Misplaced Pages

#467532

85-435: The Complete History is organised into several volumes, years, and subsections. Each volume is divided in chronological order into years. For instance, the year 491 AH starts "then the year one and ninety and four hundred began." Each year has several sections committed to major events, which are not necessarily in chronological order. These subsections may include the deaths, births, and dynastic succession of major states like

170-1071: A Turkish ambush led by the Seljuk Kilij Arslan I at the Battle of Civetot in October 1096. In what has become known as the Princes' Crusade, members of the high nobility and their followers embarked in late-summer 1096 and arrived at Constantinople between November and April the following year. This was a large feudal host led by notable Western European princes: southern French forces under Raymond IV of Toulouse and Adhemar of Le Puy ; men from Upper and Lower Lorraine led by Godfrey of Bouillon and his brother Baldwin of Boulogne ; Italo-Norman forces led by Bohemond of Taranto and his nephew Tancred ; as well as various contingents consisting of northern French and Flemish forces under Robert Curthose of Normandy, Stephen of Blois , Hugh of Vermandois , and Robert II of Flanders . In total and including non-combatants,

255-521: A charismatic priest called Peter the Hermit . Peter was the most successful of the preachers of Urban's message, and developed an almost hysterical enthusiasm among his followers, although he was probably not an "official" preacher sanctioned by Urban at Clermont. It is commonly believed that Peter's followers consisted entirely of a massive group of untrained and illiterate peasants who did not even know where Jerusalem was, but there were also many knights among

340-613: A combined force of French, Aragonese and Catalan knights in the Siege of Barbastro , taking the city that had been in Muslim hands since the year 711. This had the full support of Alexander II, and a truce was declared in Catalonia with indulgences granted to the participants. It was a holy war but differed from the First Crusade in that there was no pilgrimage, no vow, and no formal authorisation by

425-526: A common identity and shared history based on tribe or ethnicity so they frequently united and divided during the 11th and 12th centuries. Although small, all developed an aristocratic military technique and, in 1031, the disintegration of the Caliphate of Córdoba in southern Spain created the opportunity for the territorial gains that later became known as the Reconquista . In 1063, William VIII of Aquitaine led

510-447: A large enterprise was continent-wide. Estimates as to the size of the crusader armies have been given as 70,000 to 80,000 on the number who left Western Europe in the year after Clermont, and more joined in the three-year duration. Estimates for the number of knights range from 7,000 to 10,000; 35,000 to 50,000 foot soldiers; and including non-combatants a total of 60,000 to 100,000. But Urban's speech had been well-planned. He had discussed

595-404: A legation to Patriarch Michael I Cerularius of Constantinople, which ended in mutual excommunication and an East–West Schism . Early Christians were used to the employment of violence for communal purposes. A Christian theology of war inevitably evolved from the point when Roman citizenship and Christianity became linked. Citizens were required to fight against the empire's enemies. Dating from

680-780: A local level, the preaching of the First Crusade ignited the Rhineland massacres perpetrated against Jews. At the end of 1095 and the beginning of 1096, months before the departure of the official crusade in August, there were attacks on Jewish communities in France and Germany. In May 1096, Emicho of Flonheim (sometimes incorrectly known as Emicho of Leiningen) attacked the Jews at Speyer and Worms . Other unofficial crusaders from Swabia, led by Hartmann of Dillingen, along with French, English, Lotharingian and Flemish volunteers, led by Drogo of Nesle and William

765-497: A pilgrimage, and even so, many died and many more turned back. The pilgrims that survived these extremely dangerous journeys, “returned to the West weary and impoverished, with a dreadful tale to tell.” News of these deadly attacks on pilgrims as well as the persecution of the native Eastern Christians caused anger in Europe. News of these persecutions reached European Christians in the West in

850-468: Is clear that the response to the speech was much greater than even the Pope, let alone Alexios, expected. On his tour of France, Urban tried to forbid certain people (including women, monks, and the sick) from joining the crusade, but found this nearly impossible. In the end, most who took up the call were not knights, but peasants who were not wealthy and had little in the way of fighting skills, in an outpouring of

