Crusading movement
The Crusading movement—a major religious, political, and military endeavour of the Middle Ages—is conventionally dated from the Council of Clermont, at which Pope Urban II proclaimed an armed expedition in support of Eastern Christians under Muslim rule. He framed it as a form of penitential pilgrimage. By then, papal authority had grown through church reforms, and tensions with secular rulers encouraged the notion of holy war—combining classical just war theory, biblical precedents, and Augustine's teachings on legitimate violence. Armed pilgrimage aligned with the era's Christocentric and militant Catholicism, sparking widespread enthusiasm. Western expansion was further enabled by economic growth, the decline of older Mediterranean powers, and Muslim disunity. These factors allowed crusaders to seize territory and found four Crusader states in the Levant. Their defence inspired successive Crusades, and the papacy also launched crusading campaigns against other targets—Muslims in Iberia, pagans in the Baltic, and other opponents of papal authority.
Though aimed primarily at the warrior elite through appeals to chivalric ideals, the movement depended on broad support from clergy, townspeople, and peasants. Women, despite being discouraged, were involved as participants, proxies for absent crusaders, or victims. Although many crusaders were motivated by indulgences, material gain also played a part. Crusading campaigns were typically initiated through papal bulls, with participants pledging to join by "taking the cross"—sewing a cross onto their garments. Failure to fulfil vows could result in excommunication. Periodic waves of zeal produced unsanctioned "popular crusades".
The papal-sanctioned wars fostered distinctive institutions and ideologies. Initially funded through improvised means, later campaigns received more organized support via papal taxes on clergy and the sale of indulgences. Core crusading forces were heavily armed knights, backed by infantry, local troops, and naval aid from maritime cities. Crusaders secured their holdings by building powerful castles, and the fusion of chivalric and monastic ideals led to the rise of military orders. The movement extended Western Christendom and created new frontier states, some surviving into the early modern period. Crusading encouraged cultural exchange and left lasting marks on European art and literature. Despite a decline during the Reformation, anti-Ottoman "holy leagues" sustained the tradition into the 18thcentury.
Background
The Crusades are commonly defined as Christian religious wars waged by Western European warriors during the Middle Ages to capture Jerusalem. Related campaigns differed markedly in spatial reach, temporal limits, and motivating aims. The wider crusading movement fostered distinctive institutions and ideologies that shaped society in Catholic Europe and neighbouring regions.Classical just war theories
In classical antiquity, Greek philosophers and Roman jurists formulated just war theories that later influenced crusading theology. Aristotle stressed the need for a just end, asserting "war must be for the sake of peace". Roman law required a —just cause—and held that only legitimate authorities could declare war, with defence, restitution, and punishment considered acceptable grounds.Although the Bible—Christianity's core scripture—presents conflicting views on violence, the 4th-century Roman Empire">Ancient Rome">Roman Empire gave rise to Christian just war theory. Bishop Ambrose, a former imperial official, was the first to equate enemies of the Christian state with those of the Church.
The empire was divided in 395. Fifteen years later, the sack of the city of Rome led Augustine—Ambrose's student—to write The City of God in which he argued that the Bible's prohibition on killing did not apply to wars waged with divine approval. He held that just war must be declared by legitimate authority, pursued for a just cause once peaceful means had failed, and conducted with restraint and good intent. His reflections were nearly forgotten after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476.
Tripartite world
From the ruins of the Western empire, new Christian kingdoms emerged, largely ruled by Germanic warlords. Among this aristocracy, martial prowess and comradeship were core values. Clergy often praised their violence in pursuit of patronage, though the Church still deemed killing sinful and required penance—typically fasting—for absolution.Meanwhile, the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire endured, though much of its territory, including Jerusalem, was conquered by the rapidly expanding Islamic Caliphate by the mid-7thcentury. Islam's holiest text, the Quran, addresses —struggle to spread and defend the faith. In the early 8thcentury, Muslim forces entered Europe, conquering much of the Iberian Peninsula. Christians under Muslim rule had to pay a special tax, the. As conquests stabilized, a threefold civilisational order emerged: a fragmented Western Europe, a weakened Byzantium, and an ascendant Islamic world.
Holy wars and piety
Resistance to Muslim advance led to the creation of the small Kingdom of Asturias in north-western Iberia. Over time, this resistance evolved into an expansionist movement, regarded by locals as divinely sanctioned. In the 9thcentury, repeated invasions by non-Christian groups across Western Europe revived the notion of holy war: conflict authorized by a spiritual leader, pursued for religious aims, and rewarded with salvation. Leo IV was the first pope to promise salvation in 846 to those defending the papal territories.As warfare became constant, a new military class of mounted warriors emerged. Known as in contemporary texts, they specialized in weapons like the heavy lance. To restrain their violence, church leaders launched the Peace of God movement. Ironically, efforts to curb bloodshed militarized the Church, as bishops increasingly raised armies to enforce the Peace.
With weak central authority, regional strongmen seized control of parishes and abbeys, often appointing unfit clergy. Believers feared such irregularities invalidated sacraments, heightening anxiety over damnation. Sinners were expected to confess and perform penance to be reconciled with the Church. Since penance could be burdensome, priests began offering indulgences—commuting penance into acts like almsgiving or pilgrimage. Penitential journeys to Palestine, known as the Holy Land, held special value, as the region was associated with Jesus's ministry and contained the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, believed to mark his crucifixion and resurrection.
Church reforms
In an age of endemic violence, concern over damnation intensified, fostering reform movements within the Church, which was regarded as the channel through which divine grace was dispensed. In 910, Cluny Abbey's foundation charter set a precedent by granting monks the right to freely elect their abbot. The Cluniac Reform spread rapidly, backed by aristocrats who valued the monks' prayers for their souls. Cluniac houses answered solely to papal authority.The popes, viewed as the successors of Peter the Apostle, claimed supremacy over the Church, citing Jesus's praise for his apostle. In reality, Roman noble families controlled the papacy until Emperor HenryIII entered Rome in 1053. He appointed clerics who launched the Gregorian Reform for the "liberty of the church", banning simony—the sale of church offices—and giving cardinals, senior clergy, the sole right to elect the pope. Andrew Latham, a scholar of international relations, argues that the Gregorian Reform placed the Western Church in conflict with "a range of social forces within and beyond Christendom". By then, divisions in theology and liturgy between Western and Eastern mainstream Christianity had deepened, leading to mutual excommunications in 1054 and the eventual split between the western Roman Catholic and eastern Orthodox Churches.
A spiritual revival took root as new monastic communities like the Carthusians and Cistercians emerged and the Rule of Saint Augustine spread among secular clergy. Christocentrism—a renewed focus on Christ's life and sufferings—also shaped the period, inspiring itinerant preachers.
