stop only two centuries later. While the idea of ​​the Crusade was ripening in the West, Emperor Alexei was freed from the danger that forced him to seek help in the West. In 1091, he exterminated the Pecheneg horde, with the help of the Polovtsian khans Tugorkan and Bonyak; the sea enterprise of Chakha also ended unsuccessfully (Chakha was soon killed on the orders of the Nicaean sultan). Finally, in 1094-1095, Alexei managed to free himself from the danger that threatened him from his recent allies, the Polovtsy. The immediate danger to Byzantium passed just at the time when the masses of the first crusaders began to arrive from the West, at which Alexis now looked with alarm. Western aid was too broad; it could threaten Byzantium itself, in view of the enmity between the Latin West and the Greek East. The preaching of the Crusade was an extraordinary success in the West. The church stood at the head of the movement: the pope appointed Bishop Puy Ademar as his legate to the crusading army, who was one of the first to receive the cross in Clermont. Those who accepted the cross, like pilgrims, were accepted by the church under its patronage. Creditors could not claim debts from them during their journey; those who seized their property were excommunicated; all the crusaders who went to the Holy Land, prompted to do so by piety, and not by the desire to acquire honors or wealth, sins were forgiven. Already in the winter from 1095 to 1096, large masses of poorly or almost completely unarmed crusaders from the poorest classes gathered. They were led by Peter the Hermit and Walter Golyak (or Gauthier the Beggar). Part of this crowd reached Constantinople, but many died earlier. The Greeks transported the crusaders to Asia, where they were almost all exterminated by the Seljuks. Somewhat later, the real First Crusade began.

Chapter 2. The course and order of the crusades to the East

2.1 First crusade

The first campaign began in 1096. At the head of a numerous and well-armed militia were Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse (he led troops from southern France and the papal legate joined him), Hugh de Vermandois (brother of the French king Philip I), Etienne (Stefan) II, Count of Blois and Chartres, Duke of Normandy Robert III Kurtgeuse, Count of Flanders Robert II, Gottfried of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, with brothers Eustache (Eustache) III, Count of Boulogne, and Baldwin (Baudouin), as well as nephew Baldwin (Baudouin) the Younger, finally Bohemond of Tarentum (son of Robert Guiscard), with his nephew Tancred. Number of crusaders gathered different ways in Constantinople, it probably reached 300 thousand. In Constantinople, most of the crusading leaders recognized their future conquests as part of the eastern empire, in fief dependence on Alexei and gave him the appropriate oath. It was not easy for Alexei to achieve this: he was even forced to resort to armed force (this is how he forced Gottfried of Bouillon to take the oath). Their troops were not a single cohesive army - each feudal lord going on a campaign attracted his vassals, and the peasants who had escaped from their homes followed them.

In April 1097, the Crusaders crossed the Bosporus. Soon, Nicaea surrendered to the Byzantines, and on July 1, the crusaders defeated Sultan Kilij-Arslan at Dorilei and thus paved their way through Asia Minor. Moving on, the crusaders found precious allies against the Turks in the princes of Lesser Armenia, whom they began to support in every possible way. Baldwin, separated from the main army, established himself in Edessa. For the crusaders, this was very important, given the position of the city, which has since constituted their extreme eastern outpost. In October 1097, the crusaders besieged Antioch, which they managed to take only in June of the following year. In Antioch, the crusaders, in turn, were besieged by the emir of Mossul Kerboga and, suffering hunger, were in great danger; they managed, however, to get out of the city and defeat Kerboga. After a long quarrel with Raymond, Antioch was taken over by Bohemond, who managed to force the rest of the crusader leaders to agree to the transfer of this important city to him even before its fall. While disputes were going on over Antioch, an unrest occurred in the army, dissatisfied with the delay, which forced the princes, ending the strife, to move on. The same thing happened later: while the army was rushing towards Jerusalem, the leaders were arguing over each city taken.

On June 7, 1099, the holy city finally opened before the eyes of the crusaders, and on July 15 they took it, and carried out a terrible massacre among the Muslims. Gottfried of Bouillon gained power in Jerusalem. Having defeated the Egyptian army near Ascalon, he ensured for some time the conquest of the crusaders from this side. After the death of Gottfried, Baldwin the Elder became king of Jerusalem, who handed over Edessa to Baldwin the Younger. In 1101, a second large crusading army from Lombardy, Germany and France came to Asia Minor, led by many noble and wealthy knights; but most of this army was destroyed by the combined forces of several emirs. Meanwhile, the crusaders who had established themselves in Syria (their number increased with new pilgrims arriving almost continuously) had to wage a hard struggle with the neighboring Muslim rulers. Bohemond was taken prisoner by one of them and ransomed by the Armenians. In addition, since the spring of 1099, the Crusaders have been at war with the Greeks because of the coastal cities. In Asia Minor, the Byzantines managed to regain a significant territory; their successes here could have been even more significant if they had not spent their forces in the fight against the crusaders because of the remote Syrian and Cilician regions. Finally, from the very beginning there was a struggle between the crusaders themselves over the possession of different cities. Significant support for the Kingdom of Jerusalem was provided by the soon-formed spiritual and knightly orders of the Templars and Hospitallers (Johnites). Serious danger began to threaten the crusaders when Imad-ad-Din Zengi received power in Mossul (1127). He united under his rule several Muslim possessions that lay near the possessions of the crusaders, and formed a vast and strong state that occupied almost all of Mesopotamia and a significant part of Syria. In 1144 he took Edessa despite heroic resistance. The news of this disaster again caused crusading enthusiasm in the West, expressed in the 2nd Crusade. The sermon of Bernard of Clairvaux first of all raised a mass of French knights, led by King Louis VII; then Bernard managed to attract the German emperor Conrad III to the Crusades. With Conrad went his nephew Frederick of Swabia and many German princes.

2.2 Subsequent Eastern Crusades

Crusader states

At the end of the 1st Crusade, four Christian states were founded on the territory of the Levant.

The county of Edessa is the first state founded by the crusaders in the East. It was founded in 1098 by Baldwin I of Boulogne. After the conquest of Jerusalem and the establishment of the kingdom. It existed until 1146. Its capital was the city of Edessa.

Principality of Antioch - was founded by Bohemond I of Tarentum in 1098 after the capture of Antioch. The principality lasted until 1268.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted until the fall of Akv in 1291. The kingdom had several vassal lords under its control, including the four largest ones:

Principality of Galilee

County of Jaffa and Ascalon

Transjordan - Senoria of Krak, Montreal and St. Abraham

Senoria of Sidon

The County of Tripoli is the last of the states founded during the First Crusade. It was founded in 1105 by Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse. The county lasted until 1289.

The crusader states completely covered the territory through which Europe traded with India and China at that time, without occupying any extra territory. Egypt was cut off from this trade. Delivery of goods to Europe in the most economical way from Baghdad, bypassing the crusader states, became impossible. Thus, the crusaders acquired a kind of monopoly in this kind of trade. Conditions were created for the development of new trade routes between Europe and, for example, China, such as the route along the Volga with transshipment into the rivers flowing into the Baltic and the Volga-Don route. This can be seen as the reasons for the shift of the political center of Russia just after the first crusade to the area where international cargo was transshipped from the Volga basin to the Western Dvina basin, as well as the reasons for the economic and political rise of the Volga Bulgaria. The subsequent capture by the crusaders of the mouth of the Western Dvina and the Neman, their capture of Constantinople, through which the goods of the Volga-Don route and the route along the Kura River passed, as well as the attempt of the Swedes to seize the mouth of the Neva, can also be regarded as a desire to establish control over the trade routes of this type of trade. The economic upswing at that time of the northwestern part of Western Europe against the southern one became the reason that for Europeans international trade with the East through the Baltic and further through North-Eastern Russia became more economically profitable. Perhaps it was in this connection that the crusades to the Holy Land lost popularity among Europeans, and the crusading states lasted the longest in the Baltic states, disappearing only when the Europeans opened direct sea routes to China and India.