935-425: Is said to have "raised one leg and farted loudly" to dismiss the comments of his companions regarding Baldwin's requests to use Sicily as the intermediate station before advancing to conquer Africa. Whatever the plausibility of this account, perhaps ibn al-Athir is indulging in some creative editorial, as even medieval Islamic writers were wont at times to lampoon ones enemy. In Ibn al-Athir's description Roger redirects

SECTION 10

#1732858327468

1020-693: Is the era used in the Islamic lunar calendar . It begins its count from the Islamic New Year in which Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Yathrib (now Medina ) in 622 CE. This event, known as the Hijrah , is commemorated in Islam for its role in the founding of the first Muslim community ( ummah ). In the West, this era is most commonly denoted as AH ( Latin : Anno Hegirae , / ˈ æ n oʊ ˈ h ɛ dʒ ɪ r iː / , lit.   ' in

1105-514: Is worse still and yet more distressing, clerics and monks and woe of unprecedented woes, even bishops are defiled with the sin of sodomy and it is now trumpeted abroad that one bishop has succumbed to this abominable sin. The emperor warned that if Constantinople fell to the Turks, not only would thousands more Christians be tortured, raped and murdered, but “the most holy relics of the Saviour,” gathered over

1190-723: The Caspian region and, importantly, who served the Byzantine Empire as mercenaries. Several references to the Rūs in the Kāmil are connected with Byzantine military operations. The strategic significance of the Varangians was recognized by the Arabs as early as the time of al-Muqaddasī (ca. 945–1000), who had described the Rūs as "two kinds of Byzantines" ( jinsān min ar-Rūmī ). The first reference in

1275-498: The Islamic New Year does not begin January 1 and that a Hijri calendar year is about 11 days shorter than a Gregorian calendar year, there is no direct correspondence between years of the two eras. A given Hijri year will usually fall in two successive Gregorian years. A CE year will always overlap two or occasionally three successive Hijri years. For example, the year 2008 CE maps to the last week of AH 1428, all of 1429, and

1360-528: The Islamic lunar calendar , whose epoch (first year) is the year of Muhammad's Hijrah , and begins on the first day of the month of Muharram (equivalent to the Julian calendar date of July 16, 622 CE). The date of the Hijrah itself did not form the Islamic New Year . Instead, the system continues the earlier ordering of the months, with the Hijrah occurring around the 8th day of Rabi al-Awwal , 66 days into

1445-622: The Kāmil to the Rūs are two entries for the year 943 referring to a raid of the Rūs in the Caucasus . The second entry concerns Rūs participation in the battle of Manzikert of 1071. A large portion of the history deals with the era of the Crusades ; this portion has been translated by D. S. Richards in three volumes, dealing with the arrival of the crusaders up to the time of Imad ad-Din Zengi , Nur ad-Din , and Saladin . In fact, ibn al-Athir's portrayal of

1530-635: The Levant , there were no further substantive attempts to recover the Holy Land. Christian and Muslim states had been in conflict since the latter's founding in the 7th century. During the century following the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in 632, Muslim forces captured Jerusalem and the Levant , North Africa , and most of the Iberian Peninsula , all of which had previously been under Christian rule. By

1615-601: The Levant . Ibn al-Athir describes how the Byzantine Emperor's "real intention was to incite [the crusaders] to attack the Muslims, for he was convinced that the Turks, whose invincible control over Asia Minor he had observed, would exterminate every one of them." Again, Ibn al-Athir attributes the advent of the First Crusade as a product of the Frankish armies being manipulated by political actors to do their bidding. In terms of

1700-613: The Seljuk Empire . Subsections also include major political events, the appearance of groups such as the Franks or the Tatars ( Mongols ), and major battles like the Siege of Jerusalem of 1099 . Ibn Athir's depiction of the Rūs is not primarily ethnological, and not dealing with particular customs or detailed geography. Rather, he accounts for the military significance of the Rūs as a people who raided

1785-572: The Slavs or Western Christians. Normans in Italy; Pechenegs , Serbs and Cumans to the north; and Seljuk Turks in the east all competed with the Empire, and to meet these challenges the emperors recruited mercenaries, even on occasion from their enemies. The Islamic world also experienced great success since its foundation in the 7th century, with major changes to come. The first waves of Turkic migration into