Prelude to the First Crusade
Four major powers dominated the Mediterranean : the Umayyads in Al-Andalus, the Fatimids in Egypt, the Abbasids in the Middle East, and the Byzantine Empire in southeastern Europe and Anatolia. Within decades, all experienced serious crises, particularly in the east, where recurring droughts and cold waves triggered famine and instability. In contrast, climate change benefitted Western Europe, fuelling economic and population growth.Weakened by internal conflict, Al-Andalus fractured into small states, vulnerable to Christian expansion—a process called the. In Egypt and Palestine, repeated failure of the Nile's floods led to famine and interreligious tension. In 1009, the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim ordered the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre, though it was later rebuilt with Byzantine support. Meanwhile, Turkoman migrations from Central Asia destabilized the Middle East. The Turkoman chief, of the Seljuk clan, seized Baghdad in 1055; his successor, Alp Arslan, defeated the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1072, opening Anatolia to Turkoman settlement.
As traditional powers declined, Italian merchants gained control of Mediterranean trade. The Normans, originating in northern France, conquered southern Italy and Sicily by 1091. Their expansion threatened papal interests, prompting Pope Leo IX to launch a military campaign against them. Although his campaign failed, he had promised absolution to its participants—a sign of the reform papacy's willingness to invoke spiritual incentives for warfare.
For Western warriors, warfare offered a path to land and power. These ambitions often aligned with reformist popes, who granted absolution to those fighting Muslim powers in Sicily and Iberia. As these territories were once Christian, papal attention soon turned to Palestine. Pope Gregory VII proposed a campaign to reclaim Jerusalem in 1074, though it never materialized. Two years later, disputes over papal and royal authority ignited the Investiture Controversy, reviving interest in just war theory. Anselm of Lucca, a canon lawyer, compiled Augustine's writings to argue that war aimed at preventing sin could be an act of love. The theologian Bonizo of Sutri considered those who died in such wars martyrs. These ideas shaped the belief that just warfare could serve as penance.
Crusading campaigns
Revived interest in Augustine's teaching on legitimate violence provided the Western Church with an ideological framework for military engagement. By the late 11thcentury, amid heightened concern over sin, the papacy was well positioned to mobilize the warrior class's values.First Crusade
Facing Turkoman incursions, the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos sought military aid from Pope Urban II in 1095. Seeing this as a chance to reassert papal authority, Urban called for a campaign against the Turkomans at the Council of Clermont, offering spiritual rewards to participants. The historian Jonathan Riley-Smith views this as a "revolutionary appeal" that linked warfare to pilgrimage.Urban's appeal sparked unexpected enthusiasm. In early 1096, more than 20,000poorly organized crusaders set off in what became the People's Crusade. Most perished or were massacred en route. A second wave followed between August and October in that year, comprising at least 30,000warriors and as many non-combatants, led by prominent aristocrats including Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Bohemond of Taranto, and Godfrey of Bouillon. They advanced through fragmented Muslim-held territories and captured the cities of Edessa, Antioch, and Jerusalem by July1099.
Crusades for the Holy Land
The first crusaders consolidated their conquests into four Crusader states: Edessa, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Tripoli. Their defence prompted new campaigns, the first as early as 1101. Several expeditions, especially those led by monarchs, became numbered. These campaigns brought about near-continuous warfare in the region, drawing forces from across the wider world, including crusaders from Western Europe, slave soldiers from sub-Saharan Africa, and nomadic horsemen from the Eurasian steppes.Edessa (1144)|Edessa's fall] in 1144 to the Turkoman leader Zengi triggered the Second Crusade, led by Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, which failed in 1148. Zengi's son, Nur al-Din, unified Muslim Syria and dismantled the Fatimid Caliphate. These lands came under the control of Saladin, an ambitious Kurdish general. In 1187, he destroyed the Jerusalemite field army at Hattin and captured most Crusader territory, including the city of Jerusalem.
The resulting crisis triggered the Third Crusade, led by Emperor Frederick I, Richard I of England, and Philip II of France. Although Jerusalem remained under Muslim rule, the Crusader states endured, and the Kingdom of Cyprus was founded on former Byzantine territory. Later Crusades focused on recovering Jerusalem, but the Fourth was diverted by the Byzantine claimant, Alexios Angelos, leading to the sack of Constantinople and the creation of a Latin Empire in the Aegean in 1204. The Fifth Crusade against Egypt failed in 1217–21. The Sixth regained Jerusalem in 1229 through negotiations by the excommunicated Emperor Frederick II, but the city was sacked in 1244 by Khwarazmian raiders. Its loss prompted Louis IX of France to launch the Seventh Crusade in 1248, which ended in defeat.
After the Mamluks supplanted the Ayyubids—Saladin's family—as the dominant Muslim power in the Levant, Sultans Baybars and Qalawun waged systematic campaigns against the Crusader states. LouisIX mounted the Eighth Crusade, but died in 1270. In 1291 Qalawun's son Khalil seized the last Crusader strongholds in the Holy Land. Despite continued proposals to reclaim Jerusalem, efforts were hampered by events such as the Hundred Years' War.
Other theatres of war
The historian Simon Lloyd notes that "crusading was never necessarily tied" to the Holy Land. As early as 1096, Pope Urban urged Catalan nobles to remain in Iberia, promising equal spiritual rewards. The First Lateran Council in 1123 officially equated campaigns against the Moors with Crusades. These papally-sanctioned campaigns drove Christian expansion, reducing Al-Andalus to the Emirate of Granada by 1248.Some crusades emerged from conflict with pagan groups. In 1107–08, Saxon leaders referred to the pagan Slavic Wends' territory as "Our Jerusalem", though anti-Wendish war was recognized as a crusade only in 1147. From then, northern German, Danish, Swedish, and Polish rulers launched papally sanctioned campaigns against Slavic, Baltic, and Finnic peoples|Finnic] tribes—collectively termed as the Northern Crusades. By the 1230s, leadership had passed to the Teutonic Order's warrior monks, who also launched attacks on the neighboring Orthodox Rus' principalities.
Crusading zeal also turned against Christian foes of the papacy. "Political crusades" were launched against Emperor FrederickII, his heirs, and rebellious papal vassals. From 1209, Pope InnocentIII targeted heretics—Christians who rejected Church doctrine—and Crusades were proclaimed after 1261 against the restored Byzantine Empire.
