60 free Crusades trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Two centuries of holy war began with a speech in a French field in November 1095 and ended with the fall of Acre in 1291. This quiz covers the whole span: Pope Urban II at Clermont and the cry of 'Deus vult', Peter the Hermit's doomed People's Crusade, the sieges of Antioch and Jerusalem, the four crusader states, the Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights, and the string of numbered crusades that followed, from the Kings' Crusade of Richard and Barbarossa to Louis IX dying of dysentery outside Tunis. It also covers the people on both sides: Saladin, Baibars and the Assassins; Godfrey of Bouillon, the Leper King, Raynald of Châtillon and blind Doge Dandolo; the sack of Constantinople, the Children's Crusade, the Albigensian and Northern crusades, and Krak des Chevaliers. Questions run from easy (which pope launched the First Crusade) to expert (how many marks Richard's ransom cost). Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the Crusades, individual campaigns, battles, orders and leaders, and each question shows the sentence that supports it. Try our medieval history, Knights Templar and Byzantine Empire quizzes next.
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Q 01Which pope proclaimed the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095?
Urban II
His speech on 27 November promised spiritual reward to those who marched to reconquer Jerusalem.
Q 02The Council of Clermont was held in which region of France?
Auvergne
About 300 French clerics attended what was mostly a synod on church reform; the crusade speech came on the last day.
Q 03Which Byzantine emperor's appeal for help against the Seljuk Turks sparked the First Crusade?
Alexios I Komnenos
His envoys made a formal request to Urban II at the Council of Piacenza in 1095.
Q 04Where was the 1071 battle in which the Seljuks captured a Byzantine emperor and opened Anatolia?
Manzikert
Romanos IV Diogenes was taken prisoner, and within a decade the Seljuks held 78,000 square kilometres of Anatolia.
Q 05The Latin battle cry of the First Crusade, 'Deus vult', means what?
God wills it
The Gesta Francorum records it as 'Deus le veult' or 'Deus lo vult'.
Q 06Which French priest led the peasant 'People's Crusade' of 1096?
Peter the Hermit
His followers were largely destroyed by the Seljuks under Kilij Arslan at Civetot before the princes' armies even arrived.
Q 07On their way east in 1096, crusaders led by Count Emicho carried out massacres of Jews in which region?
The Rhineland
The destruction of the communities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz is remembered in Hebrew tradition as the Hurban Shum.
Q 08Which city did the First Crusade capture in June 1098 after a siege of more than seven months?
Antioch
A relieving Seljuk army under Kerbogha then besieged the crusaders inside for three weeks.
Q 09Which relic did Peter Bartholomew claim to unearth during the 1098 siege in Syria?
The Holy Lance
Rival Holy Lances already existed elsewhere, and doubters later forced Peter to undergo an ordeal by fire.
Q 10The crusaders stormed Jerusalem on which date?
15 July 1099
A large part of the population was massacred; a Fatimid counterattack was beaten at Ascalon later that year.
Q 11Godfrey of Bouillon refused the title of king in Jerusalem, preferring to be called what?
Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre
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.
Q 12How many crusader states were set up in the Levant after the First Crusade?
Four
The Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli.
Q 13The Second Crusade was called after which crusader state fell to Zengi in 1144?
The County of Edessa
Q 21Which crusader lord's raid on a Muslim pilgrim caravan during a truce provoked Saladin's 1187 campaign?
Raynald of Châtillon
Saladin had sworn never to forgive him after his fleet raided the Red Sea coast in 1183, threatening the road to Mecca.
Q 22Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, who beat Saladin at Montgisard in 1177, is known by which nickname?
The Leper King
He was educated from age nine by the chronicler William of Tyre and died in 1185, aged about 24.
Q 23The Third Crusade was led by Richard I, the King of France and which emperor?
Frederick Barbarossa
Edessa had been the first of the crusader states, founded by Baldwin of Boulogne in 1098.
Q 14Which abbot preached the Second Crusade in a famous sermon at Vézelay in 1146?
Bernard of Clairvaux
He also drew up the outline of the Templars' Rule at the Council of Troyes in 1128.
Q 15The Second Crusade's main army under Louis VII and Conrad III failed to take which city in 1148?
Damascus
The crusade's one lasting success was in Iberia, where Lisbon was captured.
Q 16Which queen accompanied her husband Louis VII on the Second Crusade, later marrying Henry II Plantagenet?
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Her marriage to Louis was annulled in 1152, and her sons included Richard the Lionheart.
Q 17The Second Crusade's Iberian expedition captured which future capital city in 1147?
Lisbon
English, Flemish and German crusaders on their way east stopped to help the King of Portugal take it.
Q 18Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, was of which ethnic origin?
Kurdish
He was born in Tikrit, in present-day Iraq; 'Salah ad-Din' is an honorific meaning 'Righteousness of the Faith'.
Q 19Saladin destroyed the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem on 4 July 1187 at which battle?
Hattin
The crusaders, tormented by thirst, lost the relic of the True Cross and King Guy was captured.
Q 20Saladin's great 1187 victory is also called the battle of the 'Horns'. Horns of what?
An extinct volcano
The battle was fought near Tiberias, in present-day Israel.
Barbarossa never reached the Holy Land: he drowned crossing the Saleph River in 1190.
Q 24How did the German emperor die on the Third Crusade in June 1190?
He drowned crossing a river
His horse slipped in the Saleph River and threw him against the rocks; most of his army went home.
Q 25On his way to the Holy Land in 1191 Richard I conquered which island from Isaac Komnenos?
Cyprus
A storm had scattered his fleet and Isaac had imprisoned the shipwreck survivors; Guy of Lusignan later ruled the island.
Q 26Richard I defeated Saladin on 7 September 1191 at which battle on the coast road from Acre to Jaffa?
Arsuf
His army was much smaller than the Ayyubid force; the victory did not lead to the recapture of Jerusalem.
Q 27The 1192 Treaty of Jaffa between Richard and Saladin left Jerusalem in Muslim hands but granted what?
Access for unarmed Christian pilgrims
Richard sailed home weeks later and was captured in Austria on the way.
Q 28Returning from crusade, Richard I was imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria at which castle?
Dürnstein
He had offended Leopold by throwing his banner off the walls of Acre; while a prisoner he wrote the song 'Ja nus hons pris'.
Q 29Emperor Henry VI demanded how many marks to release Richard I?
150,000
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.
Q 30Roughly how much of his reign did Richard I actually spend in his island kingdom?
About six months
He was also Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou and, briefly, Lord of Cyprus.