First Crusade

The First Crusade began after 1095. Some Christians from France, Germany and Italy, known as the Franks, set out on the long journey to the Holy Land, led by nobles and knights. Up to 30,000 Crusaders gathered at Constantinople, before taking control of the cities of Edessa and Antioch.

After a long siege, western European Crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099. The attack was brutal. It is hard to know exactly how many people were killed or injured. A Christian source from the time claimed that civilians were massacred in the Crusade.

The loss of Jerusalem was a terrible blow to the Muslims. They had been in control of Jerusalem for over 400 years, and it was of great religious significance. Christians took control of significant religious sites such as the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. The Crusaders established a kingdom around Jerusalem.

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Most of the crusaders present at the expedition’s bloody climax at Jerusalem had left their homes in the summer of 1096, fired by the promise of spiritual rewards in return for taking part. The plan for the crusade was simple: march to the Holy City and wrest it from Muslim control back into Christian hands. While maybe around 70,000 initially set out, over the course of nearly three years of campaigning many had abandoned the expedition and many more had died in battle, from hunger, or from exposure to the extreme conditions endured on the march. It was therefore a vastly reduced – though battle-hardened – crusader force that finally reached its long-desired goal on 7 June 1099.