The Crusades

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Part 2: First Crusade and Second Crusade

Different leaders had different motives for taking part in the First Crusade:

  • The Byzantine emperor, Alexius, wanted to regain territory that he had lost.
  • Pope Urban II wanted to motivate more people to turn to Christianity. He also wanted to reunite the Eastern and Western churches, which had split in 1054 because of disagreements over doctrine.
  • The various political and military leaders wanted to prove their mettle and win great riches.
  • Merchants wanted to reopen trade routes to the East that had been closed by the occupation of the Seljuk Turks.
  • A great many Christians wanted to regain control of the Holy Land and Jerusalem in particular.

Crusaders retake Jerusalem

In 1096, a force of more than 10,000 gathered in Constantinople, ready to attack. They advanced through territory held by the Seljuk Turks, taking control of Antioch, Edessa, and other cities. The Crusader army entered Jerusalem in 1099 and drove out the Muslim leaders and armies who had been holding it. In the process, Crusaders took out their frustrations on people in the city, among them women and children. The soldiers also killed many Jewish people, even many whom they found hiding in synagogues. The victorious Crusaders set up the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which Crusader Statescontained a large part of what is now Palestine, and a few other territories known collectively as the Crusader States: the County of Edessa, the County of Tripoli, and the Principality of Antioch. To help defend these territories, Crusaders encouraged the formation of military orders, including the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar.

Muslim armies did not stand still after the loss of Jerusalem and the establishment of the Crusader States. A Seljuk army under Imad ad-Din Zangi retook Edessa in 1144. The response from the West was the Second Crusade, led by French King Louis VII and German king Conrad III. The Crusader army set out in 1147 and, after a brief visit to Portugal to help the Portuguese army retake Lisbon from Muslim armies, landed in the Holy Land. The Turks were victorious that year (at Dorylaeum, site of a Crusader victory during the First Crusade) and the next and then held on to Damascus in June 1148, breaking a siege maintained by the 50,000-man-strong Crusader army and sending it home in defeat. Even worse for the West, the Turkish army captured Antioch in 1149.

The Crusader States and the recently reconquered Muslim territories endured a precarious coexistence for a few decades. In 1187, a powerful, charismatic Muslim leader named Saladin took control of a large amount of land in what is now Egypt, Palestine, and Syria and then captured Jerusalem. In contrast to the Crusaders, who had killed many Muslim residents of Jerusalem, Saladin allowed Christians then living in Jerusalem to leave, for a fee.

Next page: Third Crusade and End > Page 1, 2, 3, 4,

See also Warfare during the Crusades

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