The Fifth Crusade and Beyond

In addition to the first four crusades, there were also five others that followed, causing there to be nine gruesome attempts of fighting against one main cause; the infidel group of the Muslims. Considering this, the crusades were all a series of religiously-focused military expeditions that were started by the Latin’s in Christian Europe, focusing on the Franks and the Holy Roman Empire. The crusaders were longing for control over the beloved Holy Land, and fought for this for over two hundred years between 1095 and 1291. These battles were waged primarily against the Muslims, but also included other groups of people such as Greek Orthodox Christians, Slavs, Mongols, and Jews. It was the determined crusaders who sought penance for their past sins that made the crusades both possible, and a milestone in history that had many significant impacts.


It was after the fourth crusade that the fighting continued , causing a fifth crusade to emerge as a result of the Church pushing to further the fighting. The church played a major part in this because they carried out processions and ceremonies of prayer in order to urge for another confrontation with the infidel. It was the Fourth Council of the Lateran who devised a plan for the recapturing of the Holy Land, which consisted of three phases. In the first phase, a crusading group from Hungary and Austria combined with the men who were under both the King of Jerusalem and the prince of Antioch. Within the second phase, the crusaders achieved an amazing accomplishment when they captured Damietta in Egypt in 1219, with the aid of the Pelagius, the papal legate. “They then launched a foolhardy attack on Cairo in July of 1221. The crusaders were turned back after the dwindling supplies led to a forced retreat.” (Nicholson 94) It was an attack performed during the night by the ruler of Egypt who was the sultan Al-Kamil, which had devastating consequences with many crusaders dying. This is what initiated the eight year peace agreement with Europe.


The sixth crusade was one that was vowed to be initiated by Emperor Fredrick II, who commonly failed to live up to his word and promises. This resulted in him later being excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX in 1228. This caused him to sail from Brindisi to Palestine where he experienced success when he took over Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem through diplomacy and this was vital as it provided deliverance to the crusaders for about ten years. In addition to this, Frederick II had failed to conquer Egypt in 1229, and instead formed a peace treaty with Al-Kamil who was the ruler of Egypt. It was this particular treaty that allowed the Christians to have control over a majority of Jerusalem, while the Muslims had management over the Dome of the Rock, located at the Al-Aksa mosque. This treaty was very successful in retaining peace, but several of the Muslims were not content with Al-Kamil for giving up control of Jerusalem, which later caused a siege wherein the Muslims gained control over the scared city once again.


Matters of the seventh crusade were brought about by the papal interests that were expressed by the Templars, who brought conflict into Egypt in 1243. It was the following year that a Khwarezmian force who was called out to serve, abruptly invaded Jerusalem. This caused the crusaders to be involved in a battle that was at La Forbie in Gaza. “The crusader army and its Bedouin mercenaries were completely defeated within forty eight hours by Baibar’s force of Khwarezmian tribesmen. This battle is considered by many historians to have been the death knell to the Kingdom of Outremer.” (Riley-Smith 203) Although this did not cause a wide range of anger in Europe as the fall of Jerusalem had produced, Louis XI of France put together a crusade that was against Egypt and lasted from 1248 to 1254, which caused the port of Aigues-Mortes to be constructed in southern France. However it turned out to be a failure, and as a result Louis XI ended up spending a majority of the crusade dwelling in the court of the crusader kingdom located in Acre. This particular crusade was the first Shepherd’s crusade of 1251.


Branching out of the seventh crusade the eighth crusade was planned by Louis XI in 1270 and began when he sailed from Aigues-Mortes in order to help what was left of the crusader states in Syria. Louis was troubled by the events that were happening in Syria, as the Baibars and Mamluks were brutally attacking the remainder of the crucial crusader states. The Baibars immediately took advantage of the opportunity to strike the cites of Venice and Genoa in order to turn them against each other, causing chaos. This had an impact on the Syrian ports located within the two cities as they were weakening. It was for this reason that Louis decided to call another crusade in the first place. This crusade ended up being centralized in the city of Tunis where Louis XI only spent two short months before passing away. Louis was later honored for his hard work and efforts concerning his involvement in the various crusades.


It was the ninth and final crusade that Edward I of England decided to take over yet another attack against the Baibars in 1271 after aiding Louis XI in the eighth crusade. It was this last crusade that was pronounced a failure and ended the crusades within the Middle East. In the later years they faced several threats from Egyptian Mamluks which created a longing to create a Franco-Mongol alliance. The Mongols were considered to show sensitivity towards Christianity, but the Frankish people came to be the most successful in offering help and planned several of the invasions that were carried out within the Middle East. In the end, the cities of Tripoli, Antioch, and Acre fell causing numerous Christians not to be able to break free from these locations. The unfortunate ones who did not manage to escape were either enslaved or murdered, and the history of the Christian rule in the Levant vanished.

The crusading movement came to an end at the end of the thirteenth century, and can be accounted as a failure based upon what they were trying to accomplish. It was after nearly two hundred years of conflict that control of the Holy Land still remained in the hands of the Muslims, but this does not mean that the crusades did not help in some areas. An example of this would be during the first crusade where the crusaders managed to conquer Syria in order to track the Turks and their journey to Constantinople. However despite this benefit, the crusades managed to do more harm than good in achieving their goal, and decided to stop the fighting, causing the crusades come to an end as the consequence. Their ultimate conclusion was that Jerusalem could be best taken over through the way the apostle Paul had done it “by love, by prayers, and by the shedding of tears.”

Nicholson, Helen J. The Crusades. Greenwood Press: United States, 2004.

Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades: A History. British Library Publishers: New York, 2005.