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The Crusades

1095 CE – 1291 CE

Two centuries of holy war over the Levant — from the First Crusade's capture of Jerusalem to the fall of Acre and the end of the Crusader states.

276 events · 424 people · 2 eras

Key events

1. People's Crusade1096 CE
   The People's Crusade was the beginning phase of the First Crusade whose objective was to retake the Holy Land, and Jerusalem in particular, from Islamic rule. In 1095, after the head of the Catholic Church Pope Urban II started to urge faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the People's Crusade was conducted for roughly six months from April to October 1096. It is also known as the Peasants' Crusade, Paupers' Crusade or the Popular Crusade as it was executed by a mainly untrained peasant army prior to the main church-organized crusade. It was led primarily by Peter the Hermit with forces of Walter Sans Avoir. The peasant army of this crusade was largely destroyed by the forces of the Seljuk Turks under Kilij Arslan at the Battle of Civetot in northwestern Anatolia, though some survivors joined the armies of the Prince's Crusade in Constantinople.
2. Siege of Jerusalem1099 CE
   The siege of Jerusalem marked the successful end of the First Crusade, whose objective was the recovery of the city of Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from Islamic control. The five-week siege began on 7 June 1099 and was carried out by the Christian forces of Western Europe mobilized by Pope Urban II after the Council of Clermont in 1095. The city had been out of Christian control since the Muslim conquest of the Levant in 637 and had been held for a century first by the Seljuk Turks and later by the Egyptian Fatimids. One of the chief motivations for the Crusades had been the recent hindering of Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land, impeding a tradition which had taken place since the fourth century. A number of eyewitness accounts of the battle are recorded, including the anonymous chronicle Gesta Francorum.
3. Battle of Montgisard1177 CE
   The Battle of Montgisard was fought between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Ayyubid Sultanate on 25 November 1177 at Montgisard, in the Levant between Ramla and Yibna.
4. Battle of Hattin1187 CE
   The Battle of Hattin took place on 4 July 1187, between the Crusader states of the Levant and the forces of the Ayyubid Sultanate of Egypt, led by Sultan Saladin. It is also known as the Battle of the Horns of Hattin, due to the shape of the nearby extinct volcano of that name.
5. Siege of Baghdad1258 CE
   The Siege of Baghdad, also known as the Sack of Baghdad, took place in early 1258. A large army commanded by Hulegu, a prince of the Mongol Empire, attacked the historic capital of the Abbasid Caliphate after a series of provocations from its ruler, caliph al-Musta'sim. Within a few weeks, Baghdad fell and was sacked by the Mongol army—al-Musta'sim was killed alongside hundreds of thousands of his subjects. The city's fall has traditionally been seen as marking the end of the Islamic Golden Age; in reality, its ramifications are uncertain.
6. Battle of Ain Jalut1260 CE
   The Battle of Ain Jalut, also spelled Ayn Jalut, was fought between the Bahri Mamluks of Egypt and the Ilkhanate on 3 September 1260 near the spring of Ain Jalut in southeastern Galilee in the Jezreel Valley. It marks the first major halt to Mongolian advances and paused their expansion into Arabia and Europe.
7. Siege of Nicaea1097 CE
   The siege of Nicaea was the first major battle of the First Crusade, taking place from 14 May to 19 June 1097. The city was under the control of the Seljuk Turks who opted to surrender to the Byzantines in fear of the crusaders breaking into the city. The siege was followed by the Battle of Dorylaeum and the Siege of Antioch, all taking place in modern Turkey.
8. Siege of Antioch1097 CE
   The siege of Antioch took place during the First Crusade in 1097 and 1098, on the Crusaders' way to Jerusalem through Syria. Two sieges took place in succession. The Crusaders sieged the city held by the Seljuk Empire from 20 October 1097 to 3 June 1098, when the Crusaders successfully took the city. A Seljuk relieving army then sieged the Crusaders for three weeks in late June. The second siege led to the Battle of Antioch in which the Crusaders defeated the Seljuks led by Kerbogha. The Crusaders then established the Principality of Antioch, ruled by Bohemond of Taranto.
9. Battle of Dorylaeum1097 CE
   The Battle of Dorylaion or Dorylaeum took place during the First Crusade on 1 July 1097 between the crusader forces and the Seljuk Turks, near the city of Dorylaion in Anatolia. Though the Turkish forces of Kilij Arslan nearly wiped out the Crusader contingent of Bohemond of Taranto, other Crusaders arrived just in time to reverse the course of the battle.
10. Battle of Myriokephalon1176 CE
    The Battle of Myriokephalon was a battle between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Turks in the mountains west of Iconium (Konya) in west-central Anatolia on 17 September 1176. The battle was a strategic reverse for the Byzantine forces, who were ambushed when moving through a mountain pass.
11. Siege of Jerusalem1187 CE
    The siege of Jerusalem lasted from 20 September to 2 October 1187, when Balian of Ibelin surrendered the city to the forces of the Kurdish Ayyubid Sultanate under sultan Saladin. Earlier that summer, Egyptian forces under Saladin had defeated the kingdom's army and conquered several cities. Balian was charged with organizing a defense. The city was full of refugees but had few soldiers. Despite this fact, the defenders managed to repulse several attempts by Egyptian army to take the city by storm. Balian bargained with Saladin to buy safe passage for many, and the city was peacefully surrendered with limited bloodshed.
12. Battle of Arsuf1191 CE
    The Battle of Arsuf took place on 7 September 1191, as part of the Third Crusade. It saw a multi-national force of Crusaders, led by Richard I of England, defeat a significantly larger army of the Ayyubid Sultanate, led by Saladin.

Notable people

• Saladin1138 CE – 1193 CE
• Richard I of England1157 CE – 1199 CE
• Osman I1258 CE – 1326 CE
• Frederick Barbarossa1122 CE – 1190 CE
• Louis IX of France1214 CE – 1270 CE
• Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor1194 CE – 1250 CE
• Edward I of England1239 CE – 1307 CE
• Gregory IX1170 CE – 1241 CE
• Philip II of France1165 CE – 1223 CE
• Gustave Doré1832 CE – 1883 CE
• Hulegu Khan1217 CE – 1265 CE
• Louis VII of France1120 CE – 1180 CE

Cultural works

Eras spanning this view

Related atlas views

• Byzantine Empire
• Abbasid Baghdad
• Ottoman Empire

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Events from Wikipedia/Wikidata (CC-BY-SA); base map © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); era boundaries are a hand-curated set in v1. Spotted a mistake? Email [email protected].