Second Crusade (1147-1149)

Conrad arrived in Constantinople by land (through Hungary), and in mid-September 1147 he sent troops to Asia, but after a clash with the Seljuks at Dorilei, he returned to the sea. The French, frightened by the failure of Conrad, went along the western coast of Asia Minor; then the king and noble crusaders sailed on ships to Syria, where they arrived in March 1148. The rest of the crusaders wanted to break through by land and for the most part died. Conrad arrived in Acre in April; but the siege of Damascus, undertaken together with the Jerusalemites, failed, due to the selfish and short-sighted policy of the latter. Then Conrad, and in the fall of the following year, Louis VII returned to their homeland. Edessa, taken after the death of Imad-ad-Din by the Christians, but soon again taken from them by his son Nur-ad-Din, was now forever lost to the crusaders. The 4 decades that followed were a difficult time for Christians in the East. In 1176, the Byzantine emperor Manuel suffered a terrible defeat from the Seljuk Turks at Miriokefale. Nur-ad-Din took possession of the lands lying NE from Antioch, took Damascus and became a close and extremely dangerous neighbor for the crusaders. His commander Shirku (of Kurdish origin) established himself in Egypt. The crusaders, as it were, were surrounded by enemies. Upon the death of Shirku, the title of vizier and power over Egypt passed to his famous nephew Saladin, son of Ayub.

Loss of Jerusalem

Saladin (actually Salah-ad-din Yusuf ibn-Ayyub) after the death of the caliph ruled the country indefinitely, recognizing only nominally the supreme power of Nur-ad-Din. After the death of the latter (1174), Saladin subjugated Damascus, all of Muslim Syria, most of Mesopotamia and took the title of sultan.

At this time, the young king Baldwin IV ruled in Jerusalem. Despite a serious illness - leprosy - he managed to show himself as a wise and far-sighted commander and diplomat. Under him, a certain balance was established between Jerusalem and Damascus. Both Baldwin and Saladin tried to avoid pitched battles. However, foreseeing the imminent death of the king, the intrigues of powerful barons grew at Baldwin's court, the most influential of which were Guy de Lusignani (Renaud de Châtillon). They represented a radical party that demanded an end to Saladin without fail. Chatillon, among other things, was outrageous on the caravan routes in the vicinity of his stronghold Krak of Moab.

Baldwin died in 1185. Guy de Lusignan married his sister Sibylle and became king of Jerusalem. Now, with the assistance of Renaud de Châtillon, he began to openly provoke Saladin to a pitched battle. The last straw that broke Saladin's patience was Reno's attack on the caravan in which Saladin's sister followed. This led to an aggravation of relations and the transition of Muslims to the offensive.

In July 1187, Saladin took Tiberias and inflicted a terrible defeat on the Christians who occupied the heights of Hattin (near Tiberias).

King of Jerusalem Guy de Lusignan, his brother Amaury, Renaud de Chatillon and many knights were taken prisoner. Saladin then took possession of Acre, Beirut, Sidon, Caesarea, Ascalon and other cities. On October 2, 1187, his troops entered Jerusalem. Only under Tirom, which was defended by Conrad of Montferrat, Saladin failed. Only Tyr, Tripoli, and Antioch remained in the power of the crusaders. Meanwhile, King Guy, freed from captivity, moved to conquer Acre. Saladin's successes sparked a new movement in the West, leading to the 3rd Great Crusade. The fleets of the Lombards, Tuscans and Genoese moved ahead of others. Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa led a large army. Between the crusaders and the Greeks, even now there were no hostile actions: the Greeks even entered into an alliance with Saladin.

Third Crusade (1189-1192)

In March 1190, Frederick's troops crossed into Asia, moved to the southeast and, after terrible hardships, made their way through all of Asia Minor; but soon after crossing the Taurus, the emperor drowned in the Salef River. Part of his army dispersed, many died, Duke Frederick brought the rest to Antioch, and then to Acre. In January 1191 he died of a pestilence. In the spring, the kings of France (Philip II Augustus) and English (Richard the Lionheart) and Duke Leopold of Austria arrived. On the way, Richard the Lionheart defeated the emperor of Cyprus, Isaac, who was forced to surrender; he was imprisoned in a Syrian castle, where he was kept almost until his death, and Cyprus fell into the power of the crusaders. The siege of Acre went badly, due to strife between the kings of France and England, as well as between Guy de Lusignan and Margrave Conrad of Montferrat, who, after the death of Guy's wife, claimed the crown of Jerusalem and married Isabella, sister and heiress of the deceased Sibylla. It was not until 12 July 1191 that Acre surrendered after an almost two-year siege. Conrad and Guy reconciled after the capture of Acre; the first was recognized as Guy's heir and received Tyre, Beirut and Sidon. Shortly thereafter, Philip II sailed home with part of the French knights, but Hugh of Burgundy, Henry of Champagne and many other noble crusaders remained in Syria. The Crusaders managed to defeat Saladin at the Battle of Arsuf, but due to lack of water and constant skirmishes with Muslim troops, the Christian army failed to recapture Jerusalem - King Richard approached the city twice and both times did not dare to storm. Finally, in September 1192, a truce was concluded with Saladin: Jerusalem remained in the power of the Muslims, Christians were only allowed to visit the holy city. After that, King Richard sailed to Europe.

A circumstance that somewhat alleviated the position of the crusaders was the death of Saladin in March 1193: the division of his possessions between his many sons became a source of civil strife among the Muslims. Soon, however, Saladin's brother, al-Malik al-Adil), came forward, who took possession of Egypt, southern Syria and Mesopotamia and took the title of sultan. After the failure of the third crusade, Emperor Henry VI began to gather in the Holy Land, accepting the cross in May 1195; but he died in September 1197. Some detachments of the crusaders who set off earlier nevertheless arrived in Acre. Somewhat earlier than the emperor, Henry of Champagne died, who was married to the widow of Conrad of Montferrat and therefore wore the crown of Jerusalem. Amaury II (brother of Guy de Lusignan), who married Henry's widow, was now chosen king. Meanwhile, military operations in Syria were not going well; a significant part of the crusaders returned to their homeland. Around this time, the German hospital fraternity of St. Mary, founded during the 3rd Crusade, was transformed into a Teutonic spiritual and knightly order.

Fourth Crusade (1202-1204)

Soon, Pope Innocent III began to preach a new 4th Crusade. The fiery preacher Fulco of Nelli persuaded to accept the cross of Count Thibaut of Champagne, Louis of Blois and Chartres, Simon of Montfort and many knights. In addition, Count Baldwin of Flanders and his brothers, Eustache and Heinrich, made a vow to go to the Holy Land. Count Tibov soon died, but Boniface of Montferrat also took part in the Crusades.

While the crusaders were about to sail to Egypt, in the summer of 1201 Tsarevich Alexei, the son of the Byzantine emperor Isaac Angelos, who was deposed and blinded in 1196, arrived in Italy. He asked the pope and the Hohenstaufen for help against his uncle, the usurper Alexei III. Philip of Swabia was married to the sister of Tsarevich Alexei, Irina, and supported his request. Intervention in the affairs of the Byzantine Empire promised great benefits to the Venetians; therefore, Doge Enrico Dandolo also took the side of Alexei, who promised the crusaders a generous reward for their help. The crusaders, having taken the city of Zadar for the Venetians in November 1202 (in exchange for underpaid money for transportation), sailed to the East, in the summer of 1203 they landed on the banks of the Bosphorus and began to storm Constantinople. After several setbacks, Emperor Alexei III fled, and the blind Isaac was again proclaimed emperor, with his son co-emperor.

