60 Fun Facts About Crusades

Which pope proclaimed the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095?

His speech on 27 November promised spiritual reward to those who marched to reconquer Jerusalem.

The Council of Clermont was held in which region of France?

About 300 French clerics attended what was mostly a synod on church reform; the crusade speech came on the last day.

Which Byzantine emperor's appeal for help against the Seljuk Turks sparked the First Crusade?

His envoys made a formal request to Urban II at the Council of Piacenza in 1095.

Where was the 1071 battle in which the Seljuks captured a Byzantine emperor and opened Anatolia?

Romanos IV Diogenes was taken prisoner, and within a decade the Seljuks held 78,000 square kilometres of Anatolia.

The Latin battle cry of the First Crusade, 'Deus vult', means what?

The Gesta Francorum records it as 'Deus le veult' or 'Deus lo vult'.

Which French priest led the peasant 'People's Crusade' of 1096?

His followers were largely destroyed by the Seljuks under Kilij Arslan at Civetot before the princes' armies even arrived.

On their way east in 1096, crusaders led by Count Emicho carried out massacres of Jews in which region?

The destruction of the communities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz is remembered in Hebrew tradition as the Hurban Shum.

Which city did the First Crusade capture in June 1098 after a siege of more than seven months?

A relieving Seljuk army under Kerbogha then besieged the crusaders inside for three weeks.

Which relic did Peter Bartholomew claim to unearth during the 1098 siege in Syria?

Rival Holy Lances already existed elsewhere, and doubters later forced Peter to undergo an ordeal by fire.

The crusaders stormed Jerusalem on which date?

A large part of the population was massacred; a Fatimid counterattack was beaten at Ascalon later that year.

Godfrey of Bouillon refused the title of king in Jerusalem, preferring to be called what?

He allegedly would not wear a crown of gold where his Saviour had worn a crown of thorns; his brother Baldwin took the royal title after him.

How many crusader states were set up in the Levant after the First Crusade?

The Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli.

The Second Crusade was called after which crusader state fell to Zengi in 1144?

Edessa had been the first of the crusader states, founded by Baldwin of Boulogne in 1098.

Which abbot preached the Second Crusade in a famous sermon at Vézelay in 1146?

He also drew up the outline of the Templars' Rule at the Council of Troyes in 1128.

The Second Crusade's main army under Louis VII and Conrad III failed to take which city in 1148?

The crusade's one lasting success was in Iberia, where Lisbon was captured.

Which queen accompanied her husband Louis VII on the Second Crusade, later marrying Henry II Plantagenet?

Her marriage to Louis was annulled in 1152, and her sons included Richard the Lionheart.

The Second Crusade's Iberian expedition captured which future capital city in 1147?

English, Flemish and German crusaders on their way east stopped to help the King of Portugal take it.

Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, was of which ethnic origin?

He was born in Tikrit, in present-day Iraq; 'Salah ad-Din' is an honorific meaning 'Righteousness of the Faith'.

Saladin destroyed the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem on 4 July 1187 at which battle?

The crusaders, tormented by thirst, lost the relic of the True Cross and King Guy was captured.

Saladin's great 1187 victory is also called the battle of the 'Horns'. Horns of what?

The battle was fought near Tiberias, in present-day Israel.

Which crusader lord's raid on a Muslim pilgrim caravan during a truce provoked Saladin's 1187 campaign?

Saladin had sworn never to forgive him after his fleet raided the Red Sea coast in 1183, threatening the road to Mecca.

Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, who beat Saladin at Montgisard in 1177, is known by which nickname?

He was educated from age nine by the chronicler William of Tyre and died in 1185, aged about 24.

The Third Crusade was led by Richard I, the King of France and which emperor?

Barbarossa never reached the Holy Land: he drowned crossing the Saleph River in 1190.

How did the German emperor die on the Third Crusade in June 1190?

His horse slipped in the Saleph River and threw him against the rocks; most of his army went home.

On his way to the Holy Land in 1191 Richard I conquered which island from Isaac Komnenos?

A storm had scattered his fleet and Isaac had imprisoned the shipwreck survivors; Guy of Lusignan later ruled the island.

Richard I defeated Saladin on 7 September 1191 at which battle on the coast road from Acre to Jaffa?

His army was much smaller than the Ayyubid force; the victory did not lead to the recapture of Jerusalem.

The 1192 Treaty of Jaffa between Richard and Saladin left Jerusalem in Muslim hands but granted what?

Richard sailed home weeks later and was captured in Austria on the way.

Returning from crusade, Richard I was imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria at which castle?

He had offended Leopold by throwing his banner off the walls of Acre; while a prisoner he wrote the song 'Ja nus hons pris'.

Emperor Henry VI demanded how many marks to release Richard I?

That was two to three times the annual income of the English crown, the same sum the Saladin tithe had raised a few years earlier.

Roughly how much of his reign did Richard I actually spend in his island kingdom?

He was also Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou and, briefly, Lord of Cyprus.

The Fourth Crusade, meant for Egypt, ended instead with the 1204 sack of which Christian city?

The bronze horses of the Hippodrome were carted off to St Mark's in Venice, where they remain.

