History of Jerusalem during the Kingdom of Jerusalem
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The History of Jerusalem during the Kingdom of Jerusalem began with the
Overview
The Crusaders conquered the city in 1099 and held it until its conquest by the army of Saladin at the
The Ayyubid period ended with waves of destruction of the city. Its fortifications were destroyed first, and later most of the buildings, as part of a deliberate scorched earth policy intended to prevent all future crusades from gaining a foothold in the city and region.
This was a short but relatively turbulent and significant period in the history of Jerusalem. For the first time since the destruction of the city in 70 CE, Jerusalem was the capital of a separate political entity, a status only regained during the British Mandate in the 20th century.
The Crusader period in the history of Jerusalem decisively influenced the history of the whole Middle East, radiating beyond the region into the Islamic World and Christian Europe. The Crusades elevated the position of Jerusalem in the hierarchy of places holy to Islam, but it did not become a spiritual or political center of Islam. By the end of the Ayyubid period the name of Jerusalem was no longer connected to the idea of jihad, and the city's geopolitical status declined, becoming a secondary city, first for the Mamluk Empire, and later for the Ottomans.
Christian control (1099–1187)
Crusader conquest of Jerusalem
The conquest of Jerusalem became the prime objective of the First Crusade, which was launched in 1095 with Pope Urban II's call to arms. Four main Crusader armies left Europe in August 1096. On June 7, 1099, the crusaders arrived at Jerusalem. The city was besieged by the army beginning on July 13. Attacks on the city walls started on July 14, with a huge battering ram and two siege towers. On July 15 by noon the Crusaders were on the northern wall and the Muslim defenses collapsed.[4]
Capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
With the conquest of Jerusalem, most Crusaders returned home to Europe, and only a small number of pilgrims settled in the Holy Land. They faced vast challenges, including having their capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem outside the main trade routes and away from coastal ports.[5]
The Crusaders' massacre in Jerusalem created a dramatic change in the composition of the population. Muslims and Jews were murdered or deported and banned from the city. William of Tyre wrote:[6]
gentiles who had almost lost all its inhabitants with the sword after the city was broken into by force, if some escaped by accident, do not give them more room in the city to live. Heaven-fearing leaders seemed sacrilege which would allow those who were not among the followers of Christianity have such an esteemed residents instead.
After the conquest, Jerusalem was emptied of inhabitants, and many houses were abandoned. The Latin city's population was very small and centred upon the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Tower of David. William of Tyre wrote:[7]
within the walls of cities, in houses, just hard to find a safe place, that the inhabitants were few and scattered and ruined walls were open enemy attack. Thieves were attacking at night, breaking into the abandoned cities, whose inhabitants lived far from one another. As a result, some secretly, others openly would have left the property that have acquired and began returning to their countries.
The Crusaders' first step was to stop the fleeing population by announcing a law that a person holding an asset for a year becomes its owner. Real improvement was achieved by populating Jerusalem with residents belonging to sects of Eastern Christianity. First, Christians who had been deported before the siege were returned to the city and named by the Crusaders as "Syrian". At the same time, the local authorities encouraged other Christians to settle in Jerusalem Christians, although suspicious relations between these various groups and the struggle for supremacy and control of the Holy Sepulchre caused many problems. In 1115 Syrian Christians, uprooted from their homes in Transjordan, settled in the city, creating a continuously populated district on the north side of town, which was named after them. Simultaneously, the Crusader rulers encouraged commerce, and in 1120 King Baldwin II of Jerusalem imposed duties on goods and food products brought into Jerusalem. This was then extended to all types of trade and all agricultural food products brought from the hinterland into the city.
Unusually for a city in the
Being a capital city, Jerusalem was the centre of a number of
The second order was the
Another order, the Order of Saint Lazarus, was founded to care for leprosy patients. A special place was set for them outside of the walls of Jerusalem, named after Saint Lazarus. This Leper House gave its name to leper colonies established all over Europe.[10] The Order of Saint Lazarus included both lepers and healthy people who held religious and military positions. This phenomenon, a military religious order of lepers who took an active part in the country alongside a healthy population, had no parallel in Europe at that time.