SECTION 20

#1732858327468

1870-643: The atabeg of Mosul . Egypt and much of Palestine were controlled by the Fatimids. The Fatimids, under the nominal rule of caliph al-Musta'li but actually controlled by vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah , lost Jerusalem to the Seljuks in 1073 but succeeded in recapturing the city in 1098 from the Artuqids , a smaller Turkish tribe associated with the Seljuks, just before the arrival of the crusaders. According to historian Jonathan Riley-Smith and Rodney Stark , Muslim authorities in

1955-555: The siege of Antioch in 1097, as the crusades were simply part of a long historical pattern of Frankish conquests and not conceptualized as a distinct event, as contemporary European chroniclers—such as Fulcher of Chartres —tended to do. In addition, Ibn al-Athir refers to Roger's concern with maintaining friendly relations with Muslim rulers in Africa as another reason why he redirected the Frankish armies to Syria. The second source of political intrigue that ibn al-Athir claimed to have shaped

2040-500: The 11th century, Christians were gradually reversing Islamic control of Iberia through the Reconquista , but their ties to the Holy Land had deteriorated. Muslim authorities in the Levant often enforced harsh rules against any overt expressions of the Christian faith. The First Crusade was the response of the Christian world to the expansion of Islam, through the Fatimids and Seljuks, into

2125-426: The 11th century, the population of Europe had increased greatly as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish. The Catholic Church had become a dominant influence on Western civilization. Society was organized by manorialism and feudalism , political structures whereby knights and other nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rent from lands and manors. In

2210-673: The Archbishop of Cologne, did their best to protect the Jews. A decade before, the Bishop of Speyer had taken the step of providing the Jews of that city with a walled ghetto to protect them from Christian violence and given their chief rabbis the control of judicial matters in the quarter. Nevertheless, some also took money in return for their protection. The attacks may have originated in the belief that Jews and Muslims were equally enemies of Christ, and enemies were to be fought or converted to Christianity. The four main crusader armies left Europe around

2295-547: The Byzantine Empire was a historic centre of wealth, culture and military power. Under Basil II , the territorial recovery of the empire reached its furthest extent in 1025. The Empire's frontiers stretched east to Iran, Bulgaria and much of southern Italy were under control, and piracy in the Mediterranean Sea had been suppressed. Relations with the Empire's Islamic neighbours were no more quarrelsome than relations with

2380-510: The Carpenter , as well as many locals, joined Emicho in the destruction of the Jewish community of Mainz at the end of May. In Mainz, one Jewish woman killed her children rather than let the crusaders kill them. Chief rabbi Kalonymus Ben Meshullam committed suicide in anticipation of being killed. Emicho's company then went on to Cologne, and others continued on to Trier, Metz, and other cities. Peter

2465-629: The Christians in Antioch, despite the obvious situation that he was holding these families hostage in an attempt to dissuade Antioch Christians from joining the Crusading armies. Moreover, Ibn al-Athir attributes the fall of Antioch to treachery by an Antioch cuirass -maker who let in the crusaders through the water gate , and to Yaghi Siyan escaping in panic. Even so, Ibn al-Athir's accounts were still fairly partial, as he seems to suggest that Yaghi Siyan's escape

2550-790: The Crusader states in the Levant The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades , initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the Middle Ages . The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic rule . While Jerusalem had been under Muslim rule for hundreds of years, by the 11th century the Seljuk takeover of the region threatened local Christian populations, pilgrimages from

2635-492: The Eastern churches in their time of need. Alexios and Urban had previously been in close contact in 1089 and after, and had discussed openly the prospect of the reunion of the Christian churches. There were signs of considerable cooperation between Rome and Constantinople in the years immediately before the crusade. In July 1095, Urban turned to his homeland of France to recruit men for the expedition. His travels there culminated in

The Complete History - Misplaced Pages Continue

2720-606: The Elephant ". The first year of the Hijra (622-23 CE) was named the "Permission to Travel" in this calendar. 17 years after the Hijra , a complaint from Abu Musa Ashaari prompted the caliph Umar to abolish the practice of named years and to establish a new calendar era . Umar chose as epoch for the new Muslim calendar the hijrah , the emigration of Muhammad and 70 Muslims from Mecca to Medina . Tradition credits Othman with

