k. The Crusades

In 1054 the Catholic Church was split up into two parts: the Roman-Catholics lead by the Pope of Rome, and the Eastern-Orthodox Church lead by the Patriarch of Constantinople. This had great consequences. In 1071 the East-Romans, also called Byzantines, were defeated by the Turks, and they lost the whole of Asiatic Turkey. Emperor Alexios I Komnenos wanted help from the West-European Christians to get it back. West-Europe had just arisen from the darkest Middle Ages, but in the eyes of the Byzantines they were still barbarians, and they were right. But they knew how to fight. Alexius understood, that he had to put it differently. He appealed to the pope to free the Holy Places. The pope, called Urban II, was interested.

The First Crusade.

During a Council at Clermont-Ferrand he described the situation in the Holy Land in such an impressive way that the first Crusade started. An advance guard lead by the remarkable hermetic Peter of Amiens had no success, but subsequently great groups of crusaders went via Constantinople to the East. There were also people who thought that God's enemies should not only be fought in the East - Jews were murdered on the way. Generally spoken the First Crusade was a great success. Nicaea, Antioch and Jerusalem (in 1099) were conquered after terrible privations, the kingdom of Jerusalem was founded, and the East-Romans got back a big piece of Turkey. One crusader conquered the kingdom of Edessa, the present-day Urfa, and became its king. That was not exactly how Alexius had meant it. He wanted to add all conquests to his empire. By building enormous castles the crusaders defended their empires. They are still there, and tourists can visit them.

The Arabs were impressed by the courage shown by the Crusaders (the Pope had had promised that a killed Crusader would go immediately to heaven): a few thousand Crusaders, heavily armed and riding big horses could not be defeated, unless by heat and sand-storms, but no less by the cruelty shown with the conquest of Jerusalem and elsewhere. The text above this document might refer to the Crusaders!

The Crusaders considered the Muslims and the Jews as enemies of Christ, and the Christians who lived there: Greek Orthodox people, Armenians, Nestorians and Monophysites as heretics: they did not recognize the Pope as the head of the Church (most Crusaders did not know much more about it).

The Crusaders quarreled a lot, with each other and with the East-Romans, the Byzantines. These people did not recognize the authority of the pope either.

But the Muslims quarreled as well, and could therefore not profit from the Christian quarrels. The Shiites of Egypt disliked the Turkish Sunnites and reverse.

The first Crusade had little influence on the Copts. The next one much more.

The Second Crusade.

In 1044 Edessa was recaptured by the Turks. This lead to the Second Crusade.

A part of the army conquered Lisbon and some Spanish cities. An attempt was made to conquer Damascus, but it resulted in uniting all Syrian Muslims behind the Turk Nureddin. And the Crusaders returned home.

In 1162 the Crusader Amalrik became king of Jerusalem.

Nureddin had conquered Egypt, which was still in a state of chaos. The Egyptians asked Amalrik for help(!), and he was glad to come. He chased away Nureddin, and Egypt became a protectorate of Jerusalem, of the Crusaders. At first the Copts thought Amalrik would liberate them, but at the conquest of Bilbeis and Tanis the Copts were massacred as well. The whole of Egypt, including the Copts, asked Nureddin to come back, and Saladin, second in command, Kurd and Sunnite, became ruler. Amalrik tried to seize Damietta (an important harbour in those days), but had no success. In 1174 Nureddin died, and Saladin succeeded him. Egypt became Sunitic.

The Third Crusade.

In 1177 the East-Romans were defeated near Myriocephalum, and Asiatic Turkey was lost again. And in 1187 Saladin conquered Jerusalem (and many other places). This caused a new Crusade, the Third, lead by three kings, Frederic Barbarossa of Germany, who drowned in Turkey, Richard Lionheart of England and Philip II Augustus of France. Acco was reconquered, but quarrels prevented an attempt to conquer Jerusalem.

A next crusade (in 1218) brought the Dutch in action. They decided to reconquer Damiata. They succeeded in seizing the tower of Damiata, and besieged the town. St. Franciscus of Assisi (the one of the animals etc.) came along to mediate, but had no success. In the end Damiata was taken by the Crusaders. But because of quarrels nothing further was achieved, and Damiata was given up again. Emperer Frederick II should have joined this Crusade (the pope excommunicated him for not joining), but he went only in 1228 (still excommunicated). He was a great diplomat, he even spoke Arabic, and succeeded to get Jerusalem back, by using quarrels between the Muslims. When he went home Jerusalem was lost again. Subsequently Louis the Holy tried it. He also sailed to Egypt, and also conquered Damiata. But he was taken captive when attacking Mansura, and for his release he had to restore Damiata. Because the Muslims quarreled the Crusaders-states could remain for some time, but in 1291 the Muslims conquered the last Christian city, Acco.

So Egypt had been attacked three times by the Crusaders. This was very bad for the position of the Copts.