Characters

"Deus vult! — God wills it!"

Urban II was the French-born pope whose sermon at the Council of Clermont in November 1095 launched the entire crusading movement. Responding to an appeal from the Byzantine emperor for help against the Seljuk Turks, Urban called on the knights of Western Europe to cease their endless private wars and turn their swords to a holy purpose: the liberation of Jerusalem and the Eastern Christians, promising spiritual reward to those who took the cross. The response stunned even him. Across France, Germany, and Italy, tens of thousands — nobles, knights, and common folk — sewed crosses to their garments and set out east. Urban had tapped a deep wellspring of piety, penitential anxiety, martial energy, and ambition. He died in July 1099, just two weeks after the crusaders took Jerusalem — but before the news could reach Rome, so that he never learned his great enterprise had succeeded.

"He would not wear a crown of gold where his Lord had worn a crown of thorns."

Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, was one of the principal leaders of the First Crusade and became, after its triumph, the first Latin ruler of Jerusalem. He sold and mortgaged his lands to finance his expedition and led his contingent through the whole grueling march, fighting at Antioch and in the final storming of Jerusalem in July 1099, where he was among the first over the walls. When the crusaders chose a ruler for the conquered city, Godfrey accepted — but, by famous tradition, refused to be called 'King' in the city where Christ had worn the crown of thorns, taking instead the humble title 'Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre.' He defended the infant kingdom against a Fatimid counterattack at Ascalon but died little more than a year later, in 1100. Idealized by later generations as the perfect Christian knight, he became one of the 'Nine Worthies' of medieval legend.

"I warn you against shedding blood, for blood that is spilt never sleeps."

Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub — Saladin to the West — was the Kurdish general who united Egypt and Syria, founded the Ayyubid dynasty, and became the greatest of the Muslim commanders against the Crusaders. Rising in the service of the Zengid ruler Nur ad-Din, he made himself master of Egypt, then of Damascus and Aleppo, forging the encircling power that the divided Crusader States could not withstand. In 1187 he destroyed the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Horns of Hattin and retook Jerusalem itself — but, in pointed contrast to the crusaders' massacre of 1099, he spared the city's inhabitants and allowed them to ransom themselves. His chivalry, generosity, and restraint won the admiration even of his enemies, including Richard the Lionheart, against whom he fought the Third Crusade to a negotiated standstill. He died in Damascus in 1193, having given away most of his wealth in charity, leaving too little to pay for his own funeral.

"I would have sold London itself if I could have found a buyer."

Richard I of England, called Cœur de Lion — the Lionheart — was the warrior-king who led the Third Crusade and became the crusading age's most romantic figure. Far more a soldier than an administrator, he spent only months of his reign in England, raising vast sums to fund a great expedition to recover Jerusalem after Saladin's conquests. In the Holy Land he proved a brilliant and ferocious commander: he took Acre, won a model victory at Arsuf, and recaptured the coast — but also ordered the massacre of some 2,700 Muslim prisoners at Acre. Twice he came within sight of Jerusalem and twice judged that he could not hold it, finally concluding a three-year truce with Saladin that left the city in Muslim hands but secured Christian pilgrims' access. Returning home, he was captured and held for a colossal ransom by his enemies in Europe; he died in 1199 from a crossbow wound at a minor siege in France. His rivalry and mutual respect with Saladin became legend.

"Though I am an old man, feeble and in need of rest, yet I will go and die with you."

Enrico Dandolo was the aged and blind Doge of Venice who steered — many would say hijacked — the Fourth Crusade. When the crusaders could not pay the enormous fleet-hire they owed Venice, Dandolo bound their debt to Venetian interests, first diverting them to attack the Christian city of Zara, and ultimately to Constantinople itself, the great rival of Venetian commerce. Despite being well into his nineties and totally blind, Dandolo led from the front during the assault on Constantinople in 1204, reputedly being first ashore under the walls. The ensuing three-day sack made Venice immensely rich — Dandolo secured for it vast territories, trading privileges, and a fortune in plunder, including the famous bronze horses of San Marco. He died in 1205 and was buried in the Hagia Sophia of the city he had helped to sack.

"We ought either to die as Christians or conquer."

Louis IX, the pious and just king of France later canonized as Saint Louis, led the two final great royal crusades — and embodied both the idealism and the futility of the late crusading movement. Deeply devout, he took the cross after recovering from a near-fatal illness and poured the resources of his powerful kingdom into the Seventh Crusade against Egypt. The expedition ended in catastrophe at Mansurah in 1250, where his army was destroyed by the Mamluks and Louis himself was captured and ransomed at vast cost. Undeterred, he led a further crusade against Tunis in 1270, where he died of disease in the camp. His personal holiness, justice, and reforming kingship made him the model of the medieval Christian monarch, and his canonization in 1297 confirmed crusading as an act of supreme sanctity — even as the cause itself was collapsing in the East.

"I have not left them a single stronghold in which to take refuge."

Al-Zahir Baibars was a Kipchak Turkish slave-soldier who rose to become one of the most formidable sultans of the Mamluk dynasty and the great destroyer of the Crusader States. As a young Mamluk commander he led the ambush that shattered Louis IX's army at Mansurah in 1250, and two years later he played a leading role in the overthrow of the Ayyubids and the rise of Mamluk power in Egypt. In 1260 he helped win the epoch-making victory at Ain Jalut, the first major defeat of the seemingly invincible Mongols, then murdered his way to the sultanate. As sultan he waged relentless war on the Crusader States, taking Antioch and a string of great fortresses and steadily strangling the Latin presence in the Levant. Ruthless, energetic, and brilliant, he laid the groundwork for the final destruction of the Crusader States, which his successors completed at Acre in 1291. He died in 1277, by tradition from poison meant for someone else.

"We have purged the coast of the Franks."

Al-Ashraf Khalil was the Mamluk sultan of Egypt who delivered the final blow to the Crusader presence in the Holy Land. Continuing the campaign of his father Qalawun, who had died while preparing the assault, Khalil brought a vast army and a great siege train against Acre, the last major Crusader city and the capital of the rump Kingdom of Jerusalem. In the spring of 1291, after weeks of bombardment and mining, his forces stormed Acre's mighty walls and overwhelmed its defenders, including the knights of the military orders who fought to the last. With Acre's fall, the remaining Latin outposts — Tyre, Sidon, Beirut — were swiftly abandoned, and nearly two centuries of crusading in the Levant came to an end. Khalil's triumph was short-lived; he was assassinated by his own emirs in 1293, but his place in history as the man who ended the Crusader States was secure.