The Crusades
Two centuries of religious war reshape the Mediterranean and European self-understanding.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 196 years
- Known to
- ± 2 years
- Era
- Post-Classical, Holocene
Urban II calls the First Crusade in 1095; Jerusalem falls in 1099 with a massacre of its inhabitants. Eight major expeditions follow over two hundred years, most failing. The campaigns kill enormous numbers, produce pogroms against Jewish communities in the Rhineland, and permanently poison relations between Latin Christendom, Byzantium and Islam. They also expose western Europe to Islamic learning, goods and technology on a scale it had not previously experienced.