Ayyubid control (1187–1229)
Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem
After the victory of the Muslims in the
On October 2 Jerusalem was given to Saladin. The rich of the city, including the Dean and Latin Christians, managed to save themselves, but the poor and refugees who had come to the city with nothing were unable to pay the ransom. Most of the church treasures were taken from the city by the Latin Patriarch, who passed them to the Muslim cavalry in order to release certain prisoners. Saladin released thousands of others without compensation, including Queen Sybil, wife of
Jerusalem under the Muslims
After the conquest of Jerusalem, Saladin acted to erase the city's Christian character. Crusader additions to buildings were destroyed. In the
The Crusaders had been driven from the city, but local Christians belonging to the
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was handed over to the
The Christian world's response came quickly, and the
Do not resemble the king in his soul that such a waiver is possible, I would never dare to voice a word of it to the Muslims.
Eventually, after concluding the Treaty of Jaffa with Saladin in 1192, whereby Christians were granted freedom to make pilgrimages to the holy places, Richard the Lionheart departed from the Holy Land and returned to Europe.
Destruction of much of Jerusalem
With the death of Saladin in 1193, the Ayyubid Empire disintegrated and was divided among his sons. This led to struggles between various principalities as alliances were formed and dissolved. Jerusalem lost its status as the capital and religious center, and became a provincial city in an empire whose center was often
The Ayyubid ruler of Syria, Al-Mu'azzam decided to systematically destroy the fortifications in Jerusalem, worried the Crusaders would retake the heavily fortified city. The Sultan's command to raze much of the town to the ground seemed so implausible that it took his personal presence in Jerusalem to carry it out.[citation needed] The city suffered severe destruction, with all fortifications destroyed except the Tower of David, and many buildings destroyed as well. Much of the population fled the city due to the fear of living in a city without fortifications from invasion. The brother of Al-Mu'azzam, al-Malik al-Kâmil, later referred to Jerusalem post-destruction as merely "some churches and some ruined houses". The marketplace, government buildings and holy sites survived, but little else did.[15]History of Jerusalem during the Kingdom of Jerusalem
Christian control (1229–1244)
Attempts to restore Christian power in Jerusalem during the 1190s to 1210s were unsuccessful.[16]
The Sixth Crusade led by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor left Italy in 1228. The death of al-Mu'azzam negated the proposed alliance with al-Kamil, who along with his brother al-Ashraf had taken possession of Damascus (as well as Jerusalem) from their nephew, al-Mu'azzam's son an-Nasir Dawud. However, al-Kamil presumably did not know of the small size of Frederick's army, nor the divisions within it caused by his excommunication, and wished to avoid defending his territories against another crusade. Frederick's presence alone was sufficient to regain Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and a number of surrounding castles without a fight: these were recovered in February 1229, in return for a ten-year truce with the Ayyubids and freedom of worship for Jerusalem's Muslim inhabitants. The terms of the treaty were unacceptable to the Patriarch of Jerusalem Gerald of Lausanne, who placed the city under interdict. In March, Frederick crowned himself in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but because of his excommunication and the interdict Jerusalem was never truly reincorporated into the kingdom, which continued to be ruled from Acre.[17]
The treaty with the Ayyubids was set to expire in 1239. Plans for a new crusade to be led by Frederick came to nothing, and Frederick himself was excommunicated by Gregory IX again in 1239. However, other European nobles took up the cause, including
The crusaders may have been aware of the new divisions among the Ayyubids; al-Kamil had occupied Damascus in 1238 but had died soon afterwards, and his territory was inherited by his family. His sons al-Adil abu Bakr and as-Salih Ayyub inherited Egypt and Damascus.
The Ayyubids were still divided between Ayyub in Egypt, Isma'il in Damascus, and Dawud in Kerak. Isma'il, Dawud, and
Mamluk control after 1260
There is little evidence to indicate whether or not the Mongol raids penetrated Jerusalem in either 1260 or 1300. Historical reports from the time period tend to conflict, depending on which nationality of historian was writing the report. There were also a large number of rumors and urban legends in Europe, claiming that the Mongols had captured Jerusalem and were going to return it to the Crusaders. However, these rumors turned out to be false.[19] The general consensus of modern historians is that though Jerusalem may or may not have been subject to raids, that there was never any attempt by the Mongols to incorporate Jerusalem into their administrative system, which is what would be necessary to deem a territory "conquered" as opposed to "raided".[20][21]
Even during the conflicts, pilgrims continued to come in small numbers.
Mamluk sultans made a point of visiting the city, endowing new buildings, encouraging Muslim settlement, and expanding mosques. During the reign of Sultan
See also
- Old City (Jerusalem)
References
- ^ Schein (2006), pp. 656-661.
- ^ Tyerman (2006).
- ^ Bréhier (1908).
- ^ Asbridge (2004).
- ^ Fink in Setton & Baldwin (1969) [1955], pp. 368-409.
- ^ Prawer in Prawer & Ben-Shammai (1991), p. 201.
