The twelfth and thirteenth centuries: the Crusader states

Abstract

The most striking expression of the surge of military and economic aggression of the Christian West in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries was the establishment by the armies of the First Crusade of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch, and the two counties of Edessa and Tripoli. These Crusader states on the mainland of Syria and Palestine were not all to be finally exterminated until 1291, almost two hundred years later. Their survival during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was very largely a product of the fact that their essential resources of manpower and financial revenues could be replenished constantly through their maritime connections to the Christian West. From very soon after the capture of Jerusalem in 1099 the majority of the pilgrim traffic, which brought both unarmed pilgrims to worship at the holy places and also armed pilgrims, Crusaders, to participate in military campaigns, came by sea. It is true that the major Crusading armies came overland for the First Crusade, the Crusade of 1101, and the Second Crusade, and that the German armies did so also for the Third Crusade. However, the constant trickle of Crusaders arriving in small groups or as individuals to spend a time campaigning against the infidel almost invariably came by sea. Pilgrims of both kinds provided forces for war, settlers to secure the land, and liquid capital to establish a Frankish social and economic infrastructure.