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Deus vult!Translation 

"Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius."Translation 
Arnaud Amalricnote 

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns that took place between the 11th and 13th centuries, most famously against the Muslims, or Saracens, to reconquer the Holy Land (modern-day Lebanon, Israel and a part of Syria, more or less), but it also included other conflicts, such as the campaigns against the Moors in Spain as well as pagans in the Baltics, and the Albigensian heretics. The word "Crusade" is a coinage from a later era. During the era, the expeditions were described as iter or peregrenatio which means "pilgrimage". The warriors going to the Holy Land saw their duty as essentially religious in nature, a holy quest to a holy place, defeating and crushing heathens and heretics, earning glory in earth and a place in heaven. The word "Crusade" comes from croisade which referred to the practice of stitching a cross on garments, a heraldic practice which metaphorically certainly fits the era. Arab historians of the medieval era simply called it "the Frankish Wars", while modern historians returning to the Crusades after their experience with colonialism and Arab nationalism, also call it Crusades (or "campaigns of the cross" or ḥamalāt ṣalībiyya—"Campaigns/Operations of the Cross"—with the word ṣalībiyyūn—"Those of the Cross" or, well, "Crusaders"—used to describe Crusaders and Westerners in general).note 

The immediate cause was the petition from the Eastern Roman Emperor Alexios I to Pope Urban II. Alexios' request was a somewhat delayed response to the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 and to the ongoing campaigns of Norman lords based in southern Italy against Constantinople's holdings in the Balkans. Manzikert was symptomatic of the Byzantines' major problem to the East—- the arrival and rise of the Turks, who had upset the balance of power that had existed between the Empire and the Arabs for over 200 years. The Normans for their part were to the Byzantines emblematic of Catholic Christendom's small-mindedness and stupidity — attacking the only thing keeping the ascendant Turks from rampaging all over a completely unprepared Europe. The Emperor (or someone in his court) conceived an idea: Why not turn these bloodthirsty, land-hungry Normans (and their equally uncouth Catholic friends) against the Turks? Hence the letter to the Pope, who in turn considered all sorts of angles to convince the Normans—whom he also disliked, since the Normans had kidnapped his predecessor and were generally wreaking havoc in Italy as well — to fight the Turks. Eventually, the Pope got windnote  of a Turkish provocation to all Christendom—the Turks had just (re)taken Jerusalem from the Fatimids, and being a more itchily pious lot than the Fatimids, they tended to treat Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem poorly (as opposed to the Fatimids, who were more like "as long as you keep the gold flowing, we don't care what you do").note  This gave the Pope an idea: sell this war as a kind of armed pilgrimage, with the holy aim of "bringing the Cross to Jerusalem." After all, "Bring the Cross to Jerusalem" is a much better slogan than "Save the Greek Empire".

These wars and their associated events had a powerful and lasting effect, despite the fact that the Crusaders left the Levant by the fourteenth century. The Western Catholics, who already had something of a taste for Eastern luxuries, got even more of a taste for them after living in the East for a while—and the Italians, who ferried them between Western Europe and the Levant, got massive experience in sailing (which helped in the 15th century craze for exploration, and we all know where that led) and Middle Eastern trade contacts up the wazoo (which gave the Italian city-states the means to fund The Renaissance once The Black Death was over).note  The Crusades also led to the development of Catholic "just war" theory, and reintroduced the idea of a Church Militant to the West—which promptly turned it on the East, when The Teutonic Knights went and conquered/converted the Baltic (giving the side effect of completing the Christianization of Europe).note  The Muslim world, which had long been locked in a period of infighting, got something to unite it; the end result was larger, stronger Muslim states, and—with Saladin's conquest of the Fatimid Empire—the end of Shiism as a significant political force for the next three hundred years (when the Safavids converted Iran under Ismail I). And as for Byzantium—well, scroll down to see what the Fourth Crusade did to them.

Naturally, the movement extended to a much bigger and more complex set of conflicts and there would be several other crusades being called in the following centuries. Although religious fervor was certainly a big factor, the motives, progress, and effects of the various Crusades are deeper and more various than most people think, so perhaps you are better off reading The Other Wiki (among other places) if you want to know more. Nevertheless, here is an overview of some of the more important ones, to get you started.