Soon strife began between the crusaders and Alexei, who was unable to fulfill his promises. Already in November of the same year, this led to hostilities. On January 25, 1204, a new revolution in Constantinople overthrew Alexei IV and elevated Alexei V (Murzufla) to the throne. The people were dissatisfied with the new taxes and the taking away of church treasures to pay the agreed reward to the crusaders. Isaac is dead; Alexei IV and Kanabus, who had been chosen by the emperor, were strangled on the orders of Murzufla. The war with the Franks was unsuccessful even under the new emperor. On April 12, 1204, the crusaders took Constantinople, and many monuments of art were destroyed. Alexei V and Theodore Laskaris, son-in-law of Alexei III, fled (the latter - to Nicaea, where he established himself), and the winners formed the Latin Empire. For Syria, the immediate consequence of this event was the diversion of the western knights from there. In addition, the power of the Franks in Syria was weakened by the struggle between Bohemond of Antioch and Leo of Armenia. In April 1205, King Amalrich of Jerusalem died; Cyprus was given to his son Hugo, and the crown of Jerusalem was inherited by Mary of Jerusalem, daughter of Margrave Conrad of Montferrat and Elizabeth. During her infancy, Jean I Ibelin ruled. In 1210, Mary Iolanta was married to the brave John of Brienne. With the Muslims, the crusaders lived at that time for the most part in peace, which was very beneficial to Almelik-Aladil: thanks to him, he strengthened his power in Asia Minor and Egypt. In Europe, the success of the 4th Campaign revived crusading zeal again.

Children's Crusade (1212)

In 1212, the so-called Children's Crusade took place, an expedition led by a young seer named Stephen, who inspired the faith in French and German children that with his help, as poor and devoted servants of the Lord, they could restore Jerusalem to Christianity. Children went to the south of Europe, but many of them did not even reach the shores mediterranean sea and died along the way. Some historians believe that the Children's Crusade was a provocation arranged by slave traders in order to sell the participants in the campaign into slavery.

In May 1212, when the German people's army passed through Cologne, there were about twenty-five thousand children and teenagers in its ranks, heading to Italy, in order to reach Palestine by sea from there. In the chronicles of the 13th century, this campaign is mentioned more than fifty times, which was called the “Children's Crusade”.

The crusaders boarded ships in Marseilles and partly died from the storm, partly, as they say, the children were sold into Egypt into slavery. A similar movement also swept through Germany, where the boy Nikolai gathered a crowd of children of about 20 thousand. Most of them died or scattered along the way (especially many of them died in the Alps), but some reached Brindisi, from where they were supposed to return; most of them also died. Meanwhile, the English king John, the Hungarian Andrew and, finally, Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, who accepted the cross in July 1215, responded to the new call of Innocent III. The beginning of the Crusade was scheduled for June 1, 1217.

Fifth Crusade (1217-1221)

The case of Innocent III (d. in July 1216) was continued by Honorius III. Although Frederick II postponed the campaign, and John of England died, nevertheless, in 1217, significant detachments of crusaders went to the Holy Land, with Andrew of Hungary, Duke Leopold VI of Austria, Otto of Meran, at the head; it was the 5th crusade. Military operations were sluggish, and in 1218 King Andrew returned home. Soon, new detachments of crusaders arrived in the Holy Land, led by George of Vidsky and William of Holland (on the way, some of them helped the Christians in the fight against the smugglers in Portugal). The Crusaders decided to attack Egypt, which at that time was the main center of Muslim power in Asia Minor. Synal-Adil, al-Kamil (al-Adil died in 1218), offered an extremely advantageous peace: he even agreed to the return of Jerusalem to the Christians. This proposal was rejected by the crusaders. In November 1219, after more than a year of siege, the crusaders took Damietta. The removal from the crusader camp of Leopold and King John of Brienne was partly offset by the arrival in Egypt of Louis of Bavaria with the Germans. Part of the crusaders, convinced by the papal legate Pelagius, moved to Mansura, but the campaign ended in complete failure, and in 1221 the crusaders concluded a peace with al-Kamil, according to which they received a free retreat, but pledged to clear Damietta and Egypt in general. Meanwhile, Frederick II of Hohenstaufen married Isabella, daughter of Mary Iolanthe and John of Brienne. He pledged to the pope to launch a crusade.

Sixth Crusade (1228-1229)

Frederick in August 1227 indeed sent a fleet to Syria with Duke Henry of Limburg at the head; in September, he sailed himself, but had to return to the shore soon, due to a serious illness. Landgrave Ludwig of Thuringia, who took part in this crusade, died almost immediately after landing at Otranto. Pope Gregory IX did not accept Frederick's explanations in respect and pronounced excommunication over him because he did not fulfill his vow at the appointed time. A struggle between the emperor and the pope, extremely harmful to the interests of the Holy Land, began. In June 1228, Frederick finally sailed to Syria (the 6th Crusade), but this did not reconcile the pope with him: Gregory said that Frederick (still excommunicated) was going to the Holy Land not as a crusader, but as a pirate. In the Holy Land, Frederick restored the fortifications of Joppa and in February 1229 concluded an agreement with Alcamil: the Sultan ceded Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and some other places to him, for which the emperor undertook to help Alcamil against his enemies. In March 1229, Frederick entered Jerusalem, and in May he sailed from the Holy Land. After the removal of Frederick, his enemies began to seek to weaken the power of the Hohenstaufen both in Cyprus, which had been a fief of the empire since the time of Emperor Henry VI, and in Syria. These strife had a very unfavorable effect on the course of the struggle between Christians and Muslims. Relief for the crusaders was brought only by the strife of the heirs of Alcamil, who died in 1238.

In the autumn of 1239, Thibaut of Navarre, Duke Hugh of Burgundy, Count Peter of Brittany, Amalrich of Montfort and others arrived in Acre. And now the crusaders acted discordantly and recklessly and were defeated; Amalrich was taken prisoner. Jerusalem again fell for some time into the hands of an Ayyubid ruler. The alliance of the Crusaders with Emir Ishmael of Damascus led to their war with the Egyptians, who defeated them at Ascalon. After that, many crusaders left the Holy Land. Arriving in the Holy Land in 1240, Count Richard of Cornwall (brother of the English King Henry III) managed to conclude a favorable peace with Eyyub (Melik-Salik-Eyyub) of Egypt. Meanwhile, strife among the Christians continued; barons hostile to the Hohenstaufen gave power over the kingdom of Jerusalem to Alice of Cyprus, while the legitimate king was the son of Frederick II, Conrad. After the death of Alice, power passed to her son, Henry of Cyprus. A new alliance of Christians with Muslim enemies of Eyyub led to the fact that Eyyub called for help from the Khorezm Turks, who in September 1244, shortly before that, took Jerusalem returned to the Christians and terribly devastated it. Since then, the holy city has been forever lost to the crusaders. After the new defeat of the Christians and their allies, Eyub took Damascus and Ascalon. The Antiochians and the Armenians were at the same time obliged to pay tribute to the Mongols. In the West, the crusading zeal cooled down, due to the unsuccessful outcome of the last Campaigns and due to the behavior of the popes, who spent the money collected for the Crusades on the fight against the Hohenstaufen, and declared that with the help of the Holy See against the emperor it was possible to free themselves from the earlier vow to go to the Holy Land. However, the preaching of the Crusade to Palestine continued as before and led to the 7th Crusade. Before others, the cross was accepted by Louis IX of France: during a dangerous illness, he vowed to go to the Holy Land. With him went his brothers Robert, Alphonse and Charles, Duke Hugh of Burgundy, c. William of Flanders, c. Peter of Brittany, Seneschal Champagne John Joinville (a well-known historian of this campaign) and many others.