2805-525: The Fatimids were not "Muslims," demonstrating how Seljuk Sunni Muslims viewed the "heretic[al]" practices of the non-Sunni Fatimids. A third source of political intrigue to which Ibn al-Athir attributes influence over the development of the origins of the crusade is the Byzantine Emperor. Ibn al-Athir describes how the Byzantine Emperor had coerced the Franks to agree to conquer Antioch for him in exchange for permission to pass through Byzantine lands to

2890-410: The Frankish armies under Baldwin to head toward Syria and Jerusalem, instead of North Africa through Sicily, in order to preserve his "annual profit from the harvest," thus demonstrating Roger's political acumen and calculus motivating his decision to launch the first crusade from Antioch . In this case, it is unsurprising that ibn al-Athir characterizes the beginning of the crusades to have occurred with

2975-486: The Hermit also may have been involved in violence against the Jews, and an army led by a priest named Folkmar attacked Jews further east in Bohemia. Coloman of Hungary had to deal with the problems that the armies of the First Crusade caused during their march across his country towards the Holy Land in 1096. He crushed two crusader hordes that had been pillaging the kingdom. Emicho's army eventually continued into Hungary but

3060-551: The Holy Land and Byzantium. In Western Europe, Jerusalem was increasingly seen as worthy of penitential pilgrimages . While the Seljuk hold on Jerusalem was weak (the group later lost the city to the Fatimids), returning pilgrims reported difficulties and the oppression of Christians. The Byzantine need for military support coincided with an increase in the willingness of the western European warrior class to accept papal military command. By

3145-401: The Holy Land often enforced harsh rules "against any open expressions of the Christian faith": In 1026 Richard of Saint-Vanne was stoned to death after he was seen saying Mass. Muslim officials also ignored the constant robberies and massacres of Christian pilgrims, such as an incident in 1064 in which Muslims ambushed four German bishops and a party of several thousand pilgrims as they entered

3230-549: The Holy Land, slaughtering two-thirds of them The persecution of Christians became even worse after the Seljuk Turks invasion. Villages occupied by Turks along the route to Jerusalem began exacting tolls on Christian pilgrims. In principle, the Seljuks allowed pilgrims access to Jerusalem, but they often imposed huge tariffs and condoned local attacks. Many pilgrims were kidnapped and sold into slavery while others were tortured. Soon only large, well-armed groups would dare to attempt

3315-654: The Hungarians and may have captured Belgrade. At Niš , the Byzantine governor tried to supply them, but Peter had little control over his followers and Byzantine troops were needed to quell their attacks. Peter arrived at Constantinople in August, where his army joined with the one led by Walter, which had already arrived, as well as separate bands of crusaders from France, Germany, and Italy. Another army of Bohemians and Saxons did not make it past Hungary before splitting up. Peter's and Walter's unruly mob began to pillage outside

3400-515: The Islamic lunar calendar consists of twelve lunar months and has only 354 or 355 days in its year. Consequently, its New Year's Day occurs ten days earlier each year relative to the Gregorian calendar . The year 2024 CE corresponds to the Islamic years AH   1445 – 1446; AH   1446 corresponds to 2024 – 2025 in the Common Era. The Hijri era is calculated according to

3485-614: The Islamic world disregarded the world beyond, so that, when the First Crusade arrived, it came as a surprise. Malik-Shah was succeeded in the Anatolian Sultanate of Rûm by Kilij Arslan , and in Syria by his brother Tutush I who started a civil war against Berkyaruq to become sultan himself. When Tutush was killed in 1095, his sons Ridwan and Duqaq inherited Aleppo and Damascus , respectively, further dividing Syria amongst emirs antagonistic towards each other, as well as Kerbogha ,

The Complete History - Misplaced Pages Continue

3570-575: The Middle East enmeshed Arab and Turkic history from the 9th   century. The status quo in Western Asia was challenged by later waves of Turkish migration, particularly the arrival of the Seljuk Turks in the 10th   century. These were a minor ruling clan from Transoxania. They converted to Islam and migrated to Iran to seek their fortune. In the following two decades they conquered Iran, Iraq and