Later crusades
Despite internal divisions, the continued, ending with the conquest of Granada by Castile and Aragon in 1492. In the early 14thcentury, —seasonal anti-pagan raids in the Baltic—became a hallmark of chivalric culture. The historian Eric Christiansen called these "an interminable crusade". In the Western Mediterranean, popes also proclaimed crusades against Christian enemies, including Aragon, and Sicily. During the Western Schism, rival popes called crusades against each other's supporters.Extensive piracy in the Mediterranean revived anti-Muslim crusading in the mid-14thcentury. International campaigns targeted the rising Ottoman Empire but failed to stop the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The Hussite Wars reignited anti-heretical crusades in 1420, and the Reformation saw indulgences granted to Catholics fighting Protestants. Although the Reformation weakened papal authority, the papacy continued to promote crusades, helping form anti-Ottoman "holy leagues" well into the early 18thcentury.
Theory and theology
Pope UrbanII's call at Clermont introduced a remarkably novel concept for most listeners. Though Western Christians had accepted divinely sanctioned warfare, its full theological and legal justification was still evolving.Justification
Initially seen as a unique event prompted by divine intervention, the expanding movement soon required stronger legal foundations. The, an influential collection of church law, permitted warfare —but only against heretics. Within decades, jurists like Huguccio extended this to Muslims, citing just intent, recovery of Christian lands, and retaliation for violence. Crusading campaigns outside the Holy Land were often justified by the perceived spiritual importance of those regions. The Northern Crusades, originally framed as defensive, soon focused on conversion, while Crusades against anti-papal Christians were portrayed as essential to safeguard the Holy Land. The sack of Constantinople was further justified by the murder of the legitimate emperor, AlexiosIV, and by the schism with the papacy.Crusade indulgence
Soon after Clermont, the chronicler Guibert of Nogent wrote that "God has instituted in our times holy wars" so that believers might gain salvation. Yet the nature of the spiritual rewards granted to the first crusaders remains unclear. Some sources mention cancellation of temporal penance, others full remission of sins. Pope Urban referred to in one letter, and in another promised absolution of all penance.Peter Abelard,, still sharply criticized grants of indulgence, but most later theologians accepted it. The Fourth Lateran Council codified Crusade indulgences in 1215, declaring that "sins repented by heart and confessed with mouth" would be remitted. The theological basis was clarified with the emergence of the "Treasury of Merit" doctrine, drawing on the merits of Christ and the saints,. Occasionally, offenders of particular crimes—such as arsonists, violators of trade embargoes with Muslims, and assailants of clergy—were granted indulgence. Debate over the scope of the indulgence continued, with Bonaventure arguing that indulgences did not apply to those dying before fulfilling their vow, and Thomas Aquinas maintaining that penitent crusaders who confessed would attain salvation even if they died before departing.
Crusaders
Crusaders' motives are inherently difficult to determine. Although contemporary sources emphasize religious fervour, secular ambitions also played a role because holding conquests required sustained Western presence. Many participants enlisted for pay. Most saw no contradiction between piety and material gain, especially booty, as the Old Testament includes repeated references to spoils seized in divinely sanctioned wars. Some sought fame; others, as noted by the historian Jonathan Phillips, the appeal of long-distance travel. Some criminals escaped harsher punishment by taking the cross. The medievalist Andrew Jotischky suggests figures like the robber baron Thomas of Marle saw crusading as an opportunity for unpunished violence.Knights and aristocrats
Pope Urban directed his appeal at Clermont to the country's military elite. By then, the —once a broad category—had become a distinct warrior caste, though knighthood would not be fully equated with nobility until the late 12thcentury. Aristocrats valued visible piety, and crusading offered a new outlet for what Madden calls their "simple and sincere love of God".The warrior lifestyle entailed habitual sin, yet offered few chances for penance. Barefoot pilgrimages stripped knights of their symbols—arms and warhorses. Urban's message allowed them to maintain their identity without jeopardizing salvation. Crusade rhetoric mirrored their values, invoking vassalage and honour. Preachers cast Christ as a feudal lord, summoning knights to defend his stolen patrimony as .
Crusading decisions were often collective, made within noble households led by influential lords. Success brought prestige, and crusading kin could make participation a family tradition. Yet failure meant disgrace or financial ruin. Even in the Late Middle Ages, chivalric ideals fuelled two expeditions: the 1390 Barbary Crusade and the 1396 Crusade of Nicopolis.
Clergy
Although violence conflicted with their vocation, clerics often joined crusades. At Clermont, Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy was the first to vow the journey to Jerusalem. The Fourth Lateran Council explicitly permitted clerics to join for up to three years without forfeiting their benefices. Secular clergy typically served as chaplains or administrators; senior churchmen led troops. Influential prelates also helped initiate the Northern Crusades. Despite vows like, monks joined too. Cistercians and Premonstratensians even took up arms occasionally, especially in the Baltic.Patricians
Urban elites played a vital role in several crusades. Fleets from Genoa, Pisa, and Venice helped establish and secure the Crusader states, gaining in return commercial privileges and city quarters. The city of Lübeck supported the conquest of Prussia. Iberian towns owed military service under royal charters—often replaced by a special tax called.During the Fourth Crusade, Doge Enrico Dandolo convinced fellow leaders to capture Zadar, a Catholic city in Dalmatia, and later advocated the assault on Constantinople. After its sack, Venice gained control of several Aegean islands, establishing patrician-led lordships. Marino Sanudo Torsello, a Venetian writer, became a key crusading theorist in the early 14thcentury.
Commoners
The historian Christopher Tyerman observes that crusading was "as much as a phenomenon of artisans as of knights, of carpentry as much as of castle". Commoners filled essential roles in Crusader armies as foot soldiers, sailors, archers, engineers, and squires. They were typically young men of modest means who joined for pay.Following Clermont, Pope Urban barred clergy from accepting vows from those unable to fight and annulled existing ones. Nonetheless, the People's Crusade consisted almost entirely of unarmed commoners, inspired by charismatics like Peter the Hermit. In the First Crusade's noble-led armies, the number of non-combatants nearly matched the number of fighters. The historian Conor Kostick describes them as "a slice of European society on the march". Chroniclers like Raymond of Aguilers called common crusaders as and saw their presence as vital for divine favour. Unlike nobles, captured commoners were often tormented or killed rather than ransomed.
The People's Crusade and subsequent mass movements inspired by grassroots crusading zeal are collectively known as popular crusades. These included the 1212 Children's Crusade, led by two charismatic boys; the 1251 and 1320 Shepherds' Crusades, the former sparked by a letter allegedly from the Virgin Mary; and the 1309 Crusade of the Poor. None reached the Holy Land, and both Shepherds' Crusades were forcibly disbanded. In 1456, a peasant Crusader army helped repel the Ottomans at the Siege of Belgrade. This success encouraged future efforts to mobilize peasants in anti-Ottoman crusades, but in 1514 a crusading peasant army in Hungary turned on their lords.