Seventh Crusade (1248-1254)

In the summer of 1249, King Louis IX landed in Egypt. Christians occupied Damietta, and in December they reached Mansura. In February of the following year, Robert, recklessly breaking into this city, died; a few days later the Muslims nearly took the Christian camp. When a new sultan arrived in Mansura (Eyyub died at the end of 1249), the Egyptians cut off the retreat of the crusaders; famine and pestilence opened up in the Christian camp. In April, the Muslims inflicted a complete defeat on the Crusaders; the king himself was taken prisoner, and bought his freedom by the return of Damietta and the payment of a huge sum (the assassination of Sultan Turanshah by the Mameluks, under the command of Baybars, did not change the state of affairs). Most of the crusaders returned to their homeland; Louis stayed in the Holy Land for another four years, but could not achieve any serious results.

Eighth Crusade (1270)

Among the Christians, despite the extremely dangerous situation, endless strife continued: the Templars were at enmity with the Johnites, the Genoese - with the Venetians and Pisans (due to trade rivalry). The crusaders derived some benefit only from the struggle between the Mongols and Muslims who appeared in Western Asia; but in 1260, Sultan Kutuz defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalutei, captured Damascus and Aleppo. When, after the assassination of Kutuz, Baibars became the sultan, the position of the Christians became hopeless. First of all Baibars turned against Bohemond of Antioch; in 1265 he took Caesarea, Arzuf, Safed, defeated the Armenians. In 1268, Antioch fell into his hands, which the Christians owned for 170 years. Meanwhile, Louis IX accepted the cross again. His example was followed by his sons Philip, John Tristan and Peter of Alençon, c. Poitiers, c. Artois (son of Robert Artois, who died in Mansour), King Thibault of Navarre and others. In addition, Charles of Anjou and the sons of the English king Henry III, Edward and Edmund, promised to go on the Crusades. In July 1270, Louis set sail from Egmort. In Cagliari, it was decided to launch crusades associated with the conquest of Tunisia, which would be beneficial for Charles of Anjou (brother of St. Louis), but not for the Christian cause in the Holy Land. Near Tunisia, a pestilence opened up among the crusaders: John Tristan died, then the papal legate, and, finally, on August 25, 1270, Louis IX himself. After the arrival of Charles of Anjou, a peace was concluded with the Muslims, beneficial to Charles. The crusaders left Africa, and part of them sailed to Syria, where the British also arrived in 1271. Baibars continued to gain the upper hand over the Christians, took several cities, but his attempt to conquer Cyprus failed. He concluded a truce with the Christians for 10 years and 10 days and began to fight the Mongols and Armenians. Bohemond VI's successor, Bohemond VII of Tripoli, paid tribute to him.

The Fall of Crusader Power in the East

Pope Gregory X tried, but without success, to organize a new crusade. Many promised to go to the Holy Land (including Rudolf of Habsburg, Philip of France, Edward of England, Jaime of Aragon and others), but no one fulfilled the promise. Baybars died in 1277, and the struggle for his inheritance began. There were troubles among Christians as well. In 1267, with the death of King Hugo II of Jerusalem (son of Henry I of Cyprus), the male line of the Lusignans ceased; power passed to Hugo III, Prince of Antioch. Mary of Antioch, considering herself the heir to the Jerusalem crown, ceded her claims to Charles of Anjou, who took possession of Acre and demanded to be recognized as king. Hugo III died in 1284; he was succeeded by his son John, but he died already in 1285. His brother Henry II expelled the Sicilians from Acre and received the crowns of Cyprus and Jerusalem. Meanwhile, hostilities against the Muslims resumed. Sultan Kalaun took Markab, Marakia, Laodicea, Tripoli (Bohemond VII died in 1287). The crusading sermon no longer produced the former effect in the West: the monarchs, under the influence of the crusades themselves, lost faith in the possibility of further successful struggle for the Holy Sepulcher and lands in the East; the former religious mood weakened, secular aspirations developed, new interests arose. The son of Qalawn, Malik-al-Ashraf, took Acre (May 18, 1291). King Henry left the besieged city and sailed to Cyprus. After Acre, the palettes were Tire, Sidon, Beirut, Tortosa; the Christians lost all their conquests on the Syrian coast. The mass of the crusaders died, the rest moved out, mainly to Cyprus. After the fall of Acre, the Johnites withdrew to Cyprus. The Templars first also moved to Cyprus, then to France; the Teutons found themselves even earlier a new field of action in the north, among the Prussians (see: The Teutonic Order).

The idea of ​​returning the Holy Land was not, however, finally abandoned in the West. In 1312, Pope Clement V preached a crusade at the Vienne Cathedral. Several sovereigns made a promise to go to the Holy Land, but no one went. A few years later, the Venetian Marino Sanutos drafted a crusade and presented it to Pope John XXII; but the time of the crusades has passed irrevocably. The Cypriot kingdom, reinforced by the Franks who fled there, retained its independence for a long time. One of its kings, Peter I (1359-1369), traveled all over Europe in order to start a crusade. He managed to conquer and rob Alexandria, but he could not keep it behind him. The wars with Genoa finally weakened Cyprus, and after the death of King James II, the island fell into the hands of Venice: the widow of James the Venetian Katerina Kornaro, after the death of her husband and son, was forced to cede Cyprus to her hometown (1489). Republic of St. Marka owned the island for almost a century, until the Turks took it from her. Cilician Armenia, whose fate since the first crusade was closely connected with the fate of the crusaders, defended its independence until 1375, when the Mameluke sultan Ashraf subjugated it to his power. When the Ottoman Turks established themselves in Asia Minor, transferred their conquests to Europe and began to threaten the Christian world with a serious danger, the West tried to organize crusades against them as well.

Chapter 3

3.1 Fall of crusader power in the east

Pope Gregory X tried, but without success, to organize a new crusade. Many promised to go to the Holy Land (including Rudolf of Habsburg, Philip of France, Edward of England, Jaime of Aragon and others), but no one fulfilled the promise. Baibars died in 1277, and the struggle for his inheritance began. There were troubles among Christians as well. In 1267, with the death of King Hugo II of Jerusalem (son of Henry I of Cyprus), the male line of the Lusignans ceased; power passed to Hugh III, Prince of Antioch. Mary of Antioch, believing herself heir to the crown of Jerusalem, yielded her claims to Charles of Anjou, who took possession of Acre and demanded to be recognized as king. Hugh III died in 1284; in Cyprus he was succeeded by his son John, but he died already in 1285. His brother Henry II expelled the Sicilians from Acre and received the crowns of Cyprus and Jerusalem. Meanwhile, hostilities against the Muslims resumed. Sultan Calaun took Markab, Maracia, Laodicea, Tripoli (Bohemond VII died in 1287). The crusading sermon no longer produced the former effect in the West: the monarchs, under the influence of the crusades themselves, lost faith in the possibility of further successful struggle for the Holy Sepulcher and lands in the East; the former religious mood weakened, secular aspirations developed, new interests arose. The son of Qalawn, Malik-al-Ashraf, took Acre (May 18, 1291). King Henry left the besieged city and sailed to Cyprus. After Acre fell Tire, Sidon, Beirut, Tortosa; the Christians lost all their conquests on the Syrian coast. The mass of the crusaders died, the rest moved out, mainly to Cyprus. After the fall of Acre, the Johnites also retired to Cyprus. The Templars also moved first to Cyprus, then to France; the Teutons found a new field of action even earlier in the north, among the Prussians.

The idea of ​​returning the Holy Land was not, however, finally abandoned in the West. In 1312, Pope Clement V preached a crusade at the Council of Vienne. Several sovereigns made a promise to go to the Holy Land, but no one went. A few years later, the Venetian Marino Sanuto drafted a crusade and presented it to Pope John XXII; but the time of the crusades has passed irrevocably. The Cypriot kingdom, reinforced by the Franks who fled there, retained its independence for a long time. One of its kings, Peter I (1359-1369), traveled all over Europe in order to start a crusade. He managed to conquer and rob Alexandria, but he could not keep it behind him. Cyprus was finally weakened by the wars with Genoa, and after the death of King James II, the island fell into the hands of Venice: the widow of James, the Venetian Caterina Cornaro, after the death of her husband and son, was forced to cede Cyprus to her hometown (1489). Republic of St. Marka owned the island for almost a century, until the Turks took it from her. Cilician Armenia, whose fate from the time of the first crusade was closely connected with the fate of the crusaders, defended its independence until 1375, when the Mamluk sultan Ashraf subjugated it to his power. When the Ottoman Turks established themselves in Asia Minor, transferred their conquests to Europe and began to threaten the Christian world with a serious danger, the West tried to organize crusades against them as well.

