The Crusades

In 1095 Pope Urban II calls for a ÔÇÿwar of the cross' , a crusade , to liberate Jerusalem from Muslim occupation , to be rewarded with forgiveness of sins and rich plunder. His call meets with an immediate and enthusiastic response and is followed by a series of crusades to the Holy Land.The first Crusade succeeds in capturing Jerusalem in 1099 and establishing Crusader states, but a disorganized People's crusade comes to grief in Constantinople in 1096 . Further Crusades also fail: the Second Crusade 1145 collapses after a failure to capture Damascus the Third Crusade 1189 captures Acre and Cypru but does not get as far as Jerusalem ; the Fourth Crusade is diverted to Constantinople, which the Crusaders capture and loot in 1204. The Fifth Crusade 1218 and Sixth Crusade 1227 achieve little , as does a final Crusade to the Holy Land launched by King Louis IX of France in 1248.

The ideology of crusading proves so effective that it is extended to other areas , first to thereconquest of the Iberian peninsula, beginning with an successful invasion of the Balearic islands in 1114 . In 1198 Archishop HartwigII of Bremen launches a crusade against the Wends in Livonia, in north–east Europe and in 1209 Pope Innocent launches a first crusade against the Albigensians of Cathars in southern France;. All these crusades have the promise of the same rewards as crusades to the Holy Land. The idea of the crusade is still alive when a crusade is proclaimed against the Hussites in 1420