Enemies and contacts
Except for the Mongols, the crusaders confronted familiar enemies, portrayed as aggressors and thus furnishing a just cause for war. Conquest and colonisation produced multi-ethnic societies. In Iberia and the Crusader states, relations with native populations broadly followed the pre-conquest model, relegating non-Catholic ethno-religious groups to second-class status.Muslims
Muslim legal experts divided the world into and . Border regions like Syria and Iberia became battlegrounds, attracting military volunteers— and —from across. Accounts of relations between Christians—both pilgrims and natives—and Muslims at all levels, from the authorities to ordinary locals, in the Holy Land on the eve of the Crusades vary. Sporadic attacks on pilgrims likely shaped perceptions of danger, though Asbridge highlights that interfaith violence mirrored broader political and social turmoil.Western Christians often mislabelled Muslims as idol-worshippers or heretics. Until, massacres of Muslims in conquered towns were common. Violence was presented as a response to the Muslim occupation of the holy places and the oppression of Christians.
Later, crusaders rarely sought conversions, instead levying a poll tax akin to the. Church law imposed various restrictions on Muslims, though enforcement is poorly documented. In the Crusader states, most Muslims—Arabic-speaking farmers—lived in self-governed communities under Islamic law. In Iberia, —Muslims under Christian rule—also faced second-class status.
Initially, few Muslims perceived the Crusades' religious character, and longstanding conflicts among Muslim rulers persisted. The Damascene scholar al-Sulami was the first to situate them within broader "Frankish", or Westerner, expansion. He interpreted their success as divine punishment for neglecting. Zengi was among the era's first Muslim leaders receiving honours. Later rulers likewise invoked religious motives in anti-Frankish campaigns. In Iberia, the Almoravids and the Almohads strongly supported. Nonetheless, pragmatic Christian–Muslim alliances remained common throughout the period.
Eastern Christians
The liberation of eastern Christians was proclaimed a central aim of the First Crusade, yet early encounters proved disappointing. Emperor Alexios, expecting disciplined mercenaries or manageable allies, was unsettled by the crusaders' influx. He secured oaths for the return of reconquered Byzantine lands, but Bohemond retained Antioch, a former Byzantine provincial capital. Soon after Antioch's capture, Crusader leaders described local Christians as "heretics" in a letter to Pope Urban. In the Crusader states, Eastern Christians paid a poll tax, signalling their subordinate status, although their self-governance was reinforced and some retained considerable landholdings.Orthodox Christians, or Melkites, formed the majority of Palestine's native Christian population and were also prominent in northern Syria. Catholic theologians regarded them as schismatics rather than heretics. Although most Orthodox bishops had fled Palestine before 1099, scattered references suggest the presence of an Orthodox hierarchy under Frankish rule. Monasticism experienced a revival under Byzantine patronage.
Certain Eastern Christian communities were treated as heretics for rejecting the Council of Chalcedon, whose teaching on Christ's two natures was central to both Catholic and Orthodox theology. Among them, the Armenians—concentrated in northern Syria and Cilicia—maintained autonomous lordships. Many welcomed the crusaders, and Armenian aristocrats formed marriage alliances with them. This cooperation led to a tenuous church union with Rome and ultimately to the Frankish Lusignans' rule over Cilician Armenia. Syriac Christians, mainly rural and Arabic-speaking, were viewed with suspicion and condescension; yet the Jacobite patriarch Michael the Syrian praised Frankish religious tolerance contrasting it with Byzantine policy. Another distinct group, the Maronites of Mount Lebanon, entered into communion with Rome, forming the first Eastern Rite Catholic Church in 1181.
Byzantine–Frankish relations were variable. Following the Fourth Crusade, Byzantine successor states like Epirus and Nicaea led resistance against the conquerors, although temporary Greek–Frankish alliances were not uncommon. In Frankish Greece, many Greek retained lands and fought alongside Franks. Peasants suffered harsher conditions than under Byzantine rule. Orthodox bishops refusing papal supremacy were replaced by Catholic appointees, but Greek monasteries received papal protection. Latin conquest reinforced Orthodox identity, and persistent local resistance ultimately thwarted attempts to church reunification.
In northeastern Europe, Catholic and Orthodox churches coexisted in major trade centres, and the schism did not impede dynastic intermarriage. Catholic missionary activity only intensified after the Fourth Crusade. Despite occasional alliances between crusaders and Rus' leaders, lasting control over Rus' lands was never achieved.
Pagans
Trade in raw materials and slaves had long connected Christian and pagan communities in the Baltic region, although rivalry over trade routes often sparked armed conflict. From, intensified German colonisation and unequal access to resources triggered more frequent clashes between the Wends and their Christian neighbours. In 1146, while promoting the Second Crusade, the Cistercian abbot Bernard of Clairvaux encountered Saxon reluctance to abandon anti-Wendish campaigns. Adopting their perspective, he convinced to proclaim the Wendish Crusade. The Wends' structured society—with principalities, towns, and a priestly hierarchy—eased their eventual integration into Christendom.Further east, the Old Prussians, Latvians, and Curonians had long resisted Christianisation. They lived in rural communities led by strongmen who thrived on trade and raiding. Crusaders employed coercion, bribery, and promises of protection to gain converts among them. Papal legates sought to protect the converts from exploitation but achieved little.
The Lithuanians, largely taxpaying peasants under native lords, unified in the 13thcentury under Grand Prince Mindaugas. Baptized in 1253, he received a royal crown from Pope Innocent IV but later reverted to paganism. In 1386, Grand Prince Jogaila married Queen Jadwiga of Poland. The subsequent mass conversion of Lithuanians to Catholicism eroded the Teutonic Knights' justification for crusade. In 1410, Polish-Lithuanian forces decisively defeated the Knights in the Battle of Grunwald. The waned, with the last non-German crusaders entering the Baltic in 1413.
In the eastern Baltic, Finnic peoples lived in small rural communities, sustained by farming, slave-raiding, and fur-hunting. Legend has it that Eric IX of Sweden led a crusade to Finland in the 1150s, but the earliest confirmed expedition was authorized by Pope Gregory IX in 1237. Danish crusaders conquered Estonia in 1219, but by mid-century, German knights and burghers dominated the region's politics.
