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Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding territories from Muslim rule. Beginning with the First Crusade, which culminated in the Siege of Jerusalem (1099), capture of Jerusalem in 1099, these expeditions spanned centuries and became a central aspect of European political, religious, and military history. In 1095, after a Byzantine request for aid,Helen J. Nicholson, ''The Crusades'', (Greenwood Publishing, 2004), 6. Pope Urban II proclaimed the first expedition at the Council of Clermont. He encouraged military support for List of Byzantine emperors, Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos, AlexiosI Komnenos and called for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Across all social strata in Western Europe, there was an enthusiastic response. Participants came from all over Europe and had a ...
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First Crusade
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 Muslim conquest of the Levant, Islamic rule. While Jerusalem had been under Muslim rule for hundreds of years, by the 11th century the Seljuk Empire, Seljuk takeover of the region threatened local Christian populations, pilgrimages from the West, and the Byzantine Empire itself. The earliest initiative for the First Crusade began in 1095 when List of Byzantine emperors, 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 was met ...
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Northern Crusades
The Northern Crusades or Baltic Crusades were Christianization campaigns undertaken by Catholic Church, Catholic Christian Military order (society), military orders and kingdoms, primarily against the paganism, pagan Balts, Baltic, Baltic Finns, Finnic and West Slavs, West Slavic peoples around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. The most notable campaigns were the Livonian Crusade, Livonian and Prussian Crusade, Prussian crusades. Some of these wars were called crusades during the Middle Ages, however others, including the 12th century First Swedish Crusade and several following military incursions by Scandinavian Christians against the then pagan Finnish people, Finns, were dubbed "crusades" only in the 19th century by romantic nationalism, romantic nationalist historians. However, crusades against Estonians and against "other pagans in those parts" were authorized by Pope Alexander III in the crusade bull, crusade Papal bull, bull ''Non parum animus noster'', in ...
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Crusader States
The Crusader states, or Outremer, were four Catholic polities established in the Levant region and southeastern Anatolia from 1098 to 1291. Following the principles of feudalism, the foundation for these polities was laid by the First Crusade, which was proclaimed by the Latin Church in 1095 in order to reclaim the Holy Land after it was lost to the 7th-century Muslim conquest. From north to south, they were: the County of Edessa (10981150), the Principality of Antioch (10981268), the County of Tripoli (11021289), and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (10991291). The three northern states covered an area in what is now southeastern Turkey, northwestern Syria, and northern Lebanon; the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the southernmost and most prominent state, covered an area in what is now Israel, Palestine, southern Lebanon, and western Jordan. The description "Crusader states" can be misleading, as from 1130 onwards, very few people among the Franks were Crusaders. Medieval and modern write ...
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Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralised authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in late antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire� ...
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Siege Of Acre (1291)
The siege of Acre (also called the fall of Acre) took place in 1291 and resulted in the Crusaders' losing control of Acre to the Mamluks. It is considered one of the most important battles of the period. Although the crusading movement continued for several more centuries, the capture of the city marked the end of further crusades to the Levant. When Acre fell, the Crusaders lost their last major stronghold of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Background In 1187, Saladin conquered much of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (also called the Latin Kingdom), including Acre and Jerusalem, after winning the Battle of Hattin and inflicting heavy losses on the Crusaders. The Third Crusade was launched in response; the Crusaders besieged and eventually recaptured Acre in 1191. Acre became the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The religious orders made their headquarters in and around the city, and from there made crucial military and diplomatic decisions. For example, when the Mongols a ...
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Crusades Against Christians
Crusades against Christians were Christian religious wars dating from the 11thcentury First Crusade when papal reformers began equating the universal church with the papacy. Later in the 12th century the focus of crusades century focus changed from non-christian pagans and infidels to heretics and schismatics. Holy wars were fought in northern France, against King Roger II of Sicily, various heretics, their protectors, mercenary bands and the first ''political'' crusade against Markward of Anweiler. Full crusading apparatus was deployed against Christians in the conflict with the Cathar heretics of southern France and their Christian protectors in the 13th century. This was given equivalence with the Eastern crusades and supported by developments such as the creation of the Papal States. The aims of this were to make the crusade indulgence available to the laity, the reconfiguration of Christian society, and ecclesiastical taxation. Crusades against Christians Christian h ...
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Hussite Wars
The Hussite Wars, also called the Bohemian Wars or the Hussite Revolution, were a series of civil wars fought between the Hussites and the combined Catholic forces of Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, the Papacy, and European monarchs loyal to the Catholic Church, as well as various Hussite factions. At a late stage of the conflict, the Utraquists changed sides in 1432 to fight alongside Roman Catholics and opposed the Taborites and other Hussite factions. These wars lasted from 1419 to approximately 1434. The unrest began after pre-Protestant Christian reformer Jan Hus was executed by the Catholic Church in 1415 for heresy. Because Sigismund had plans to be crowned the Holy Roman Emperor (requiring papal coronation), he suppressed the religion of the Hussites, yet it continued to spread. When King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia, brother of Sigismund, died of natural causes a few years later, the tension stemming from the Hussites grew stronger. In Prague ...