Among the reasons for the unsuccessful outcome of the Crusades in the Holy Land, the feudal nature of the crusader militias and the states founded by the crusaders is in the foreground. Unity of action was required for the successful conduct of the struggle against the Muslims; meanwhile, the crusaders brought with them to the East feudal fragmentation and disunity. The weak vassal dependence, in which the crusader rulers were from the Jerusalem king, did not give him the real power that was needed here, on the border of the Muslim world.

The largest princes (Edessa, Tripoli, Antioch) were completely independent of the Jerusalem king. The moral shortcomings of the crusaders, the selfishness of their leaders, who strove to create special principalities for themselves in the East and to expand them at the expense of their neighbors, underdevelopment most of the crusaders of political sense, made them unable to subordinate their personal narrow motives to higher goals (there were, of course, exceptions). From the very beginning, almost constant feuds with the Byzantine Empire were added to this: the two main Christian forces in the East were exhausted in mutual struggle. The rivalry between popes and emperors had the same effect on the course of the Crusades. Further, the circumstance was of great importance that the possessions of the crusaders occupied only a narrow coastal strip, too insignificant for them to successfully fight the surrounding Muslim world without outside support. Therefore, the main source of forces and means of the Syrian Christians was Zap. Europe, but it lay far away and the resettlement from there to Syria was not strong enough, since most of the crusaders, having fulfilled their vows, returned home. Finally, the difference in religion between the crusaders and the native population harmed the success of the crusader cause.

3.2 Aftermath of the Crusades

The Crusades, however, did not remain without important consequences for the whole of Europe. Their unfavorable result was the weakening of the eastern empire, which gave it to the power of the Turks, as well as the death of countless people, the introduction of cruel eastern punishments and gross superstitions by the crusaders into Western Europe, the persecution of Jews, and the like. But much more significant were the consequences beneficial for Europe. For the East and Islam, the Crusades did not by far have the significance that belongs to them in the history of Europe: they changed very little in the culture of the Muslim peoples and in their state and social system. The Crusades undoubtedly had a certain influence (which, however, should not be exaggerated) on the political and social system of Western Europe: they contributed to the downfall of medieval forms in it. The numerical weakening of the baronial knightly class, which was a consequence of the ebb of knights to the East, which lasted almost continuously for two centuries, made it easier for the royal power to fight against the representatives of the feudal aristocracy who remained in their homeland. The hitherto unprecedented development of commercial relations contributed to the enrichment and strengthening of the urban class, which in the Middle Ages was the mainstay of royal power and the enemy of the feudal lords. Then, the Crusades in some countries facilitated and accelerated the process of freeing the Villans from serfdom: the Villans were freed not only as a result of going to the Holy Land, but also by redeeming freedom from the barons, who needed money when going on a Crusade and therefore willingly entered into such deals. Representatives of all those groups into which the population of medieval Western Europe was divided, from the largest barons to the masses of simple villans, took part in the Crusades; therefore, the Crusades contributed to the rapprochement of all classes among themselves, as well as the rapprochement of various European nationalities. The Crusades for the first time united in one cause all the social classes and all the peoples of Europe and awakened in them the consciousness of unity. On the other hand, bringing the various peoples of Western Europe into close contact, the Crusades helped them to understand their national characteristics. By bringing Western Christians into close contact with the foreign and heterodox peoples of the East (Greeks, Arabs, Turks, and so on), the Crusades contributed to the weakening of tribal and religious prejudices. Having closely familiarized themselves with the culture of the East, with the material situation, customs and religion of Muslims, the crusaders learned to see in them people like themselves, began to appreciate and respect their opponents. Those whom they first considered semi-savage barbarians and rude pagans turned out to be culturally superior to the crusaders themselves. The Crusades left an indelible mark on the knightly class; war, which previously served the feudal lords only as a means to achieve selfish goals, received a new character in the Crusades: the knights shed their blood because of ideal, religious motives. The ideal of a knight as a fighter for the highest interests, a fighter for truth and religion, was formed precisely under the influence of the Crusades. The most important consequence of the Crusades was the cultural influence of the East on Western Europe. From the contact in the East of Western European culture with Byzantine and especially Muslim culture, extremely beneficial consequences for the former emerged. In all areas of material and spiritual life, in the era of the Crusades, either direct borrowings from the East are encountered, or phenomena that owe their origin to the influence of these borrowings and those new conditions in which Western Europe then became.

Navigation reached an unprecedented development during the Crusades: most of the crusaders went to the Holy Land by sea; Almost the entire vast trade between Western Europe and the East was carried out by the sea route. The main figures in this trade were Italian merchants from Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi and other cities. Lively commercial relations brought a lot of money to Western Europe, and this, together with the development of trade, led to the decline in the West of subsistence farming and contributed to the economic upheaval that is noticed at the end of the Middle Ages. Relations with the East brought to the West many useful objects, until then either not known there at all, or were rare and expensive. Now these products began to be brought in in greater quantities, became cheaper and came into general use. So the carob tree, saffron, apricot (Damascus plum), lemon, pistachios were transferred from the East (the very words denoting many of these plants are Arabic). Sugar began to be imported on a large scale, and rice became widely used. Works of a highly developed oriental industry were also imported in significant quantities - paper fabrics, chintz, muslin, expensive silk fabrics (satin, velvet), carpets, jewelry, paints, and the like. Acquaintance with these items and with the way they were made led to the development of similar industries in the West (in France, those who made carpets according to oriental patterns were called "Saracens"). From the East, many items of clothing and home comforts were borrowed, which bear evidence of their origin in the very names (Arabic) (skirt, burnus, alcove, sofa), some weapons (crossbow) and the like. A significant number of oriental, predominantly Arabic words, which entered the Western languages ​​during the era of the Crusades, usually indicates a borrowing of what these words denote. These are (other than those mentioned above) Italian. dogana, fr. douane - customs, - admiral, talisman, etc. The Crusades introduced Western scientists to Arabic and Greek science (for example, to Aristotle). Geography made especially a lot of acquisitions at this time: the West became closely acquainted with a number of countries that were little known before; the wide development of trade relations with the East made it possible for Europeans to penetrate into such distant and then little-known countries as Central Asia (travels of Plano Carpini, Wilhelm of Rubruk, Marco Polo). Mathematics, astronomy, natural sciences, medicine, linguistics, and history also made significant progress at that time. In European art from the era of the Crusades, a certain influence of Byzantine and Muslim art is noticed.

Such borrowings can be traced in architecture (horseshoe-shaped and complex arches, shamrock-shaped arches and pointed, flat roofs), in sculpture (“arabesques” - the very name indicates borrowing from the Arabs), in artistic crafts. Poetry, spiritual and secular Crusades gave rich material. Strongly influencing the imagination, they developed it among Western poets; they introduced Europeans to the treasures of the poetic creativity of the East, from where a lot of poetic material and many new plots passed to the West. In general, the acquaintance of Western peoples with new countries, with political and social forms different from those in the West, with many new phenomena and products, with new forms in art, with other religious and scientific views, should have greatly expanded the mental horizons of Western peoples, informed to him hitherto unprecedented breadth. Western thought began to break free of the vise in which the Catholic Church had until then held all spiritual life, science and art. The authority of the Roman Church was already severely undermined by the failure of those aspirations and hopes with which the Church led the West into the Crusades. The extensive development under the influence of the Crusades and through the Syrian Christians of trade and industry contributed to the economic prosperity of the countries that took part in this movement, and gave scope to various worldly interests, and this further undermined the decrepit building of the medieval church and its ascetic ideals. By bringing the West closer to the new culture, making available to it the treasures of thought and artistic creativity Greeks and Muslims, having developed worldly tastes and views, the Crusades prepared the so-called Renaissance, which chronologically directly adjoins them and is largely their consequence. In this way, the Crusades indirectly contributed to the development of a new direction in the spiritual life of mankind and prepared, in part, the foundations of a new European civilization.