Western dissidents
The Gregorian Reform did not satisfy those seeking a purer, simpler Christianity. Increased trade carried dualist ideologies westward, distinguishing between an incorruptible God and an evil creator of the material world. In Western Europe, their adherents became known as Cathars or Albigensians. As Catholic churchmen saw heresy as a fundamental threat to the faith and to salvation, the Third Lateran Council granted indulgences, in 1179, to those who fought heretics. Yet, in southern France, Cathars were deeply embedded in Occitan society, and local elites were unwilling to act against heretical friends or kin.In 1207, Pope InnocentIII urged Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, to eradicate heresy. His reluctance or inability to comply led to excommunication by the papal legate Peter of Castelnau, who was soon murdered. In response, Innocent declared the first Albigensian Crusade. Northern French crusaders invaded Occitania, committing atrocities against both Cathars and Catholics. Though the campaigns strengthened French influence, they failed to eliminate heresy. That was eventually achieved by mendicant friars, inquisitors and secular authorities.
The Stedinger Crusade in northern Germany targeted peasants accused of heresy for refusing to pay the tithe. Hungarian rulers led two failed crusades into Bosnia, allegedly home to a Cathar antipope. In contrast, the radical in northern Italy were swiftly crushed by crusading forces.
Mongols
In 1206, Temüjin was proclaimed Genghis Khan, uniting the Mongol tribes under the belief in a divine destiny to conquer the world. Western Europeans first learned of the earliest Mongol conquests during the Fifth Crusade. As some tribes followed the Eastern Syriac (Nestorian) Church, the Mongols came to be linked in Western thought to the people of the mythical Christian ruler Prester John, prompting hopes of an anti-Muslim alliance. However, the Mongol invasion of Eastern and Central Europe in 1239–42 shocked Western Christendom. Although Pope GregoryIX called for a crusade, the Mongols withdrew from Europe following the death of Ögedei Khan, Genghis's successor, in 1242.In the Middle East, Mongol forces sacked Baghdad and destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258. Seeking protection, Hethum I of Cilician Armenia and Bohemond VI of Antioch submitted to Hulegu, the Mongol . The Ilkhanate's expansion ended in 1260 when Mamluk forces defeated Hulegu's army in the Battle of Ain Jalut.
Jews
Roman legislation under Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, and Augustine's theology shaped Western Christian views of Judaism. Constantine upheld Judaism's legality but imposed restrictions on its practitioners; Augustine asserted that Jews were divinely preserved yet punished with dispersion for rejecting Jesus.Jewish migration to Western Europe coincided with the pre-Crusade economic boom. Coming from developed Islamic economies, Jewish merchants brought advanced commercial expertise. Free from canon law's anti-usury rules, they came to dominate moneylending, fuelling antisemitism. Local rulers valued Jewish economic contributions and offered protection, though often fragile.
Organized pogroms began in the Rhineland during the First Crusade, reportedly driven by vengeance for Christ's death and desire for Jewish property. In Jerusalem, crusaders massacred Jews, though communities in other towns—such as Tyre and Ascalon—survived. Jewish pilgrimage to the Holy Land intensified, with hundreds of western Jews settling there during the Crusades era. Although Pope Calixtus II's bull forbade violence against Jews, crusade preaching repeatedly incited antisemitic pogroms.
Women
Women were involved in the crusading movement from the outset. Though popes discouraged female participation, women always accompanied the armies as servants. Washerwomen received special papal approval early on. Women needed permission from a father or husband to join a crusade, whereas men, from 1209, could go without their wives' consent.Gender bias prevailed on all sides. Christian chroniclers highlighted women's supportive roles—delivering water or stone missiles—but rarely mentioned female fighters. Muslim and Byzantine writers, in contrast, often depicted armed Crusader women as symbols of barbarity. Muslim sources also condemned the freedoms women enjoyed in Frankish societies. Crusaders were expected to abstain from sex; and women, both wives and sex-workers, were often expelled before major battles. Occasionally, high-ranking women led troops or conducted key diplomatic negotiations.
Women left behind were vulnerable to abuse by kin or neighbours. Some crusaders made formal arrangements with relatives or religious institutions to protect their wives and daughters; others entrusted wives or mothers with managing their estates. Raids by both Christian and Muslim forces frequently targeted women. After battles or sieges, victors often captured enemy women and children. The First Crusade was exceptional: crusaders often massacred entire populations of captured towns. In the Baltic, the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle praised the slaughter of pagan women and children as divinely sanctioned. Rape of captured women both by crusaders and their enemies was common. Noblewomen were typically ransomed, albeit for less than men of the same rank; other women were enslaved or forced into marriage.
High male mortality in the Crusader states meant that women often inherited fiefs, though they were expected to marry. Some inherited thrones: between 1186 and 1228, for example, four queens ruled Jerusalem. In Frankish Greece, the wives of Achaean barons captured at the Battle of Pelagonia formed the "Parliament of Dames" in 1261 to negotiate peace with the Byzantines.
Crusading in practice
Tyerman notes that crusading "paraded across society in recruitment, funding and social rituals of support". The movement was accompanied by processions, priestly blessings, charity, and was also commemorated in works of art.Declaration and promotion
Crusades were typically proclaimed by the pope in his capacity as Vicar of Christ. Crusade bulls articulated the aims, urged participation, and detailed spiritual and temporal rewards; they were read in all Catholic churches from Pope Alexander III's time. Pope GregoryIX authorized the Dominicans to preach Baltic crusades without further approval, a privilege later extended to the Franciscans and Teutonic clergy.Crusades were promoted by clerics. Papal legates addressed nobles at major assemblies. Village and town preaching was unstructured until Pope InnocentIII coordinated propaganda through local committees, though subsequent popes preferred less formal methods. From the early 13thcentury, mendicant friars assumed responsibility for preaching. By the century's end, many used manuals by propagandists like Humbert of Romans. Crusade-promotional sermons often began with moral anecdotes.
Taking the cross
Crusaders took public vows, usually followed by a ceremony where a cloth or silk cross—typically red—was sewn onto their cloak. By "taking the cross", they pledged themselves to Christ's call in the Gospel of Matthew: "If any man will come after me, let him…take up his cross and follow me". The ceremony resonated with the 11th-century spiritual movement, which encouraged believers to follow Christ's example by serving others. Pilgrim emblems like a staff and a pouch were often also distributed. The cross had to be worn by crusaders until their return; premature removal was sanctioned by church authorities, with rare exceptions like illness, poverty, or incapacity. By the late 12thcentury, crusaders were widely known as .Privileges
As penitents and armed pilgrims, crusaders were classed in canon law as provisional clerics under ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Their early secular privileges are poorly documented. According to a collection of canon law, First Crusaders and their goods were "under the Truce of God". Guibert of Nogent notes that Pope Urban offered protection to crusaders and their households, with excommunication prescribed for offenders. This legal approach was still described as "new" in 1107 by the canonist Ivo of Chartres, who was reluctant to adjudicate a case concerning the capture of a crusader's fortification. The First Lateran Council formalized it, protecting the crusaders' "houses and households" and ordering or automatic excommunication for infractions, but enforcement was inconsistent. Pope EugeniusIII also suspended lawsuits against crusaders and interest payment on their debts, and authorised them to sell land—including fiefs—without the consent of family members or lords.Finances
The historian Simon Lloyd notes that crusading was "crippingly expensive". Although precise figures are mainly lacking, estimates suggest that a knight spent over four years' income. Aristocrats sold commodities or granted civic privileges for cash. Inherited lands were often mortgaged or pledged via vifgage, allowing creditors repayment from property income. Others secured funds through gifts or loans from kin or lords. In Iberia, helped fund Christian forces.An extraordinary tax for Holy Land defence was first introduced in France and England in 1166. The 1188 "Saladin tithe" imposed a tenpercent levy on income and property, though compliance varied. In 1199, Pope InnocentIII ordered church revenues taxed for crusading. Pope Gregory X defined collection procedures in 1274, but clergy often resisted.
