Alexandrian Crusade
Alexandrian Crusade | |
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Part of the Mamluk Sultanate | |
Result |
Crusaders sack the city and later retreat due to a Mamluk host approaching
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- Sultan Al-Ashraf Sha'ban
- Emir Yalbugha al-Umari
The brief Alexandrian Crusade, also called the sack of Alexandria,
History
Peter I spent three years, from 1362 to 1365, amassing an army and seeking financial support for a Crusade from the wealthiest courts of the day. When he learned of a planned Egyptian attack against his
In October 1365, Peter I set sail from Rhodes, himself commanding a sizable expeditionary force and a fleet of 165 ships, despite Venice's greater economic and political clout. Landfall was made in Alexandria around 9 October, and over the next three days, Peter's army pillaged the city killing thousands and taking 5000 people to be enslaved.[1] Mosques, temples, churches and possibly the library[dubious ] also bore the brunt of the raid.[4][5]
Facing an untenable position, Peter's army permanently withdrew on 12 October.[3] Peter had wanted to stay and hold the city and use it as a beachhead for more crusades into Egypt, but the majority of his barons refused, wishing only to leave with their loot. Peter himself was one of the last to leave the city, only getting onto his ship when Mamluk soldiers entered the city. Monarchs and barons in Europe, struck by the abandonment of the city, referred to Peter as the only good and brave Christian to have crusaded in Alexandria.[6]
The attack is mentioned in line 51 of the Prologue to the
Interpretations
Jo van Steenbergen, citing Peter Edbury, argues that the crusade was primarily an economic quest. Peter wanted to end the primacy of Alexandria as a port in the Eastern Mediterranean in the hope that Famagusta would then benefit from the redirected trade.[3] Religious concerns, then, were secondary.
Van Steenbergen's description of contemporary
Notes and references
- ^ Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World: A Historical Encyclopedia, Vol.1, ed. Alexander Mikaberidze, (ABC-CLIO, 2011), 72.
- ^ A History of the Crusades: The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, ed. Kenneth M. Setton, Harry W. Hazard, (The University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), xiii, 5, 316, 664
- ^ a b c d "Van Steenbergen, Jo (2003) "The Alexandrian Crusade (1365) and the Mamluk Sources: Reassessment of the kitab al-ilmam of an-Nuwayri al-Iskandarani" (PDF)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-10-18. Retrieved 2006-09-03.
- ^ Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades: The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades, Vol. III, (Cambridge University Press, 1951), 446.
- ^ Richard W. Barber, The Reign of Chivalry, (Boydell Press, 2005), 121.
- ^ Thomas F. Madden, The Concise History of the Crusades, (3rd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2013), 179