There was also an increase in European trade: due to the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the domination of Italian merchants in the Mediterranean began.

Conclusion

Although the crusades did not achieve their goal and, begun with universal enthusiasm, ended in disaster and disappointment, they constituted an entire era in European history and had a serious impact on many aspects of European life.

Byzantine Empire.

Perhaps the crusades really delayed the Turkish conquest of Byzantium, but they could not prevent the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The Byzantine Empire was in a state of decline for a long time. Its final death meant the appearance of the Turks on the European political scene. The sack of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204 and the Venetian trade monopoly dealt the empire a mortal blow from which it could not recover even after its revival in 1261.

Trade.

The biggest beneficiaries of the crusades were the merchants and artisans of the Italian cities, who provided the armies of the crusaders with equipment, provisions and transport. In addition, the Italian cities, especially Genoa, Pisa and Venice, were enriched by the trade monopoly in the Mediterranean countries.

Italian merchants established trade relations with the Middle East, from where they exported various luxury items - silks, spices, pearls, etc. to Western Europe. The demand for these goods brought super-profits and stimulated the search for new, shorter and safer routes to the East. Ultimately, these searches led to the discovery of America. The crusades also played an extremely important role in the emergence of the financial aristocracy and contributed to the development of capitalist relations in Italian cities.

Feudalism and the Church.

Thousands of large feudal lords died in the crusades, in addition, many noble families went bankrupt under the burden of debts. All these losses ultimately contributed to the centralization of power in Western European countries and the weakening of the system of feudal relations.

The impact of the crusades on the authority of the church has proven controversial. If the first campaigns helped to strengthen the authority of the pope, who assumed the role of spiritual leader in the holy war against the Muslims, then the 4th crusade discredited the power of the pope even in the person of such an outstanding representative as Innocent III. Business interests often took precedence over religious considerations, forcing the crusaders to disregard papal prohibitions and enter into business and even friendly contacts with Muslims.

Culture.

It was once believed that it was the Crusades that brought Europe to the Renaissance, but now this assessment seems to be overstated by most historians. What they undoubtedly gave the man of the Middle Ages was a broader view of the world and a better understanding of its diversity.

The Crusades are widely reflected in literature. An uncountable number of poetic works were written about the exploits of the crusaders in the Middle Ages, mostly in Old French. Among them there are truly great works, such as, for example, the History of the Holy War (Estoire de la guerre sainte), describing the exploits of Richard the Lionheart, or the Song of Antioch (Le chanson d "Antioche), supposedly composed in Syria, dedicated to the 1st Crusade The new artistic material, born of the Crusades, penetrated the ancient legends as well, thus continuing the early medieval cycles about Charlemagne and King Arthur.

The Crusades also stimulated the development of historiography. Villardouin's conquest of Constantinople remains the most authoritative source for the study of the 4th Crusade. The best medieval work in the biography genre is considered by many to be the biography of King Louis IX, created by Jean de Joinville. One of the most significant medieval chronicles was the book written in Latin by Archbishop William of Tyre, History of Acts in Overseas Lands (Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum), vividly and reliably recreating the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1144 to 1184 (the year of the author’s death).

Bibliography

1. Vasiliev A. A. History of the Byzantine Empire: From the beginning of the Crusades to the fall of Constantinople. St. Petersburg: Aletheia. 1998. 581 p. (Byzantine library.)

2. Villardouin J. de. Conquest of Constantinople Transl., article and commentary. M. Zaborova. M.: Science. 1993. 296 p. (Monuments of historical thought.)

3. Ertov I. The history of the crusades for the liberation of Jerusalem and the holy land from the hands of the infidels, selected from world history. St. Petersburg: type. H. Gints. 1835. 375 p.

4. Fences M. A. Historiography of the Crusades. (XV-XIX centuries) M.: Nauka. 1971. 386 p.

5. Clary, R. de. Conquest of Constantinople Trans., Art. and comm. M. Zaborova. M.: Science. 1986. 174 p. (Monuments of historical thought.)

6. Uspensky F. I. History of the Crusades, St. Petersburg, 1900-1901, 230 p.

7. Shishnev U. G. History of Europe M: Science. 1985. 415 p.

Among the reasons for the unsuccessful outcome of the Crusades in the Holy Land, the feudal nature of the crusader militias and the states founded by the crusaders is in the foreground. Unity of action was required for the successful conduct of the struggle against the Muslims; instead, the crusaders brought feudal fragmentation and disunity with them to the East. The weak vassal dependence, in which the crusader rulers were from the Jerusalem king, did not give him the real power that was needed here, on the border of the Muslim world.

The largest princes(Edessa, Trypillia, Antioch) were completely independent of the Jerusalem king. The moral shortcomings of the crusaders, the selfishness of their leaders, who sought to create special principalities in the East and expand them at the expense of their neighbors, a poor understanding of the political situation made them unable to subordinate their personal narrow motives to higher goals (there were, of course, exceptions). From the very beginning, almost constant feuds with the Byzantine Empire were added to this: the two main Christian forces in the East were exhausted in mutual struggle. The rivalry between popes and emperors had the same effect on the course of the Crusades. Further, the circumstance was of great importance that the possessions of the crusaders occupied only a narrow coastal strip, too insignificant for them to successfully fight the surrounding Muslim world without outside support. Therefore, Western Europe was the main source of forces and resources for the Syrian Christians, and it lay far away and the resettlement from there to Syria was not strong enough, since most of the crusaders, having fulfilled vow were returning home. Finally, the difference in religion between the crusaders and the native population harmed the success of the crusader cause.

Consequences of the Crusades

The Crusades did not remain without important consequences for the whole of Europe. Their unfavorable result was the weakening of the eastern empire, which gave it to the power of the Turks, as well as the death of countless people, the introduction of cruel eastern punishments and gross superstitions by the crusaders into Western Europe, the persecution of Jews, and the like. But much more significant were the consequences beneficial for Europe. For the East and Islam, the Crusades did not by far have the significance that belongs to them in the history of Europe: they changed very little in the culture of the Muslim peoples and in their state and social system. The Crusades undoubtedly had a certain influence (which, however, should not be exaggerated) on the political and social system of Western Europe: they contributed to the downfall of medieval forms in it. The numerical weakening of the baronial knightly class, which was a consequence of the ebb of knights to the East, which lasted almost continuously for two centuries, made it easier for the royal power to fight against the representatives of the feudal aristocracy who remained in their homeland. The hitherto unprecedented development of trade relations contributed to the enrichment and strengthening of the urban class, which in the Middle Ages was the mainstay of royal power and the enemy. feudal lords. Then, the crusades in some countries facilitated and accelerated the process of liberation. Villans from bondage: Villans they were released not only as a result of leaving for the Holy Land, but also by redeeming freedom from the barons, who needed money when setting off on a crusade and therefore willingly entered into such transactions. Representatives of all those groups into which the population of the medieval Zap was divided took part in the Crusades. Europe, starting from the largest barons and ending with the masses of ordinary Villans; therefore, the Crusades contributed to the rapprochement of all classes among themselves, as well as the rapprochement of various European nationalities. The Crusades for the first time united in one cause all the social classes and all the peoples of Europe and awakened in them the consciousness of unity. On the other hand, bringing the various peoples of Western Europe into close contact, the Crusades helped them to understand their national characteristics. By bringing Western Christians into close contact with the foreign and heterodox peoples of the East (Greeks, Arabs, Turks, and so on), the Crusades contributed to the weakening of tribal and religious prejudices. Having closely familiarized themselves with the culture of the East, with the material situation, customs and religion of Muslims, the crusaders learned to see in them people like themselves, began to appreciate and respect their opponents. Those whom they first regarded as semi-savage barbarians and rude pagans, turned out to be culturally superior to the crusaders themselves. The Crusades left an indelible mark on the knightly class; the war that served earlier feudal lords only a means to achieve selfish goals, the Crusades received a new character: the knights shed their blood for ideological and religious motives. The ideal of a knight as a fighter for the highest interests, a fighter for truth and religion, was formed precisely under the influence of the Crusades. The most important consequence of the Crusades was the cultural influence of the East on Western Europe. From the contact in the East of Western European culture with Byzantine and especially Muslim culture, extremely beneficial consequences for the former emerged. In all areas of material and spiritual life, in the era of the Crusades, either direct borrowings from the East are encountered, or phenomena that owe their origin to the influence of these borrowings and those new conditions in which Western Europe then became.