From 1199, donations were gathered via church chests. In 1213, InnocentIII introduced a new mechanism, allowing anyone—except monks—to vow a crusade and redeem it financially. This practice of purchasing indulgences continued into the early modern period. With the spread of printing in the mid-15thcentury, indulgence sheets were mass-produced with blanks for beneficiaries' names.
Warfare
The historian Peter Lock notes that mounting "a crusade was no easy task and the time given for preparation was often short". The gathering of pack animals, wagons, war horses, and supplies, like fodder and water, was essential in individual crusades' success, but is poorly documented in contemporary sources.Command, strategy and troops
Command during most crusades was divided and uncertain, with desertion common. Morale was often sustained by visions, processions, and relics. Most crusaders lacked experience in urban sieges, which were typical of Levantine warfare. Crusaders generally avoided pitched battles in which defeat risked catastrophic losses. Siege warfare used trebuchets, towers, and battering rams. Muslim defenders employed Greek fire, countered by crusaders with vinegar-soaked hides. From the late 13thcentury, strategic planning for Holy Land campaigns distinguished between an initial campaign to secure a foothold and the full-scale.Heavily armoured knights formed the Crusader armies' backbone. The historian John France calls them the "masters of close-quarter warfare". In the east, they primarily confronted mounted archers and relied on infantry, particularly bowmen and spearmen, for support. Franks also employed native light cavalry, or Turcopoles, to harass enemy troops. In the north, Teutonic Knights deployed converted Prussians for raids on pagan settlements. Spanish almogavars—agile raiders—fought with daggers, short lances, and darts.
Naval support came mainly from Italian city-states and the Byzantines in the Levant. Egypt maintained the sole Muslim fleet in the region, but its small vessels posed little threat to Western dominance. After Emperor FrederickI's failed overland expedition, major Levantine crusades were done by sea. In the north, large Christian merchant ships, carrying up to 500people, easily outmatched Baltic long-ships and raiding vessels.
Military architecture
Throughout conquered territories, castles served military and administrative functions, merging Western and local designs. In the Levant, early Norman-style towers gave way to the local layout of walled courtyards, which evolved into concentric castles with layered defences. Spur castles on rocky hills, with towers and a keep, represent—according to Phillips—"the most spectacular examples of Frankish military architecture". In Iberia, over 2,000castles were raised along frontiers. The Teutonic Knights first built timber blockhouses in the Baltic, but by switched to stone, then brick for its availability and lower cost.Military orders
Tyerman argues that the military orders were "crusading's most original contribution to the institutions of medieval Christendom". These religious communities followed monastic rules but were committed to armed defence of Christianity. The first emerged when the French noble Hugues de Payens and fellow knights pledged to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. Taking the monastic vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience in 1119, they formed a confraternity. They became known as the Knights Templar after their headquarters in the former Al-Aqsa Mosque, associated with the Temple of Solomon.The idea of warrior-monks aligned with contemporary chivalric and ecclesiastical ideals. By, Bernard of Clairvaux praised the Templars as a "new knighthood". Their model inspired other groups, especially in borderlands of Latin Christianity. In the Holy Land, nursing confraternities became militarized, giving rise to orders such as the Knights Hospitaller, and the Teutonic Knights. In Iberia, royal patronage supported orders, such as Calatrava, and Aviz. In the Baltic, bishops founded the Sword Brothers and the Order of Dobrzyń, both later absorbed by the Teutonic Order.
Military orders were structured by function: knight-brothers and servientes fought; priest-brothers provided spiritual care; nobles could temporarily join for spiritual rewards. The Templars and Hospitallers grew into transnational institutions, led by elected grand masters and owning estates throughout Western Christendom. Their convent networks facilitated the flow of goods and cash.
The orders were occasionally criticized for greed, pride, or adopting non-Christian customs. After the Crusader states fell, criticism increased because many orders lost their justification for existence. The Templars, focused solely on fighting, faced intense scrutiny. In 1307, Philip IV of France ordered their mass arrest on charges of apostasy, idolatry, and sodomy. Despite the lack of physical evidence, the Order was dissolved at the Council of Vienne in 1312. The Hospitallers endured but shifted focus to naval defence in the Mediterranean. In Iberia, the military orders gradually secularized, aligning with the crown of Spain and Portugal. The Teutonic Knights survived the Reformation under Habsburg leadership in Germany.
New states
The crusading movement fostered the creation of new states on the fringes of Latin Christendom. The historian Robert Bartlett describes them as "autonomous replicas, not dependencies, of western and central European polities".Crusader states and Cyprus
The four Crusader states established Catholic rule in the Levant and strengthened commercial links between the region and Catholic Europe. Their limited economic surpluses were directed chiefly towards military needs. Edessa, the weakest, fell to Zengi after a failed attempt to ally with his Muslim rivals, the Artuqids. Internal strife undermined Jerusalem, leaving it vulnerable to Saladin's conquest, though the Third Crusade regained much of the coast. Antioch and Tripoli entered union after a succession war. After FrederickII's crusade, the kings of Jerusalem were mostly absent, and the kingdom was ruled by regents, sometimes appointed by their opponents. By the Mamluk advance, the Crusader states had fragmented into competing lordships and communes.Cyprus, a day's sail from Syria, was a vital crusading base. From 1269, its Lusignan kings claimed Jerusalem, although the Sicilian Angevins contested this from 1277. The Black Death and shifting trade routes led to decline. A Cypriot Crusade on Alexandria provoked Genoese reprisals, leading to the sack of the main port of Cyprus, Famagusta. After the Lusignan dynasty ended in 1474, the island passed to Venice.
