The First Crusade and the capture of Jerusalem
- Date
- 1095–1099
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Levant & Europe
- Era
- Post-Classical / Medieval
- Significance
At the Council of Clermont in November 1095, Pope Urban II called on the warriors of Western Christendom to march east, aid the Byzantine Empire against the Seljuk Turks, and recover Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from Muslim rule, promising spiritual rewards to those who took the cross.
Tens of thousands responded. After a gruelling campaign across Anatolia and Syria, including the long siege of Antioch, the crusaders reached Jerusalem in 1099. The five-week siege began on 7 June, and the city fell on 15 July 1099, followed by a massacre of many of its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants. Godfrey of Bouillon became the first Latin ruler of the city. The conquest established the Crusader States — the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the principalities of the Levant — and inaugurated nearly two centuries of crusading that deepened contact, conflict and exchange between Latin Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic world, with profound and lasting consequences for relations between the three.
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Empires active in 1095–1099
- Almoravid Empire1056 CE – 1147 CE
- Song Dynasty960 CE – 1279 CE
- Abbasid Caliphate750 CE – 1258 CE
- Byzantine Empire330 CE – 1453 CE
- Kanem-Bornu Empire700 CE – 1900 CE
- Ghaznavid Empire977 CE – 1186 CE
Related military & conflict events
- Battle of Manzikert Opens Anatolia to the Turks26 August 1071
- Fatimid Conquest of Egypt and Founding of Cairo969 CE
- The Norman Conquest of England (Battle of Hastings)14 October 1066
- Battle of Bach Dang ends Chinese rule over VietnamDecember 938 CE
- Mongol sack of Baghdad ends the Abbasid Caliphate10 February 1258 CE
- Saladin destroys the Crusader army at Hattin and retakes Jerusalem1187 (Hattin & fall of Jerusalem)
Further reading
The wider story
When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World
Popular history of the Abbasid golden age.
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