seafaring reached an unprecedented development during the Crusades: most of the crusaders went to the Holy Land by sea; almost all the vast trade between Western Europe and East. The main figures in this trade were Italian merchants from Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi and other cities. Lively trade relations brought to the West. Europe a lot of money, and this, together with the development of trade, led to the decline in the West of subsistence farming and contributed to the economic upheaval that is seen at the end of the Middle Ages. Relations with the East brought to the West many useful objects, until then either not known there at all, or were rare and expensive. Now these products began to be brought in in greater quantities, became cheaper and came into general use. So the carob tree was transferred from the East, saffron,apricot(damask plum) lemon,pistachios(the very words denoting many of these plants - Arabic). Began to be imported on a large scale sugar, came into widespread use. rice. Works of a highly developed oriental industry were also imported in significant quantities - paper materials, chintz,Kisei, expensive silk fabrics ( atlas,velvet), carpets, jewelry, paints and the like. Acquaintance with these items and with the method of their manufacture led to the development of similar industries in the West (in France, those who made carpets according to oriental patterns were called “ Saracens"). Many items of clothing and home comforts were borrowed from the East, which bear evidence of their origin in the names themselves (Arabic) ( skirt,burnous,alcove,sofa), some weapons ( crossbow) etc. A significant number of oriental, predominantly Arabic words, which entered the Western languages ​​during the era of the Crusades, usually indicates a borrowing of what these words denote. These are (other than those mentioned above) ital.dogana,fr.douane-customs, -admiral,mascot and others. The Crusades introduced Western scientists to Arabic and Greek science (for example, to Aristotle). Geography made especially a lot of acquisitions at this time: the West became closely acquainted with a number of countries that were little known before; the wide development of trade relations with the East made it possible for Europeans to penetrate into such distant and then little-known countries as Central Asia (travel Plano Carpini,Wilhelm of Rubruk,Marco Polo). Significant progress was also made then in mathematics (see), astronomy, natural sciences, medicine, linguistics, and history. In European art from the era of the Crusades, a certain influence of Byzantine and Muslim art is noticed.

Such borrowings can be traced in architecture (horseshoe-shaped and complex arches, shamrock-shaped arches and pointed, flat roofs), in sculpture (“arabesques” - the very name indicates borrowing from the Arabs), in artistic crafts. Poetry, spiritual and secular Crusades gave rich material. Strongly influencing the imagination, they developed it among Western poets; they introduced Europeans to the treasures of the poetic creativity of the East, from where a lot of poetic material and many new plots passed to the West. In general, the acquaintance of Western peoples with new countries, with political and social forms other than in the West, with many new phenomena and products, with new forms in art, with other religious and scientific views - should have greatly expanded the mental horizons of the West. peoples, to inform him of hitherto unprecedented breadth. Western thought began to break free of the vise in which the Catholic Church had until then held all spiritual life, science and art. The authority of the Roman Church was already severely undermined by the failure of those aspirations and hopes with which the Church led the West into the Crusades. The extensive development under the influence of the Crusades and through the Syrian Christians of trade and industry contributed to the economic prosperity of the countries that took part in this movement, and gave scope to various worldly interests, and this further undermined the decrepit building of the medieval church and its ascetic ideals. Having familiarized the West more closely with the new culture, making available to it the treasures of thought and artistic creativity of the Greeks and Muslims, developing worldly tastes and views, the Crusades prepared the so-called Renaissance, which chronologically directly adjoins them and is largely their consequence. In this way, the Crusades indirectly contributed to the development of a new direction in the spiritual life of mankind and prepared, in part, the foundations of a new European civilization.

There was also an increase in European trade: due to the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the domination of Italian merchants in the Mediterranean began.

The history of mankind is, unfortunately, not always a world of discoveries and achievements, but often a chain of a myriad of wars. These include those committed from the 11th to the 13th centuries. This article will help you understand the reasons and reasons, as well as trace the chronology. It is accompanied by a table compiled on the theme of "Crusades", containing the most important dates, names and events.

Definition of the concepts of "crusade" and "crusader"

The crusade is an armed offensive of the army of Christians to the Muslim East, which lasted a total of more than 200 years (1096-1270) and was expressed in at least eight organized performances by troops from Western European countries. In a later period, this was the name of any military campaign with the aim of converting to Christianity and expanding the influence of the medieval Catholic Church.

The crusader is a participant in such a campaign. On the right shoulder he had a stripe in the form of the same image was applied to the helmet and flags.

Reasons, reasons, goals of campaigns

Military demonstrations were organized. The formal reason was the fight against the Muslims in order to liberate the Holy Sepulcher, located in the Holy Land (Palestine). In the modern sense, this territory includes such states as Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the Gaza Strip, Jordan and a number of others.

Nobody doubted the success. At that time, it was believed that anyone who became a crusader would receive the forgiveness of all sins. Therefore, joining these ranks was popular with both knights and urban residents, peasants. The latter, in exchange for participation in the crusade, received liberation from serfdom. In addition, for European kings, the crusade was an opportunity to get rid of powerful feudal lords, whose power grew as their holdings increased. Wealthy merchants and townspeople saw economic opportunity in military conquest. And the very highest clergy, led by the popes, considered the crusades as a way to strengthen the power of the church.

Beginning and end of the Crusader era

The 1st Crusade began on August 15, 1096, when an unorganized crowd of 50,000 peasants and urban poor set out on a campaign without supplies or training. Basically, they were engaged in looting (because they considered themselves the soldiers of God, who own everything in this world) and attacked the Jews (who were considered the descendants of the murderers of Christ). But within a year this army was destroyed by the Hungarians who met along the way, and then by the Turks. Following the crowd of the poor, well-trained knights went on a crusade. Already by 1099 they reached Jerusalem, capturing the city and killing a large number of inhabitants. These events and the formation of a territory called the Kingdom of Jerusalem ended the active period of the first campaign. Further conquests (until 1101) were aimed at strengthening the conquered borders.

The last crusade (eighth) began on June 18, 1270 with the landing of the army of the French ruler Louis IX in Tunis. However, this performance ended unsuccessfully: even before the start of the battles, the king died of pestilence, which forced the crusaders to return home. During this period, the influence of Christianity in Palestine was minimal, and Muslims, on the contrary, strengthened their positions. As a result, they captured the city of Acre, which put an end to the era of the Crusades.