Frankish Greece
Months before the sack of Constantinople, the leaders of the Fourth Crusade agreed to partition the Byzantine Empire: an elected emperor would receive a quarter, the rest go to other Frankish leaders and Venice. Trade in wheat, olive oil and silk enriched the lords of the Peloponnese, making Achaea a centre of chivalric life. It survived under Angevin protection until annexed by the Despotate of the Morea in 1430. Athens, initially an Achaean vassal, changed hands before falling to the Ottomans in 1460. Despite Ottoman pressure, Venice retained parts of its Aegean lands into the 18thcentury.Order states
The Teutonic Order was granted Kulmerland in Prussia by the Polish duke Konrad I of Masovia in the 1220s, soon gaining autonomy over future conquests. In 1237, the Teutonic Knights seized Livonia through merger with the Sword Brothers. The Order attracted German settlers with land and privileges, but Polish incursions and internal strife weakened its control after the Battle of Grunwald. Prussia became a Protestant duchy in 1525, Livonia in 1561.The Hospitallers captured the island of Rhodes from the Byzantines in 1306–1309. Despite its strong fortifications and earlier resistance to Mamluk and Ottoman assaults, Rhodes was taken by Sultan SuleimanII in 1522. In 1530, Emperor CharlesV granted the Hospitallers the islands of Malta and Gozo. They withstood the 1565 Great Siege of Malta, but lost the islands to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798.
Criticism
Opponents of the Gregorian Reform, such as Sigebert of Gembloux, condemned penitential warfare, but their voice was lost in the euphoria following the First Crusade. The concept was equally alien to Byzantines; Princess Anna Komnene openly scorned the Crusades and their participants. Mainstream Catholic criticism targeted specific aspects such as the risks posed by crusaders' absences. The rise of military orders also drew objections from those who viewed monasticism as incompatible with knighthood. Millenarian thinkers like Joachim of Fiore saw the Crusades as transient, predicting the Muslims' voluntary conversion.As the Crusades spread geographically, criticism intensified, especially over campaigns against Christians. Some Occitan troubadours even equated anti-heretic crusaders with Muslim foes. The Levantine crusades' failure prompted the chronicler Salimbene di Adam to conclude they lacked divine support. Driven by despair, the troubadour Austorc d'Aorlhac and the Templar Ricaut Bonomel approached apostasy in their lyrics. In 1274, Humbert of Romans produced a full rebuttal to anti-Crusade critics.
From the Reformation, anti-Catholic theologians attacked crusading. Martin Luther denounced indulgences and papal authority. The Catholic theologian Erasmus also criticized indulgence preaching and clerical involvement in warfare.
Architecture
The destruction of Christian shrines by the Turkomans featured prominently in Pope Urban's speech at Clermont. After capturing Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Nazareth—three of Christendom's holiest sites—the Franks launched ambitious construction programmes. The archaeologist Denys Pringle observes that a "coherent and distinctive" architectural style emerged, shaped by the abundance of stone, scarcity of timber, and preference for flat-roofed designs. The medievalist Steve Tibble terms it the "architecture of fear", characterised by the use of heavy timber bolts, and windows secured with iron bars.The most remarkable project was the rebuilding of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, redesigned in the style of Western pilgrimage churches to enclose the Aedicule, Calvary, and Christ's Prison within one complex. The fusion of local and Western architectural traditions is well illustrated by the Armenian Cathedral of Saint James. Coastal towns had multi-storey houses with shops or loggias below and residences above. Frankish settlers often lived in newly founded villages laid out in rectangular plans.
Western architectural development is especially visible in Cyprus. The Saint Sophia Cathedral in Nicosia was built in early Gothic, though with terraced roofs. The Venetian governors' palace in Famagusta features a Renaissance façade. Urban eastern Christian churches also adopted Western styles. In Frankish Greece, monastic orders and nobles erected Gothic monasteries and rebuilt existing buildings in Gothic style, In the Baltic, public buildings reflected Western styles, characterized by simplicity and precision.
Arts
In the three northern Crusader states, figurative art survives almost solely on coinage, whereas Jerusalem left a much richer artistic legacy. These artefacts reveal significant Byzantine influence, although the earliest surviving decorations exhibit Western stylistic features. By the mid-12thcentury, both the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the Nativity were decorated with mosaics. Western artists working on illuminated manuscripts in Jerusalem also embraced Byzantine aesthetics. The finest example is the Melisende Psalter, commissioned by King Fulk for Queen Melisende. Jotischky describes Frankish sponsorship of icons as perhaps the clearest sign of "Byzantine tastes in crusader arts", with surviving works primarily housed in Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai and in Cyprus.From Frankish Greece, little remains. A cycle of frescoes portraying Francis of Assisi survives in Istanbul's Kalenderhane Mosque, and a wall painting of Saints Anthony and James in a gatehouse at Acronauplia. In the Baltic, the celibate or endogamous elites rejected local traditions, preserving a distinctly Catholic and German culture.
Literature
Coinciding with the "Twelfth-Century Renaissance", the movement inspired a remarkable range of literary works, including what historian Elizabeth Lapina describes as "an unusually large and varied body" of narrative sources.Chronicles
Early accounts of the First Crusade revived the tradition of comprehensive military history last seen in antiquity. The Deeds of the Franks, completed by 1104, became the basis for later accounts by Raymond of Aguilers, Fulcher of Chartres, and Robert of Rheims. These pro-papal writers portrayed Pope Urban as the key instigator, although the German chronicler Albert of Aachen credited Peter the Hermit.Although the First Crusade remained the most extensively recorded, subsequent expeditions inspired new works by Odo of Deuil, Otto of Freising, and Oliver of Paderborn. Whereas early narratives were in Latin, three chroniclers of the Fourth Crusade—Geoffrey of Villehardouin, Robert of Clari, and Henri de Valenciennes—wrote in Old French. Many chroniclers focused on individual crusaders. Several authors blended prose and verse in the hybrid form.
A distinct literary genre emerged around the Crusader states. William of Tyre's chronicle sought to rally Western support and sustain Frankish morale. The Chronicle of the Morea, central to Frankish Greece's history, survives in French, Greek, Aragonese, and Italian. In the Baltic, the chronicler Henry of Livonia sympathized with Christianized natives, whereas the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle glorified Crusader brutality.