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Kingdom Of Jerusalem
The Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as the Crusader Kingdom, was one of the Crusader states established in the Levant immediately after the First Crusade. It lasted for almost two hundred years, from the accession of Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099 until the Siege of Acre (1291), fall of Acre in 1291. Its history is divided into two periods with a brief interruption in its existence, beginning with its collapse after the Siege of Jerusalem (1187), siege of Jerusalem in 1187 and its restoration after the Third Crusade in 1192. The original Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted from 1099 to 1187 before being almost entirely overrun by the Ayyubid dynasty, Ayyubid Sultanate under Saladin. Following the Third Crusade, it was re-established in Acre, Israel, Acre in 1192. The re-established state is commonly known as the "Second Kingdom of Jerusalem" or, alternatively, as the "Kingdom of Acre" after its new capital city. Acre remained the capital for the rest of its existence, even during the tw ...
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Ottoman Wars In Europe
A series of military conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and various European states took place from the Late Middle Ages up through the early 20th century. The earliest conflicts began during the Byzantine–Ottoman wars, waged in Anatolia in the late 13th century before entering Europe in the mid-14th century with the Bulgarian–Ottoman wars. The mid-15th century saw the Serbian–Ottoman wars and the Albanian–Ottoman Wars (1432–1479), Albanian-Ottoman wars. Much of this period was characterized by the Rumelia, Ottoman expansion into the Balkans. The Ottoman Empire made further inroads into Central Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, culminating in the peak of Ottoman territorial claims in Europe. The Ottoman–Venetian wars spanned four centuries, starting in 1423 and lasting until 1718. This period witnessed the Siege of Negroponte (1470), fall of Negroponte in 1470, the Great Siege of Malta, siege of Malta in 1565, the Siege of Famagusta, fall of Famagusta (Cyprus) ...
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Siege Of Jerusalem (1099)
The siege of Jerusalem marked the successful end of the First Crusade, whose objective was the recovery of the city of Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from Islamic control. The five-week siege began on 7 June 1099 and was carried out by the Christian forces of the First Crusade, Christian forces of Western Europe mobilized by Pope Urban II after the Council of Clermont in 1095. The city had been out of Christian control since the Muslim conquest of the Levant in 637 and had been held for a century first by the Seljuk Turks and later by the Fatimid Caliphate, Egyptian Fatimids. One of the root causes of the Crusades#Background, Crusades was the hindering of Christian Christian pilgrimage#Holy Land, pilgrimages to the Holy Land which began in the 4th century. A number of eyewitness accounts of the battle were recorded, including in the anonymous chronicle ''Gesta Francorum''. After Jerusalem was captured on 15 July 1099, thousands of Muslims and Jews were massacred ...
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Crusade Of Varna
The Crusade of Varna was an unsuccessful military campaign mounted by several European leaders to check the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Central Europe, specifically the Balkans between 1443 and 1444. It was called by Pope Eugene IV on 1 January 1443 and led by King Władysław III of Poland, John Hunyadi, Voivode of Transylvania, and Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy. The Crusade of Varna culminated in a decisive Ottoman victory over the crusader alliance at the Battle of Varna on 10 November 1444, during which Władysław and the expedition's papal legate Julian Cesarini were killed. Background In 1428, while the Ottoman Empire was fighting a war with the Republic of Venice and the Kingdom of Hungary they achieved a temporary peace by establishing the Serbian Despotate as a buffer state. After the war ended in 1430, the Ottomans returned to their earlier objective of controlling all lands south of the Danube. In 1432, Sultan Murad II began raiding into Tra ...
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Religious Wars
A religious war or a war of religion, sometimes also known as a holy war (), is a War, war and conflict which is primarily caused or justified by differences in religion and beliefs. In the modern period, there are frequent debates over the extent to which religious, War#Economic, economic, ethnic conflict, ethnic or other aspects of a conflict are predominant in a given war. The degree to which a war may be considered religious depends on many underlying questions, such as the definition of religion, the definition of 'war', and the applicability of religion to war as opposed to other possible factors. According to scholars such as Jeffrey Burton Russell, conflicts may not be rooted strictly in religion and instead may be a cover for the underlying secular power, ethnic, social, political, and economic reasons for conflict. Other scholars have argued that what is termed "religious wars" is a largely "Western dichotomy" and a modern invention from the past few centuries, arguing ...
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