1st-4th crusades (table)

	Years of the Crusades	Leaders and/or Major Events
		Duke Gottfried of Bouillon, Duke Robert of Normandy and others. The capture of the cities of Nicaea, Edessa, Jerusalem, etc.	Proclamation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
2nd crusade		Louis VII, King of Germany Conrad III	The defeat of the crusaders, the surrender of Jerusalem to the army of the Egyptian ruler Salah ad-Din
3rd crusade		King of Germany and the Empire Frederick I Barbarossa, French King Philip II and English King Richard I the Lionheart	Conclusion by Richard I of an agreement with Salah ad-Din (unfavorable for Christians)
4th crusade			Division of Byzantine lands

5th-8th Crusades (table)

	Years of the Crusades	Leaders and major events
5th Crusade		Duke Leopold VI of Austria, King Andras II of Hungary and others. Campaign in Palestine and Egypt.	Failure of offensive in Egypt and talks on Jerusalem due to lack of unity in leadership
6th Crusade		German King and Emperor Frederick II Staufen	The capture of Jerusalem by agreement with the Egyptian Sultan In 1244 the city again passed into the hands of the Muslims.
7th Crusade		French King Louis IX Saint Campaign to Egypt	The defeat of the crusaders, the capture of the king, followed by ransom and return home
8th crusade		Louis IX Saint	Curtailment of the campaign due to the epidemic and the death of the king

Results

How successful the numerous crusades were, the table clearly demonstrates. Among historians, there is no unequivocal opinion on how these events influenced the life of Western European peoples.

Some experts believe that the Crusades opened the way to the East, establishing new economic and cultural ties. Others point out that it could have been done more successfully peacefully. Moreover, the last crusade ended in an outright defeat.

One way or another, significant changes took place in Western Europe itself: the strengthening of the influence of the popes, as well as the power of kings; the impoverishment of the nobility and the rise of urban communities; the emergence of a class of free farmers from former serfs who gained freedom through participation in the crusades.

The most direct consequence of the Crusades, leaving aside the deaths of millions of people, was the foundation in the East, at the expense of the Muslims and the Byzantine Empire, several Catholic states occupied by French knights and Italian merchants. These Europeans, never reaching large numbers, were driven out, and the only traces of their presence in the East were the ruins of their castles in the ports and mountains of Greece and Syria. But during the two centuries of their dominance in the East, the crusaders established regular relations between the Christians of Europe and the Muslim states.

Crusader states in the East

To transport pilgrims to the Holy Land, the cities of the Mediterranean coast organized transport fleets; the horses, which the crusaders always carried with them, were transported on ships where the hold opened on the side. For protection against pirates, ships equipped in a military way were used, and a whole fleet was sent at once. During the era of the Crusades, there were two flights: one in the spring (large flight) for pilgrims who went to the Holy Land at Easter, the other in the summer. The transportation of pilgrims gave large incomes; therefore the strong cities held her back; it was possible to depart only from certain ports: in Italy - from Venice, Pisa and Genoa, in France - from Marseilles. The Templars were given the privilege of sending one ship on each voyage.

By sea or land, millions of Christians traveled from Europe to the East; the crusade was like an educational journey for them. They came out of their castles or towns more ignorant than our peasants, and suddenly saw in front of them big cities, new countries and unknown customs. All this awakened their mind and enriched it with new ideas. This is the best acquaintance of Europe with the peoples of the East, borrowing from them some of the arts and customs was also an important consequence of the crusades.

Western Europeans got a more correct idea of ​​Muslims. The first crusaders considered them savages and idolaters, prophet Mohammed- an idol, and later a heretic. In the XIII century. Christians already knew the essence of Islam and recognized Muslim culture as superior to their own.

However, it is difficult to say exactly what Europe owes to the Crusades. Western Christians adopted many inventions and customs from the Arabs and Greeks during the Middle Ages. When you see some oriental custom in Europe, it involuntarily comes to mind that it was brought here by the crusaders; but the crusades are not the only way he could have crossed here. Muslim culture dominated the entire African coast and southern Spain; Christians were in regular trade relations with Egyptian, Tunisian and Spanish Muslims and Byzantine Greeks. We know well what the Christians borrowed from the East; but as regards individual objects or customs, we seldom know whether they passed into Europe through Spain, Sicily, the Byzantine Empire, or the Crusaders. To consider as a consequence and influence of the crusades all the oriental customs that dominated Europe in the Middle Ages means to exaggerate their influence or to bring under this all the relations of Christians with Muslims.

Undoubtedly medieval Europe learned a lot from the Muslim peoples, but it is impossible to accurately determine the role of the crusades in this influence of the East on Europe. The only thing that can be confidently considered their consequence is the transfer to the West of those customs that originated in Syria itself; a crossbow, a spear with a baldric, a drum and a pipe are borrowed from weapons; from plants - sesame, apricots (in Italian damasco), charlotte (from Ascalon) and watermelon. In the East, Christians, who until then had all shaved, began to wear beards for the first time. It is also possible that the windmill appeared in Europe from Syria.

In order to recognize each other among a huge crowd of warriors, the knights had to have some kind of distinguishing marks; already and earlier it became a custom to depict some kind of ornament on the shield. During the crusades, these decorations become family signs, which then no longer change. This is how the system of coats of arms came into being. It took shape in the East, as the Eastern words used in it prove: gueules(red) - Arabic word(from guil, pink); Azur(blue) - Persian, sinople(green) - Greek; the gold coin was called bezant(Byzantine gold coin), the Greek cross served as a heraldic cross.

Many other consequences were attributed to the crusades: the beginning of the gradual emancipation of the peasants from serfdom, the strengthening of royal power, the transformation of the feudal system, the development of epic poetry, the enrichment of Italy, even the decline of piety and the weakening of papal power - in a word, almost all the changes that took place in Western states between the 11th and 13th centuries. The crusades, no doubt, had a profound influence on the general course of development of Christian states, but each of these phenomena had more effective and undoubted causes, which should be sought in the history of the states of the West themselves.

The participants in the Crusades were called crusaders.

The beginning of the Crusades was laid in 1095, when Pope Urban II, at a church council in the southern French city of Clermont, called on all orthodox Christians to go to Palestine and free the "sepulcher of the Lord-day" from the hands of Muslims. The Pope's call found an immediate response in the souls of the people, but, in addition to a sincere religious impulse, one can also find a number of social reasons that contributed to the start of a mass movement for the liberation of the "Holy Sepulcher".

In the XI century. in Europe, the right is asserted majorata, according to which the feud was inherited only by the eldest son of the feudal lord, while the younger sons were forced to seek income for themselves by serving at the court of more powerful lords or the king. Therefore, for them, the Crusade seemed a real opportunity to gain profitable land ownership in the East.

For the impoverished peasants, the Crusade was a means of improving their financial situation, the acquisition of land-whether free from the power of the lord.

Going to the East was prompted by the promise of the Pope to forgive all participants in the Crusade their sins and debts to the church.

The papacy itself considered the crusading movement as an opportunity to strengthen its authority, which was especially relevant in the era of the struggle for investiture with the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire.

The most successful was First crusade (1096-1099), during which a number of territories in the Middle East were conquered from the Seljuks, including the city of Jerusalem. The success of the crusaders was largely determined by the fragmentation of the actions of Muslim states against Europeans.

On the conquered territories, four Christian states were created (the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli), into which the feudal system that dominated Western Europe was transferred. All other Crusades, in fact, were only attempts to keep the conquered territories, but the crusaders failed to complete this task. By the end of the XIII century. Europeans have lost all their possessions in the Middle East.

The crusades to the East were the most common and longest manifestation of the crusading movement. However, they were made in other directions as well.

Crusades in the Baltics

At the beginning of the XIII century. Toulouse became the center of the Albigensian heresy, and the count of Toulouse even patronized the heretics. Several Crusades were organized against the Albi-Goys. In 1226, the French king Louis VIII, at the head of a crusading army, conquered the county of Toulouse, which was included in the royal domain. In an effort to no longer allow such a large-scale and deep spread of heretical teachings, the Catholic Church in the XIII century. established inquisition- a special body whose main function was to identify and eradicate heresies.

The crusades to the East had serious consequences for Europeans: acquaintance with oriental culture, introducing European seniors to oriental luxury, expanding the diet, acquiring new geographical knowledge, etc.