3655-553: The Muslim charge and failed for treating the Muslims "with such contempt and scorn" and prevented the Muslims from killing the Franks when given the opportunity. Ibn al-Athir's description of the siege ended in the overwhelming victory of Frankish armies against the Muslims. This was but the first step to the conquest of Jerusalem by the crusaders in 1099. Hijri year The Hijri year ( Arabic : سنة هجرية , romanized :  sanat hijriyya ) or era ( Arabic : التقويم الهجري , romanized :  at-taqwīm al-hijrī )

3740-686: The Near East. The Seljuks and their followers were Sunni Muslims, which led to conflict in Palestine and Syria with the Shi'ite Fatimid Caliphate . The Seljuks were nomads, Turkish-speaking, and occasionally shamanistic, unlike their sedentary, Arabic-speaking subjects. This was a difference that weakened power structures when combined with the Seljuks' habitual governance of territory based on political preferment and competition between independent princes rather than geography. Romanos IV Diogenes attempted to suppress

3825-421: The Seljuks' sporadic raiding, but was defeated at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the only time in history that a Byzantine emperor became the prisoner of a Muslim commander. The battle was a stinging setback that presaged notable Seljuk gains, and contributed to the call for the First Crusade. Key cities such as Nicaea and Antioch were lost in 1081 and 1086 respectively, cities that were especially famous in

3910-520: The West due to their historical significance and would later also be targets of reconquest by the crusader armies. From 1092, the status quo in the Middle East disintegrated following the death of the effective ruler of the Seljuk Empire, Nizam al-Mulk . This was closely followed by the deaths of the Seljuk sultan Malik-Shah and the Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir Billah . Wracked by confusion and division,

3995-615: The West, and the Byzantine Empire itself. The earliest initiative for the First Crusade began in 1095 when Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos requested military support from the Council of Piacenza in the empire's conflict with the Seljuk-led Turks. This was followed later in the year by the Council of Clermont , during which Pope Urban II supported the Byzantine request for military assistance and also urged faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem . This call

4080-544: The advent of the crusades is especially informative of the Muslim perspective of the beginning of the Crusades. Ibn al-Athir characterizes the advent of the crusades as an issue of political intrigue and its historical importance in terms of Frankish conquest, as merely one event within a continuous pattern. He attributes the origin to the happenings of 1085-86 , when the Franks first invaded Islamic lands in Andalusia , and connects

4165-689: The appointed time in August 1096. They took different routes to Constantinople , some through Eastern Europe and the Balkans, some crossing the Adriatic Sea. Coloman of Hungary allowed Godfrey and his troops to cross Hungary only after his brother, Baldwin, was offered as a hostage to guarantee his troops' good conduct. They gathered outside the Roman-era Walls of Constantinople between November 1096 and April 1097. Hugh of Vermandois arrived first, followed by Godfrey, Raymond, and Bohemond. Recruitment for such

4250-408: The beginning of the First Crusade, ibn al-Athir describes the siege of Antioch in July 1097 as the starting point. Within his description, Ibn al-Athir discusses how the ruler of Antioch, Yaghi Siyan , expelled the Christians inhabitants of Antioch for fear of internal insurrection. Ibn al-Athir writes of the expulsion as an act of "protection", in which Yaghi Siyan was trying to protect the families of

4335-418: The beginnings of the First Crusade was the Shiite Fatimid Dynasty in Egypt. While Ibn al-Athir claims that it is merely "another story," he suggests fairly clearly that the Fatimids had a role in instigating the Franks to invade Syria because they were threatened by the expansion of Seljuk power and wanted to use the Franks to protect Fatimid Egypt from a Seljuk invasion. ibn al-Athir seems to suggest that

SECTION 50

#1732858327468

4420-409: The calendar year is entirely determined by solar observation or calculation. Each year begins on the northward equinox . By the age of Muhammad, there was already an Arabian lunar calendar , with named months. Likewise, the years of its calendar used conventional names rather than numbers: for example, the year of the birth of Muhammad and of Ammar ibn Yasir (570 CE) was known as the " Year of

