The Crusades Explained: Why They Started, What Happened and What They Actually Achieved

By Jack the Good Knight (Resident Knight Expert)

We've all heard of the Crusades but how much do you actually know about them?

There is a moment in Crusader history that tells you almost everything you need to know about the Crusades. In 1204, the Fourth Crusade arrived not at Jerusalem, which had been its stated objective, but at Constantinople, one of the greatest Christian cities in the world. The Crusaders stormed it, looted it, and left behind destruction so extensive that relations between Eastern and Western Christianity never fully recovered.

A military expedition launched to defend Christianity had ended up attacking fellow Christians.

If that sounds complicated, that's because the Crusades were complicated. They lasted nearly two hundred years. They involved popes, kings, merchants, pilgrims, soldiers, and ordinary families. They produced acts of extraordinary courage, extraordinary faith, and extraordinary brutality, sometimes all at the same time and with equal measure.

So why did they happen?

The medieval world before the Crusades

To understand the Crusades, you have to begin with the eastern Mediterranean in the late eleventh century. For centuries, Christian pilgrims had travelled to Jerusalem, one of the holiest cities in Christianity. The city had been under Muslim rule since the seventh century, but pilgrimage generally remained possible.

The situation became more unstable after the rise of the Seljuk Turks. In 1071, the Byzantine Empire suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Manzikert and lost much of Anatolia - modern-day Turkey. The empire's rulers became increasingly concerned about their ability to defend their territory.

In 1095, the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos appealed to Western Europe for military assistance. His request reached Pope Urban II. At the Council of Clermont later that year, Urban called on Western Christians to aid their fellow Christians in the East and help secure access to the holy places associated with the life of Christ.

The response...thousands of people deciding to go and fight for the cause.

Why did people join the Crusades?

There is no single answer. Some joined out of genuine religious conviction. Medieval Europe was deeply religious, and many Crusaders believed they were undertaking an act of devotion. Others hoped for adventure, status, or financial opportunity.

Younger sons of noble families sometimes saw the East as a place where they might acquire land or reputation. Knights were promised spiritual rewards by the Church. Undoubtedly people were motivated to join by a mixture of faith and the chance to make some money, so let's call that latter motivation greed.

The First Crusade

Against almost all expectations, the First Crusade succeeded. After a difficult journey across Europe and Asia Minor, Crusader armies captured Jerusalem in 1099.

The victory came at a massive cost. Historians describe large-scale killings following the city's capture, including Muslim and Jewish inhabitants. In the aftermath, Crusaders established a series of states in the eastern Mediterranean, including the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

For a time, it appeared that Crusading might succeed. European knights settled in the region. Castles were built, trade routes established and new political orders were formed. But maintaining these territories proved far harder than conquering them.

Saladin and the loss of Jerusalem

The most famous figure of the Crusading era was Saladin. In 1187, his forces defeated the Crusader army at the Battle of Hattin and recaptured Jerusalem. The loss sent shockwaves throughout Europe.

It inspired the Third Crusade, led by some of the most powerful rulers in Christendom, including Richard I - who you may know as Richard the Lionheart - the second most famous figure from the Crusades! Although Richard won several important victories, he never retook Jerusalem. Instead, he negotiated an agreement that allowed Christian pilgrims access to the city.

It was far from the triumph many Crusaders had hoped for, but it prevented a complete collapse of the remaining Crusader territories, but it didn't stop more Crusades from taking shape...

Then things went wrong

The later Crusades went disastrously wrong for the Crusaders . The Fourth Crusade famously ended with the sack of Constantinople in 1204. Other Crusades (Five through to Nine) targeted Egypt, North Africa, and different parts of the eastern Mediterranean with very mixed results.

Some campaigns achieved temporary successes, like negotiating the return of Jerusalem.

More often than not they failed.

By 1291, the last major Crusader stronghold at Acre had fallen to the Mamluks, ending Crusader rule in the Holy Land. The Crusader states were all gone. The era of large-scale Crusading had come to an end. 177 years of Crusading done and dusted.

Were the Crusades worth it?

That depends entirely on who you ask. For many Crusaders, the campaigns represented acts of faith and sacrifice. For merchants in cities such as Venice and Genoa, the Crusading era helped expand commercial connections across the Mediterranean.

For Byzantine Christians, the Fourth Crusade was a catastrophe. For Muslim communities who experienced invasion, warfare, and massacre, the memory of the Crusades was understandably very different from the stories told in medieval Western Europe. Historians still debate the long-term consequences.

The Crusades encouraged greater contact between Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. They contributed to trade, diplomacy, cultural exchange, and the movement of ideas. They also left behind deep divisions, enormous loss of life, and centuries of mistrust. The truth is that the Crusades were neither a glorious adventure nor a simple story of villains and heroes.

They were a human story, which saw between 5-9 million deaths between 1095 and 1291. The Crusades were messy.

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