- ^ Prawer in Prawer & Ben-Shammai (1991), p. 29.
- ^ a b Adler: Benjamin of Tudela (1960) [1907], pages 23-4.
- ^ Nicholson in Setton & Baldwin (1969) [1955], pp. 410-447.
- ^ Savona-Ventura (2005).
- ^ Baldwin in Setton & Baldwin (1969) [1955], pp. 590-621.
- ^ Dajani-Shakeel (1988), The Surrender of Jerusalem.
- ^ Prawer (1963), p. 558.
- ^ Sivan in Prawer & Ben-Shammai (1991), p. 297.
- ^ Boas (2001).
- ^ Hardwicke in Setton, Wolff & Hazard (1969) [1962], pp. 519-555.
- ^ Riley-Smith (2005), pp. 180–182.
- ^ Tyerman (2006), pp. 770–771.
- ^ Schein (1979), pp. 805–819.
- ^ Amitai (1987), pp. 236–255.
- ^ Runciman in Setton, Wolff & Hazard (1969) [1962], pp. 557-598.
- ^ Armstrong (2015) [1996], pp. 307–308.
- ^ Armstrong (2015) [1996], pp. 304-305.
- ^ Armstrong (2015), p. 310
Bibliography
- Adler, Nathan Marcus (1907). The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary. New York: Phillip Feldheim, Inc. Retrieved 4 January 2022 – via washington.edu. The page numbers cited are from the 1960 reprint by the Hebrew University – Department of History of Israel.
- Amitai, Reuven (1987). "Mongol Raids into Palestine (A.D. 1260 and 1300)". The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 119 (2). Cambridge, UK; New York, USA: Cambridge University Press: 236–255. JSTOR 25212151.
- ISBN 978-0-345-39168-1. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
- Asbridge, Thomas S. (2004). The First Crusade: A New History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195178234. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
- Boas, Adrian J. (2001). Jerusalem in the Time of the Crusades: Society, Landscape and Art in the Holy City Under Frankish Rule. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-58272-3.
- Bréhier, Louis René. (1908). "Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099-1291)". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
- Dajani-Shakeel, Hadia (1988). Hisham Nashabe (ed.). Some Medieval Accounts of Salah al-Din's Recovery of Jerusalem (Al-Quds): The Surrender of Jerusalem. Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies. Retrieved 30 July 2020 – via The Internet Medieval Sourcebook, History Department of Fordham University, New York.
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ignored (help) - Prawer, Joshua (1963). תולדות ממלכת הצלבנים בארץ ישראל [A History of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem] (in Hebrew). Vol. II. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute.
- Prawer, Joshua; Ben-Shammai, Haggai, eds. (1991). ספר ירושלים: התקופה הצלבנית והאיובית [The History of Jerusalem: Crusaders and Ayyubids (1099–1250)] (in Hebrew). Jerusalem: ISBN 9789652170927.
- Prawer, Joshua. שלטון הצלבנים [approx. meaning: Crusader rule]. p. 29.
- Prawer, Joshua. היישוב היהודי [The Jewish Community]. p. 201.
- Sivan, Emmanuel . [Translated title: The Sanctity of Jerusalem in Islam During the Crusader Period]. p. 297.
- ISBN 9780826472694. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
- Savona-Ventura, Charles (2005) The Domus Leprosorum in Crusader Jerusalem. Accessed July 2020.
- Schein, Sylvia (1979). "Gesta Dei per Mongolos 1300: The Genesis of a Non-Event". The English Historical Review. 94 (373). Oxford University Press: 805–819. JSTOR 565554.
- Schein, Sylvia (2006)."Jerusalem, City of". In The Crusades – An Encyclopedia. pp. 656–661.
- ISBN 9780299048341.
- Fink, Harold S., Chapter XII, "The Foundations of the Latin States, 1099-1118", pp. 368–409.
- Nicholson, Robert L. Chapter XIII, "The Growth of the Latin States, 1118-1144", pp. 410–447.
- Baldwin, Marshall W. Chapter XIX, "The Decline and Fall of Jerusalem, 1174-1189", pp. 590–621.
- ISBN 0299048446.
- Hardwicke, Mary Nickerson. Chapter XV: The Crusader States, 1192-1243 (PDF). pp. 519–555. Retrieved 4 January 2022.
- Runciman, Sir Steven. Chapter XVI: The Crusader States, 1243-1291 (PDF). pp. 557–598. Retrieved 4 January 2022.
- ISBN 9780674023871. Retrieved 12 July 2020.