4505-422: The centuries, would be lost. “Therefore in the name of God... we implore you to bring this city all the faithful soldiers of Christ... in your coming you will find your reward in heaven, and if you do not come, God will condemn you.” The major ecclesiastical impetuses behind the First Crusade were the Council of Piacenza and subsequent Council of Clermont , both held in 1095 by Pope Urban II , and resulted in

4590-434: The church. Shortly before the First Crusade, Urban II had encouraged the Iberian Christians to take Tarragona , using much of the same symbolism and rhetoric that was later used to preach the crusade to the people of Europe. The Italo-Normans were successful in seizing much of Southern Italy and Sicily from the Byzantines and North African Arabs in the decades before the First Crusade. This brought them into conflict with

4675-411: The city in search of supplies and food, prompting Alexios to hurriedly ferry the gathering across the Bosporus one week later. After crossing into Asia Minor, the crusaders split up and began to pillage the countryside, wandering into Seljuk territory around Nicaea. The far more-experienced Turks massacred most of this group. Some Italian and German crusaders were defeated at the Siege of Xerigordon at

4760-442: The crimes being committed against Christians in the east; and about a new kind of war, an armed pilgrimage, and of rewards in heaven, where remission of sins was offered to any who might die in the undertaking. They do not all specifically mention Jerusalem as the ultimate goal. However, it has been argued that Urban's subsequent preaching reveals that he expected the expedition to reach Jerusalem all along. According to one version of

4845-421: The crusade at Piacenza, but the only record of which is by Bernold of St. Blasien in his Chronicon . The five versions of the speech differ widely from one another regarding particulars, but all versions except that in the Gesta Francorum agree that Urban talked about the violence of European society and the necessity of maintaining the Peace of God; about helping the Greeks, who had asked for assistance; about

4930-464: The crusade with Adhemar of Le Puy and Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse , and instantly the expedition had the support of two of southern France's most important leaders. Adhemar himself was present at the council and was the first to "take the cross". During the rest of 1095 and into 1096, Urban spread the message throughout France, and urged his bishops and legates to preach in their own dioceses elsewhere in France, Germany, and Italy as well. However, it

5015-414: The crusaders began the Siege of Antioch , capturing the city in June 1098. Jerusalem, then under the Fatimids , was reached in June 1099 and the Siege of Jerusalem resulted in the city being taken by assault from 7 June to 15 July 1099, during which its residents were ruthlessly massacred. A Fatimid counterattack was repulsed later that year at the Battle of Ascalon , ending the First Crusade. Afterwards,

5100-436: The crusades with the conquest of Sicily in 1091. Ibn al-Athir attributes the political intrigue behind the immediate origins of the crusade to three sources: Roger I , the Fatimids , and the Byzantine Emperor . According to al-Athir, Roger I manipulated the invasion of Syria and march onto Jerusalem by the crusading armies under Baldwin—a compounding of various "Baldwins" of Flanders and Jerusalem . In his account Roger I

5185-432: The end of September. Meanwhile, Walter and Peter's followers, who, although for the most part untrained in battle but led by about 50 knights, fought the Turks at the Battle of Civetot in October 1096. The Turkish archers destroyed the crusader army, and Walter was among the dead. Peter, who was absent in Constantinople at the time, later joined the second wave of crusaders, along with the few survivors of Civetot. At

SECTION 60

#1732858327468

5270-476: The end of the previous lunar cycle and hence the previous month, thereby beginning the new month. Consequently, each month can have 29 or 30 days depending on the visibility of the moon, astronomical positioning of the earth and weather conditions. However, certain sects and groups, most notably Bohras Muslims namely Alavis , Dawoodis and Sulaymanis and Shia Ismaili Muslims, use a tabular Islamic calendar in which odd-numbered months have thirty days (and also

5355-445: The few years after the Battle of Manzikert . A Frankish eyewitness says: "Far and wide they [Muslim Turks] ravaged cities and castles together with their settlements. Churches were razed down to the ground. Of the clergyman and monks whom they captured, some were slaughtered while others were with unspeakable wickedness given up, priests and all, to their dire dominion and nuns—alas for the sorrow of it!—were subjected to their lusts." It

