PETER EDBURY

WHEN in 1095 Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade, he initiated a trad-
ition of Christian holy war which was to last well beyond the medieval
centuries and which came to embrace wars fought in a wide variety of differ-
ent theatres and in vastly contrasting contexts. In the course of time, crusades
were directed against pagans in Lithuania, Muslims in Spain, heretics in south-
ern France and Bohemia, and against Greeks, Turks, Mongols, and Russians to
name just some, and inevitably the military techniques, the types of warriors
employed, and the organization of warfare differed greatly. But for many
people in the middle ages the first goal of the crusades--Jerusalem and the
Holy Land--continued to hold pride of place, and it is with the warfare waged
in the Near East with the aim of winning or defending the places made sacred
by Christ's presence on earth that this chapter is concerned.

The First Crusade attained its primary objective in 1099 with the capture of
Jerusalem, and in its wake Western European warriors, clergy, and settlers
were able to seize lands and establish themselves in Syria and the Holy Land.
The crusaders founded a series of principalities in the East--the kingdom of
Jerusalem, the counties of Tripoli and Edessa, the principality of Antioch--
and the last of their strongholds were only retaken by the Muslims in 1291. At
their fullest extent the lands conquered by the crusades comprised the entire
Levantine coast and many inland areas including the whole of the present-
day states of Israel and Lebanon. Most of these conquests were at the expense
of Muslims, although the crusaders also found themselves on occasion in con-
flict with the Byzantine Greeks in northern Syria or with the Armenians of
eastern Anatolia and Cilicia; and in 1204 the Fourth Crusade, recruited to fight
the infidel, ended by sacking Christian Constantinople. The crusaders did not

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