Lecture 17-5/25/10

Today's lecture covered a period of tremendous turmoil in Jerusalem, the Crusader period. Starting with the bloody conquest by these "Soliders of Christ" in 1099, Jerusalem underwent a nearly 200 year period of dramatic change, with the city falling back and forth between the hands of the Western Christian forces and those from the Islamic world. Although Christianity was in its formative years a religion deeply rooted in principles of peace and non-violence, Pope Urban II responded to a plea from Alexius I for mercenaries following several military losses by the Byzantine empire. In response, Urban makes a captivating (although to this day not completely transcribed) speech calling for "Holy War" to retake the Holy land from the "infidels" of Islam. Playing upon feelings of racism and a deep socioeconomic incentive (pursuit of fame and fortune), Urban's call leads to the formation of a massive Christian force that eventually takes Jerusalem in 1099.

After establishing the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (with Baldwin I named as "King of Jerusalem" in 1100), the Crusaders began to re-transform the city into a Christian center, rebuilding damaged shrines, erecting new ones, and re-characterizing Muslim holy sites as sites holy to the Christian faith. However, infighting and a lack of incentive for Crusaders to stay in the city left the kingdom vulnerable, a vulnerability exploited by the legendary Ayyubid sultan, Saladin, who regained control of Jerusalem following a rout of Crusader troops at the Horns of Hattin on July 4, 1187 and then the complete surrender of the city on September 26 of the same year. Saladin's mercy in not replicating the slaughter that defined the Crusaders attack gained him a reputation for chivalry in Europe and the Islamic world alike.

But, the Crusader period did not end for another 104 years. During that span, the city bounced back and forth between Christian and Muslim hands, with each conquest leading to fatal infighting on the part of the city's new owners. Finally, in 1291, the last outpost of Crusader power in the Holy Land, Acre, fell into Muslim hands, bringing to an end the Crusader period and instituting a Muslim rule over the Holy Land that would last until the British occupation that followed the fall of the Ottoman Empire during World War I.