Which aged and blind Doge of Venice steered the Fourth Crusade towards Zara and the Byzantine capital?

The crusaders could not pay for the fleet Venice had built, so he proposed attacking rebellious Zara instead.

After the sack of the Byzantine capital, who was crowned emperor of the new Latin Empire in Hagia Sophia?

The Byzantines called the Latin occupation the Frankokratia; it lasted until 1261.

The so-called Children's Crusade of 1212 was led in France by a shepherd boy named what?

A German movement under Nicholas of Cologne marched at the same time; some tales say the children were sold into slavery in Tunisia.

The Fifth Crusade captured and held which Egyptian port for two years from 1219?

Sultan al-Kamil offered to hand back Jerusalem for it, but the papal legate Pelagius refused and the crusade collapsed on the Nile.

Which saint walked into the Fifth Crusade's camp in 1219 asking to visit Sultan al-Kamil?

He had once prepared to enlist as a soldier himself, in 1205.

The Sixth Crusade regained Jerusalem in 1229 without a battle. How?

Frederick was excommunicated at the time and was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily and, by marriage, King of Jerusalem.

Frederick II, leader of the Sixth Crusade, was excommunicated how many times between 1227 and his death?

The papacy was hemmed in between his lands in northern Italy and his Kingdom of Sicily.

Which French king led the Seventh Crusade to Egypt in 1249 and was captured with most of his army?

He was ransomed, went home, and later became the only French king to be canonised.

Louis IX died on the Eighth Crusade in 1270. Of what, and where?

The expedition saw no significant fighting; his brother Charles of Anjou negotiated a withdrawal.

Lord Edward's Crusade of 1271–72, sometimes called the Ninth, was led by the future king of which realm?

Edward Longshanks clashed with the Mamluk sultan Baibars and survived an Assassin's dagger before going home to be crowned.

The Knights Templar were founded around 1119 with what original purpose?

Hugues de Payens got King Baldwin II's blessing and a headquarters on the Temple Mount.

On Friday 13 October 1307 which king had the Templars in France arrested?

He was in debt to the order; under his pressure Pope Clement V dissolved it in 1312.

After losing the Holy Land, the Knights Hospitaller ruled which island from 1310 to 1522?

They moved on to Malta in 1530 and stayed until Napoleon's French took the island in 1798.

The Teutonic Order was founded around 1190 in which crusader city?

It began as a hospital brotherhood, was made a military order in 1198, and later carved out a state in Prussia.

Krak des Chevaliers fell to the Mamluks in 1271 reportedly by what trick?

The 36-day siege was led by Baibars; the castle had been given to the order by the Count of Tripoli in 1142.

Baibars had earlier helped inflict the Mongols' first major defeat at which 1260 battle?

Qutuz had answered Hulegu's demand for surrender by killing the envoys and hanging their heads on a Cairo gate.

The crusaders' last major stronghold on the mainland fell in 1291. Which city?

The Mamluk sultan al-Ashraf Khalil took it, ending almost 200 years of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

At which Persian castle did Hasan-i Sabbah found the Order of Assassins in 1090?

Their Syrian branch killed Conrad of Montferrat, the de facto King of Jerusalem, in 1192.

The Albigensian Crusade of 1209–1229 was launched to wipe out which heresy in southern France?

Innocent III called it; the papal legate Arnaud Amalric, abbot of Cîteaux, took command.

The Northern Crusades aimed to Christianise pagans around which sea?

The Livonian campaign also fought the Orthodox states of Novgorod and Pskov; the Teutonic Order profited most.

The Wendish Crusade of 1147, launched alongside the Second Crusade, targeted pagan Slavs living where?

The Wends included the Abrotrites, Rani, Liutizians, Wagarians and Pomeranians.

The Reconquista, the Iberian counterpart to the crusades, ended in 1492 with the capture of which city?

Its beginning is traditionally dated to the Battle of Covadonga around 718.

After losing Jerusalem in 1187, the crusader kingdom was re-established in 1192 with its capital in which port?

The original kingdom lasted from 1099 to 1187, when Saladin overran almost all of it.

At Acre in August 1191, Richard I had how many Muslim prisoners executed in view of Saladin's army?

He believed Saladin was stalling in negotiations; Saladin killed his Christian prisoners in return.

The abbot at the 1128 Council of Troyes, which outlined the Templars' Rule, went on to lead which monastic movement?

The same abbot later preached the Second Crusade at Vézelay.

By around 1250, canon lawyers called crusades within Europe 'crux cismarina', meaning what?

Holy Land campaigns were 'crux transmarina', the cross overseas; participants sewed a cloth cross onto their clothing.

The final crusade for the Holy Land, in 1365, sacked which Egyptian port before withdrawing after a week?

Peter I of Cyprus led the expedition; the Hundred Years' War had derailed earlier French plans in 1336.

Where was a French and Burgundian crusading army crushed by the Ottomans in 1396?

The force had joined the Kingdom of Hungary in an invasion of the Ottoman Empire.

The 1250 Shepherds' Crusade was rallied by a preacher known by what nickname?

He claimed to carry a letter from the Virgin Mary to shepherds; his followers attacked Jews before royal forces dispersed them in June 1250.