A Chronology of the Crusades

Timothy Venning, Peter Frankopan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138802698
• eBook ISBN: 9781317496427
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

A Chronology of the Crusades provides a day-by-day development of the Crusading movement, the Crusades and the states created by them through the medieval period. Beginning in the run-up to the First Crusade in 1095, to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and ending with the Turkish attack on Belgrade in 1456, this reference is a comprehensive guide to the events of each Crusade, concentrating on the Near East, but also those Christian expeditions sanctioned by the Papacy as 'Crusades' in the medieval era. As well as clashes between Christians and Muslims in the Latin States, Timothy Venning also chronicles the Albigensian Crusade, clashes in Anatolia and the Balkans and the Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula. Both detailed and accessible, this chronology draws together material from contemporary Latin/Frankish, Byzantine and Arab/Muslim sources with assessment and explanation to produce a readable narrative which gives students an in-depth overview of one of the most enduringly fascinating periods in medieval history.

Including an introduction by Peter Frankopan which summarises and contextualises the period, this book is an essential resource for students and academics alike.

1
Prelude to the First Crusade 1055–1094

1055

Persia

Fall of Baghdad, seat of the Abbasid Caliphate, and the Iraqi plains to the new steppe power which has overrun the Iranian plateau, the Seljuk/Saljuk Turks; their ruler Tughril Beg assumes the title of ‘Sultan’ (‘slave of the commander of the Faithful’). The Turks have recently started to pressurise the Byzantine frontier in Armenia with devastating ‘hit-and-run’ cavalry raids. The outmoded and under funded Byzantine central army and frontier defence-system are not up to the task of defence.

1057

Byzantium

September. Accession of rebel general Isaac Comnenus (uncle of ‘First Crusade’ period Emperor, Alexius I) to the throne after a military revolt by aristocratic generals in Anatolia against the civil bureaucracy of the capital under the new, elderly civilian Emperor Michael VI Stratioticus. (The 190-year-old Macedonian dynasty ended in 1056 with the death of Empress Theodora, niece of Basil II.) Drastic military rearmament is undertaken against Turkish raiders of eastern Anatolia and the lower Danube valley.

Italy

August. Robert ‘Guiscard’ (‘the Cunning’) assumes power as the new Duke of Apulia and Calabria (southern Italy), controlling emerging Norman principality in lands seized from Byzantine Empire and local Lombard principalities. He is the second-youngest son of a minor Norman knight, Tancred de Hauteville, whose sons have come out to Italy to lead mercenary bands of Normans in Byzantine and Lombard service and carve out a new state at their expense; his younger brother Roger will soon be installed as ruler of lands retaken from the Arabs in Sicily (from 1060). Robert has recently divorced the mother of his eldest son Bohemund (future Crusader Prince of Antioch) to marry the local Lombard heiress Sichelgaita, by whom he has son Roger ‘Borsa’.

1059

Byzantium

November. The sick Isaac I (aged c. 57) is induced to abdicate by civilian ministers and replaced by the ineffectual Constantine X Ducas (aged c. 54); military decline resumes. Constantine’s brother John is the father of the later First Crusade era emperor, Alexius.

1064

Spain

January. Siege and capture (July) of Coimbra (later part of Portugal) by the army of Castile under King Ferdinand I – first King of Castile (previously Count by maternal descent) and King of Leon from 1037, and younger son of King Sancho ‘the Great’ of Navarre. His brothers inherited Navarre and Aragon. The fall of Coimbra is the climax of the year’s campaign down the river Mondego valley from the Castilian plains. The first significant advance of the Castilian frontier in the ‘Reconquista’, for which Ferdinand and later his sons recruit international knightly help for a series of campaigns promoted with Papal help as fighting for Christ.

1065

Spain

Spring–Summer. Ferdinand I of Castile attacks the Moslem emirate of Valencia to his East, and defeats Emir Abd-al-Malik al-Muzaffar; he is given tribute by the neighbouring emirate of Zaragoza/Saragossa before he has to call off his campaign due to illness.

24 December. Death of Ferdinand I, aged around 51; he was married to Sanchia, heiress of Leon, whose brother Vermudo III he over threw. His domains are divided between his sons Sancho (eldest), King of Castile, Alfonso, king of Leon and Garcia, Count of Galicia/Portugal. His daughter, Urraca, receives the city of Zamora.

1066

Italy/England

14 October. Victory of the Papally-backed Duke William of Normandy, invader of the kingdom of Engand, against the usurper Harold II Godwinson at the battle of Hastings (or Senlac). Pope Alexander sent William a blessed banner as a Papal champion, implying a sacred element to his campaign against Harold who is claimed to have broken an oath to accept William as successor to the late King Edward.

1067

Byzantium

May. Constantine X dies aged c. 62; his eldest son succeeds as Michael VII, aged around 19; due to Michael’s feeble character his mother Eudocia Macrembolitissa is effectively regent with the aid of Michael’s tutor Constantine (monastic name ‘Michael’) Psellus, the era’s most notable historian and philosopher; she looks around for a strong military man to rely on against the rising number of Turkish raids in eastern Anatolia.

Summer. A Turkish horde ravages Cappadocia unopposed after by passing frontier garrisons, and its mobile cavalry is not chal lenged by Byzantine forces; Caesarea is taken by surprise and sacked, the populace are massacred, and the rich shrine of St. Basil looted and desecrated. Eudocia seeks a husband to tackle Turks with full military power as Michael cannot do so; Eudocia calls the general Romanus Diogenes to Court and decides he is what the Empire needs.

