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1071
Seljuk Turks defeat Byzantine armies at Manzikert

1093-1109
Anselm serves as archbishop of Canterbury

1095-99
The First Crusade

1100
Baldwin I becomes King of Jerusalem

1113
Crusader military order, the Hospitallers of St. John, recognized

1115
Bernard founds Cistercian monastery of Clairvaux

1118
Order of Knights Templar founded to protect pilgrims

1121
Abelard shocks theologians with his “Yes and No,” seemingly contradictory statements of theology

1144
Turkish chief Zengi takes Edessa from crusaders

First Crusade
(1095–1099)

Mission
· Defend Eastern Christians from Muslim aggression.
· Make pilgrimages to Jerusalem safer.
· Redirect knights’ aggression.
· Recapture the Holy Sepulcher.

Leaders
· Pope Urban II, who called for the crusade in November 1095.
· Peter the Hermit, preacher who recruited a first wave of crusaders, mostly peasants.
· Baldwin of Boulogne, Godfrey of Bouillon, and other French princes who led a second wave.

Outcome

The first wave, an unauthorized “people’s crusade,” massacred Jews and plundered Eastern Christian territory, before being slaughtered by Muslims near Nicea in 1096.

A second wave, led by princes, moved into Asia Minor that summer and won strategic battles at Nicea and Dorylaeum. After a seven-month siege, Antioch was captured in June 1098.

With great violence the crusaders captured Jerusalem in the summer of 1099. Four crusader states were established in the Holy Land.

1145–48
Second Crusade

1155
Carmelite order founded by 11 crusaders who live as hermits on Mt. Carmel

1167-68
Oxford University founded

1169
Saladin becomes vizier in Egypt

c. 1173
Peter Waldo, founder of Waldensians, begins to preach

1174
The tower of Pisa built

1187
Saladin’s forces crush Christian army at Hattin and take Jerusalem

Second Crusade
(1145–1148)

Mission
To regain crusader capital of Edessa, which had been overrun by Muslims in 1144.

Leaders
· Bernard of Clairvaux, revered monk, who preached the crusade.
· King Louis Vll of France.
· Emperor Conrad III of Germany.

Outcome

Because of bickering and ineffective leadership, the German crusaders suffered a major defeat at Dorylaeum (1147). Badly weakened, the crusaders abandoned any hope of retaking Edessa.

Instead, they besieged Damascus. But following a strategic blunder they failed in their siege and were forced to retreat (1148).

Christians were devastated that a crusade preached by a moral exemplar and led by royalty would fail.

1187–1191
Third Crusade

1191
Order of Teutonic Knights begins

Third Crusade
(1187–1191)

Mission
To retake Jerusalem, which fell to Muslim general Saladin in 1187.

Leaders
· Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor.
· Philip II, King of France.
· Richard I, later king of England.
· Pope Gregory VIII.

Outcome

Barbarossa (“Redbeard”) set out with an army in 1189 but drowned crossing a river en route.

In 1190, Philip II of France and Richard I (Lion-Heart) of England gathered their armies. On the way, Richard captured Cyprus from a rebel Byzantine prince. Meanwhile, Philip II laid siege to Acre, and after Richard arrived, it fell. Richard also took Jaffa and negotiated Christian access to Jerusalem.

1198–1204
Fourth Crusade

1199
Innocent III attempts to launch first “political” crusade, against a German opponent

1208
Francis of Assisi renounces wealth

1208–18
Crusade against Albigensians, first against heretics in Europe

1212
Children’s Crusade, one of several popular uprisings that fails to reach Holy Land

1215
King John of England seals the Magna Carta. Fourth Lateran Council affirms transubstan-tiation

1217
Cambridge University founded

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