War · 1095–1099 CE
The First Crusade takes Jerusalem
Jerusalem
Answering a Byzantine appeal for help against the Seljuk Turks, Pope Urban II called at Clermont in November 1095 for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Crusaders set out in 1096, some bands massacring Jewish communities in the Rhineland on the way, took Antioch in 1098 and stormed Jerusalem on 15 July 1099, killing much of its population.
They founded four crusader states: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli.
Why it mattered
The crusade opened two centuries of holy war between Latin Christians and Muslim rulers in the Levant, and the crusading idea was later turned on Muslim Spain, the pagan Baltic and even Christian Constantinople.
Related
- The world in 1000: The Millennium Turns chapter
- First Crusade 1096 – 12 August 1099
- The East–West Schism previous moment · 1054 CE
- Angkor Wat and the Khmer Empire next moment · c. 1113–1150 CE