The 10th Century saw a religious revival with an increased number of pilgrimages to Jerusalem and a growth in reverence for the Holy City. Two chief factors were responsible for this revival of religion; the teachings of the monks of Clugny; and the belief that the end of the world would occur in 1000 A.D. or 1033, the year of Christ's death.
Mounted in 1096, the First Crusade was led by Godfrey de Bouillon,
Raymond of Toulouse, and Robert, duke of Normandy, and resulted in the
capture of Jerusalem in 1099. Godfrey de Bouillon was crowned as
the first King of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem which was organised
strictly according to the feudal system.
The conversion of Hungary to Christianity under King Stephen of Hungary
afforded the Crusaders an overland route to the Holy Land; the Greek
Emperors, fearing Turkish agression, also allowed the early crusaders
to pass through Constantinople.
The crusades which were subsequently mounted aimed to protect the
Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem from the Turks.
The Second Crusade in 1147, led by Louis VII of France and Emperor
Conrad III, utterly failed in it's object; to recover the country of
Edessa from the Turks.
The crusade was caused by the taking of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187.
Henry II and Philip Augustus of France took the cross in 1188 due
to the preaching of William, Archbishop of Tyre (the famous historian
of the third crusade). Their mutual jealousy prevented them from going to
Palestine.
In England, Henry II levied the Saladin Tithe to meet the expenses incurred in the crusade.
Richard I was the leading figure in the Third Crusade and sold public offices to raise money for it.
The Fourth Crusade was diverted by the Venetians and took Zara from the Byzantines in
1202. Two years later it captured Byzantium itself and founded the Latin Empire.
The Albigensian Crusade, launched in 1208 was the first against Christians rather than Muslims.
It exterminated the Albigenses, condemned as heretics by Pope Innocent III, between 1208 and 1229.
The Children's Crusade was launched in 1212.
The Emperor Frederick II recognized by the Moslems as King of Jerusalem by diplomacy
in 1229 founding the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem.
St Louis of France captured on crusade in Egypt in 1250 and the Mamelukes
become the rulers of Egypt.
The crusaders acquired a taste for many of the things which they found in the Middle East during their campaigns there. Among these were bathing.
The crusaders returned from the Holy Land in the 12th century with the windmill which had been invented by the Arabs in the 7th century.