1068

Byzantium

1 January. Romanus Diogenes marries Eudocia and is crowned as Emperor Romanus IV, aged c. 45; he starts to reassert Imperial control and improve organisation on eastern military frontier, but cannot leave Constantinople till position secure from disgruntled civilian courtiers.

Italy/Sicily

Summer. In Sicily, the North African Zirid emirate’s general Ayyub gains control of the remaining territories of the local dynasty after killing aged Emir Ibn al-Hawwas in battle, and becomes Emir of Palermo; he leads army against the invading Normans under Roger, younger brother of Duke Robert ‘Guiscard’ of Apulia. Roger defeats him near Palermo; the Arabs are virtually wiped out. Ayyub flees in panic back to Africa with survivors, leaving Palermo and other Arab cities to defend themselves. Guiscard invades the remaining Byzantine territories in southern Italy, ‘Langobardia’.

5 August. Guiscard commences siege of Byzantine capital, Bari, with first Norman fleet to cut off sea-link to Epirus.

1070

Byzantium

Spring–Summer. Manuel Comnenus, eldest nephew of Constantine X’s predecessor Isaac I and elder brother of future ruler Alexius I, leads Romanus’ army to Sebastea; he is ambushed in his camp and kidnapped by Sultan Alp Arslan’s general Chrysocule near Colonea. Manuel is ransomed, but while his army is leaderless a Turkish force strikes right across Anatolia into the unravaged western provinces and sacks the city of Chonae; the local shrine of St. Michael is principal target.

Syria

Turks overrun Syrian countryside, and start to pick off isolated cities; Fatimid resistance collapses and most of the cities that hold out, e.g. Tyre under Ibn Abi Aqil, are independent of their authority from now on.

1071

Byzantium

Spring. Romanus marches into Anatolia again with a massive army. Romanus’ chief general Manuel Comnenus dies while army are in Bithynia, and Romanus refuses his younger brother Alexius (the future emperor) permission to join army as too young. Romanus marches on into Anatolicon via Dorylaeum, but many horses are killed in fire at camp.

Syria

Spring. Seljuk Sultan ‘Alp Arslan’ (sobriquet, ‘Valiant Lion’; real name ‘Mohammed’, son of Tughril Beg’s brother Chagri Beg) besieges Byzantine Edessa, famed seat of an ancient Christian community allegedly written to by Jesus Christ and former home of the ‘Mandelion’ image (portrait of Christ ‘not painted by human hands’) taken to Constant inople on the city’s capture in 1032.

Palestine

The Seljuk general Atziz conquers Jerusalem from the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt, which is regarded by the Sunni Moslems (including the Seljuks), loyal to the Caliph in Baghdad, as a ‘heretic’ state as it is Shi’a in religious orientation and has a rival Caliph from the Prophet’s lineally-descended family. This leads to more harassment of Christian pilgrims by zealous Turks in Jerusalem than was the norm under the tolerant Fatimids, and growing Western resentment.

Spain

Sancho of Castile overruns Galicia and deposes his brother, Count Garcia, assisted by his brother King Alfonso of Leon; he then deposes Alfonso too by an invasion.

Italy

16 April. Bari surrenders to Guiscard after his partisans in city seize one of the towers; end of Byzantine rule in Italy after over 530 years.

Byzantium

Summer. Romanus’ huge army of around 100,000 men, many Western and Balkan tribal mercenaries, marches into NE Anatolia; Romanus heads for Chliat that the Turks have captured, but faces a rebellion of disorderly and plundering German mercenaries at Cryapege; his army arrives safely at Theodosiopolis. Alp Arsian hastens north from Syria to assist his local forces; Romanus sends John Tarchaniotes and best troops to retake Chliat while he besieges Turkish-held Manzikert.

August. Romanus besieges and takes Manzikert; he hears of arrival of Turkish army nearby who have evaded his incompetent scouts, but does not realise its size or that Alp Arslan is in command; he sends out reconnaissance party under Nicephorus Bryennius, which is heavily defeated and call for reinforcements; Basilacius leads reinforcements but is captured, and the Byzantines hear of Sultan’s arrival and start to panic.

Turks surround the Byzantine camp. The Balkan ‘Uzes’ Turkic mercenaries flee, and Romanus decides to break out towards Chliat; Tarchaniotes, in command at Chliat, abandons the town and retreats; Alp Arslan offers a truce to Romanus and peace terms based on no territorial concessions, but Romanus is determined to break up the massive, mobile Turkish army now he has it concentrated against him and demands that Turks abandon their camp to him and withdraw before any talks.

Battle of Manzikert: Romanus in Byzantine centre, Bryennius in command of left, and Andronicus Ducas (son of Constantine X’s brother, ‘Caesar’ John Ducas) in command of rearguard; the Byzantines advance out of camp and after day of fighting are pressing Turks back to their camp but as darkness approaches Romanus requires his army to pull back to undefended Byzantine camp for night.

Andronicus Ducas turns his standard and leads men in hasty retreat, and panic spreads as other troops think he’s been routed – it’s later believed he ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Prelude to the First Crusade 1055–1094
• 2 The First Crusade 1095–1099
• 3 The Crusader states 1100–1144
• 4 The Second Crusade 1145–1149
• 5 The Crusader states 1150–1187
• 6 The Third Crusade 1188–1192
• 7 The Crusader kingdoms and the Fourth Crusade 1193–1204
• 8 The Crusading states to the Sixth Crusade 1205–1244
• 9 The Sixth Crusade and after 1245–1261
• 10 The Seventh Crusade and the end of Outremer 1262–1291
• 11 The Crusades after the loss of the Holy Land 1292–1456
• Bibliography
• Index