5440-416: The first few days of 1430. Similarly, the year 1976 CE corresponded with the last few days of AH 1395, all of 1396, and the first week of 1397. The Hijri year has twelve months, whose precise lengths vary by sect of Islam. Each month of the Islamic calendar commences on the birth of the new lunar cycle. Traditionally this is based on actual observation of the moon's crescent ( hilal ) marking

5525-435: The first year. Unlike Sunnis, Twelver Shias start the Hijri year with the month of the Hijra, Rabi' al-Awwal, rejecting that Muharram is the start of a new year. As a result of this, the dates of some events are described differently by one year. For example, Shias state that the Muharram-transpiring battle of Karbala occurred 60 years after the Hijra, while Sunnis state it to have occurred 61 years after. In Shia Islam,

5610-416: The forces are estimated to have numbered as many as 100,000. The crusader forces gradually arrived in Anatolia. With Kilij Arslan absent, a Frankish attack and Byzantine naval assault during the Siege of Nicaea in June 1097 resulted in an initial crusader victory. In July, the crusaders won the Battle of Dorylaeum , fighting Turkish lightly armoured mounted archers. After a difficult march through Anatolia,

5695-447: The help of Antioch." Further on, Ibn al-Athir describes the failed Muslim siege of Antioch that ended in defeat. One event that Ibn al-Athir describes during this failed siege was the finding of the Holy Lance by Peter Bartholomew , but framed in the context of Peter Bartholomew having buried a lance in a certain spot prior to such "discovery." Regarding the siege, Ibn al-Athir attributes the failure to Qawam ad-Daula Kerbuqa , who led

5780-404: The majority of the crusaders returned home. Four Crusader states were established in the Holy Land: the Kingdom of Jerusalem , the County of Edessa , the Principality of Antioch , and the County of Tripoli . The Crusader presence remained in the region in some form until the loss of the last major Crusader stronghold in the Siege of Acre in 1291. After this loss of all Crusader territory in

5865-404: The mobilization of Western Europe to go to the Holy Land. Emperor Alexios, who worried about the advances of the Seljuks into his territory, sent envoys to the Council of Piacenza in March 1095 to ask Urban for aid against the invading Turks. Urban responded favourably, perhaps hoping to heal the East-West Schism of forty years earlier, and to reunite the Church under papal primacy by helping

5950-405: The papacy attempted to mitigate it. Pope Alexander II developed recruitment systems via oaths for military resourcing that Gregory VII further extended across Europe. These were deployed by the Church in the Christian conflicts with Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula and for the Norman conquest of Sicily . Gregory VII went further in 1074, planning a display of military power to reinforce

6035-430: The papacy leading to a campaign against them by Pope Leo IX who they defeated at the Battle of Civitate . Nevertheless, when they invaded Muslim Sicily in 1059, they did so under the papal banner Invexillum sancti Petrior , or banner of St. Peter. Robert Guiscard captured the Byzantine city of Bari in 1071 and campaigned along the Eastern Adriatic coast around Dyrrachium in 1081 and 1085. Since its founding,

6120-566: The peasants, including Walter Sans Avoir , who was lieutenant to Peter and led a separate army. Lacking military discipline, Peter's fledgling army quickly found itself in trouble despite the fact they were still in Christian territory. The army led by Walter plundered the Belgrade and Zemun areas, and arrived in Constantinople with little resistance. Meanwhile, the army led by Peter, which marched separately from Walter's army, also fought with

6205-611: The period from 1050 until 1080, the Gregorian Reform movement developed increasingly more assertive policies, eager to increase its power and influence. This prompted conflict with eastern Christians rooted in the doctrine of papal supremacy . The Eastern church viewed the pope as only one of the five patriarchs of the Church, alongside the patriarchates of Alexandria , Antioch , Constantinople and Jerusalem . In 1054 differences in custom, creed and practice spurred Pope Leo IX to send

6290-506: The principle of papal sovereignty in a holy war supporting Byzantium against the Seljuks, but was unable to build support for this. Theologian Anselm of Lucca took the decisive step towards an authentic crusader ideology, stating that fighting for legitimate purposes could result in the remission of sins. On the Iberian Peninsula, there was no significant Christian polity. The Christian realms of León , Navarre and Catalonia lacked