Songs
Robert of Rheims's chronicle inspired verses in the Song of Antioch, a French epic poem recounting Antioch's siege. This work launched a semi-historical cycle of Crusade epics. Only 179vernacular songs survive, mostly in Occitan by troubadours, using traditional forms like,, and. The literary scholar Linda Paterson highlights the Occitan Marcabru's praise of the Iberian crusades as especially powerful. Most French and Occitan songs date to the Third Crusade. In Iberia, the Spanish Song of My Cid recounts the exploits of the Castilian noble Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar.Muslim, eastern Christian and Jewish works
Though medieval Muslim scholars never treated the Crusades as a distinct subject, Muslim poets like Ibn al-Khayyat warned of the threat of the "polytheists". Only two Muslim texts record daily contact with Franks: the aristocrat Usama ibn Munqidh's memoir and Ibn Jubayr's pilgrimage account. Some Arabic epics—such as the tale of the warrior woman Dhat al-Himma—also reference the crusades.After the First Crusade, Byzantine writers increasingly treated Western Europeans as a single group, using terms such as. Niketas Choniates and other chroniclers acknowledged Latin military skill but depicted them as barbarians. During the Second Crusade, clashes inspired two poems likening crusaders to wild beasts. Later, Byzantine vernacular literature absorbed motifs—knights, love, and adventure—from chivalric romance.
The earliest Armenian reference to the Crusades—a 1098 colophon to a legal text—speaks of the arrival of "the western nation of heroes". Chroniclers such as Matthew of Edessa cast the Crusades in apocalyptic terms, associating Frankish rule with the fourth kingdom in Daniel's prophecy. In 1144, the prelate Nerses Shnorhali composed a Lament for the Fall of Edessa, voicing hope for Islam's future downfall. The Cilician noble Smbat's Chronicle shows familiarity with Western customs.
The Rhineland massacres sparked a literary response unprecedented in European Jewish history. The Mainz Anonymous, one of the earliest Hebrew accounts, inspired subsequent chronicles, including Eliezer ben Nathan's. Laments commemorating the pogroms entered the Ninth of Av liturgy. Jewish pilgrims such as Benjamin of Tudela recorded their journey in travelogues, and an unknown Jew from France who settled in the Holy Land in 1211 wrote a treatise urging others to reclaim it for Judaism.
Legacy
Scholars disagree on how the movement shaped interfaith relations. Although the campaigns caused suffering and deepened religious tensions, their violence was typical for the era. The Crusades' impact on intercultural exchange remains uncertain, as trade and other channels also transmitted ideas and technologies. The Sack of Constantinople severely damaged Catholic–Orthodox relations, hindering cooperation against the Ottomans. Even so, the Crusades delayed Ottoman expansion, and a final Ottoman push into Central Europe was repelled by a crusading force.The movement fostered the consolidation of western states by removing a substantial portion of their militant local elites and establishing precedents for concentrated taxation. Expanded commercial contact with the wider world encouraged urbanisation and the development of urban autonomy in western Europe. The sale of landed property weakened traditional structures founded on the personal ties between vassal and lord.
Crusading extended Western Christendom's frontiers in Iberia and the Baltic, promoting Catholic settlement and liturgical unity. Political expansion sometimes brought language change or even extinction, as seen in the near-total disappearance of Arabic documents in formerly Muslim territories in Iberia by 1290 and the loss of Old Prussian by 1680. Crusading also gave rise to national heroes and symbols, such as Denmark's flag, the Dannebrog. Few existing institutions, mostly offshoots of former military orders, trace their origins to the crusading movement. The idea of Christian violence as an act of love persists in some interpretations, such as liberation theology.
Modern perceptions
Into the 20thcentury, France and Britain invoked the Crusades to justify ambitions in the Middle East. Today, they often symbolize a long-standing civilisational conflict. After 9/11, President George W. Bush controversially called the war on terror a "crusade". Muslim fundamentalists often label adversaries as "crusaders", and terms like "neo-Crusades" appear in popular discussions about Western or Russian military presence in the Middle East. Anti-Zionists frequently draw parallels between the Crusader states and modern Israel.Crusaders often donated relics to churches, and across Western Europe, statutes, frescoes, and stained glass commemorated the crusades. During the Romantic period, medieval crusading literature inspired artists, as seen in the 1830s decoration of five Versailles rooms with 120paintings. Major works like Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso influenced later writers. Walter Scott's Ivanhoe and The Talisman shaped popular depictions despite historical inaccuracies. To this day, Crusades-themed epic films exploit and reinterpret medieval imagery as both source and mirror of modern nations and conflicts. Depictions of the Crusades in modern cinema frequently draw historians' criticism; for instance, the argument of Riley-Smith that in Kingdom of Heaven, the director Ridley Scott conveyed a historical perspective akin to Osama bin Laden's.
Historiography
Western Crusade historiography's first phase began with early First Crusade accounts and continued until, amid ongoing Muslim–Christian conflict. Medieval Catholic historians interpreted the Crusades through an irredentist lens, framing them as efforts to reclaim Christian territory. The terminology was fluid, reflecting the movement's association with pilgrimage through terms such as, while broader expressions, particularly, were also employed.A second phase began in 1611 with the publication of primary sources by Jacques Bongars, later used by Thomas Fuller, who completed a general Crusade history in 1639. Scholarship reflected strong ideological leanings: Protestant writers like Fuller were critical, whereas Catholic historians such as the Jesuit Louis Maimbourg were more sympathetic. Over time, terminology shifted—by the 18thcentury, neutral terms like,, and crusade replaced earlier expressions like "holy war". Enlightenment thinkers grew increasingly critical, exemplified by Voltaire's reference to the "madness of the crusades".
The third phase, beginning, was shaped by nationalism and Romanticism, prompting a more positive reassessment. Landmark works included Friedrich Wilken's History of the Crusades from Eastern and Western Sources and Joseph-François Michaud's History of the Crusades. In the 1830s, Leopold von Ranke introduced modern source criticism, later applied by Heinrich von Sybel to the First Crusade. International collaboration advanced with the 1875 founding of the Société de l'Orient Latin. Critical editions of source material supported influential histories by René Grousset and Steven Runciman. Major later surveys include the Wisconsin Collaborative History of the Crusades and the Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades. Early-21st-century scholarly debates focus on defining the Crusades, assessing participants' motives, and interpreting the movement through colonial or integrative models, and earlier Eurocentric narratives are increasingly being challenged.
Muslim historiography largely overlooked the topic until 1899, when the Egyptian Sayyid ʿAli al-Ḥarīrī wrote the first Arabic account. In the 2020s, the are central to education in Egypt and Jordan. The Syrian historian Soheil Zakkar compiled a four-volume encyclopaedia framing the anti-Frankish campaigns as a struggle for Arab liberation.
Greek historians have mainly studied the within Byzantine history, but Greek Cypriot scholars emphasize that the Third Crusade severed Cyprus from Byzantium and introduced a repressive regime. In Israel, Joshua Prawer's work established Crusade studies as a distinct academic field.