6375-548: The speech, the enthusiastic crowd responded with cries of Deus lo volt !–– God wills it. The great French nobles and their trained armies of knights were not the first to undertake the journey towards Jerusalem. Urban had planned the departure of the first crusade for 15 August 1096, the Feast of the Assumption , but months before this, a number of unexpected armies of peasants and petty nobles set off for Jerusalem on their own, led by

6460-486: The successful proposal, simply continuing the order of the months that had already been established by Muhammad , beginning with Muharram , as there was no set order of months during the pre-Islamic era (Age of Ignorance - Jahiliya ). Adoption of this calendar was then enforced by Umar. Different approximate conversion formulas between the Gregorian (AD or CE) and Islamic calendars (AH) are possible: or Given that

6545-533: The ten-day Council of Clermont, where on 27 November he gave an impassioned sermon to a large audience of French nobles and clergy. There are five versions of the speech recorded by people who may have been at the council ( Baldric of Dol , Guibert of Nogent , Robert the Monk , and Fulcher of Chartres ) or who went on crusade (Fulcher and the anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum ), as well as other versions found in

6630-519: The twelfth month in a leap year) and even months have twenty nine. First Crusade In the Holy Land (1095–1291) Later Crusades (1291–1717) Northern (1147–1410) Against Christians (1209–1588) Popular (1096–1320) Period post-First Crusade Second Crusade Period post-Second Crusade Third Crusade Period post-Third Crusade Fourth Crusade Fifth Crusade Sixth Crusade and aftermath Seventh Crusade End of

6715-406: The works of later historians (such as William of Malmesbury and William of Tyre ). All of these versions were written after Jerusalem had been captured, and it is difficult to know what was actually said versus what was recreated in the aftermath of the successful crusade. The only contemporary records are a few letters written by Urban in 1095. It is also thought that Urban also may have preached

6800-644: The works of the 4th-century theologian Augustine of Hippo , a doctrine of holy war developed. Augustine wrote that aggressive war was sinful, but war could be justified if proclaimed by a legitimate authority such as a king or bishop, it was defensive or for the recovery of lands, and it did not involve excessive violence. The breakdown of the Carolingian Empire in Western Europe created a warrior caste who now had little to do but fight amongst themselves. Violent acts were commonly used for dispute resolution, and

6885-516: The year of the Hijra ' ) in parallel with the Christian / Common (AD/CE) and Jewish eras (AM) and can similarly be placed before (preferably) or after the date. In predominantly Muslim countries , it is also commonly abbreviated H ("Hijra") from its Arabic abbreviation hāʾ ( هـ ). Years prior to AH 1 are reckoned in English as BH ("Before the Hijra"), which should follow the date. A year in

6970-428: Was also defeated by Coloman, at which point, Emicho's followers dispersed. Some eventually joined the main armies, although Emicho himself went home. Many of the attackers seem to have wanted to force the Jews to convert, although they were also interested in acquiring money from them. Physical violence against Jews was never part of the church hierarchy's official policy for crusading, and the Christian bishops, especially

7055-555: Was in this climate that the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos wrote a letter to Robert II of Flanders saying: The holy places are desecrated and destroyed in countless ways. Noble matrons and their daughters, robbed of everything, are violated one after another, like animals. Some [of their attackers] shamelessly place virgins in front of their own mothers and force them to sing wicked and obscene songs until they have finished having their ways with them... men of every age and description, boys, youths, old men, nobles, peasants and what

7140-568: Was met with an enthusiastic popular response across all social classes in western Europe. Mobs of predominantly poor Christians numbering in the thousands, led by Peter the Hermit , a French priest, were the first to respond. What has become known as the People's Crusade passed through Germany and indulged in wide-ranging anti-Jewish activities, including the Rhineland massacres . On leaving Byzantine-controlled territory in Anatolia , they were annihilated in

7225-425: Was out of panic, instead of cowardice; he describes Yaghi Siyan to have suffered from great grief and repentance after his flight. Furthermore, Ibn al-Athir describes further acts of Frankish deviousness, in that they had sent messages to the rulers of Aleppo and Damascus "to say that they had no interest in any cities but those that had once belonged to Byzantium" in an attempt to "dissuade these rulers from" coming "to

#467532