Levantine Crusades

  • The First Crusade: Fitting for being the first and grandest had many subparts with the main one being the so called Princes' Crusade. In 1096, after Pope Urban II had called for military action at the Council of Clermont in central France, the mainly Frankish, Norman and Lombard Crusader forces, led by Bohémond de Hautevillle, his nephew Tancrède, Raymond de Toulouse, Godefroy de Bouillon, and other noblemen, after being warily received in Constantinople and pledging to restore lost territories to the Byzantines, sailed to Anatolia and began conquering the Seljuk-occupied land. All the while being faced by grave deprivation of food and water, they reached Jerusalem in 1099; the city refused to surrender and a lengthy siege began, with Jews and Muslims fighting side by side to repel the attackers, the native Christians having been expelled from the city before the siege. After the city was taken, the soldiers massacred all inhabitants of a city that refused to lay down arms (so that, we are told, their horses waded in blood up to the fetlocks), though some commanders managed to control their men and allowed the remaining citizens to surrender. Still, much of the city was destroyed and most of its civilian inhabitants were killed or expelled. Afterwards, the consolidation of the crusader states was completed, with the barons dividing the conquered territories (or as they called it, Outremer ― the "Land Beyond the Sea") among them. Godfrey of Bouillon became the first "Frankish" ruler of Jerusalem, though refusing the crown and title of a King and preferring to be known merely as "Defender of the Holy Sepulcher".
    • The People's Crusade: Many normal citizens also heard Pope Urban II's call and several ragtag groups of pilgrims armed with favour and pitchforks also marched towards Jerusalem separate from the nobles. Spearheading this group was an extremely charismatic catholic priest known as Peter the Hermit but that's roughly where his talents ended. Most of those participating in this so called "Popular" Crusade never even made it to Constantinople after spending most of their time ravaging Hungary.note  Those few that made it soon got kicked out of Constantinople too after threatening to do the same to the city and were eventually slaughtered in a Seljuk Ambush.
    • Crusade of 1101: Also known as the Crusade of the Faint-Hearted. A mostly Lombard led appendix to the Princes' Crusade consisting of nobles that had sat it out but following its success now suddenly found themselves very willing to join. The crusade quickly morphed into a rescue mission though as King Bohemund I of Antioch (one of the original crusaders and fellow Lombard) had managed to get himself captured following an disastrous invasion of the Danishmend Beylik (modern day eastern Turkey) and the crusade switched tracks from the holy land to his prison at Neocaesarea (Niksar). The Danishmeds (as well as their Seljuk-Rum allies) were well prepared for the crusade though and pretty much the entire force ended up slaughtered in an ambush not far from the city.
    • Norwegian Crusade: More of a pilgrimage than a crusade but often counted among the first crusade subparts. Once the success of the crusade reached the ears of the Norwegian King Sigurd I he found a great interest in visiting Jerusalem himself and after many adventures along the way he would arrive at the city in 1110. There he was warmly welcomed by Baldwin I and after praying at the Holy Sepulchre and bathing in the river Jordan he would help Baldwin capture the city of Sidon before heading home again.
    • Venetian Crusade: By 1122 the entire levant coast had surrendered to the Latins with one notable exception. Despite numerous attempts over the years Tyre still remained in Seljuk hands and was a notable nail in the eye for Baldwin II of Jerusalem who didn't want it to tie up his forces in his ongoing war with Damascus. That year he would rectify the problem by asking the Pope for help and, wanting an opportunity to weaken the Byzantine trade monopoly in the region, Doge Domenico Michiel of Venice answered the call and led a massive seaborn army towards the holy land. After defeating a Fatimid fleet at Jaffa, Tyre was successfully put under siege and eventually surrendered to the Venetians on the 29 of June 1124. Baldwin II wouldn't be there to witness the triumph though, as he had been captured by the Seljuks the year before and was being held prisoner in Damascus. He managed to escape later the same year though and the Venetians agreed to trade the city in exchange for exclusive commercial privileges in the region which he granted before resuming his war with Damascus. The Venetians then returned home but not before ravaging a few Greek islands in a prophetic act regarding things to come in 80 years or so...
    • Crusade of 1129: Also known as the Damascus Crusade. By 1127 Baldwin II realised that he wasn't going to win his war with Damascus alone and after a couple of years worth of delays he would recruit the help of pretty much every other crusader state in an attempt to take the city itself. His plan of relying on the corrupt vizier al-Mazdaqānī to open the gates for the crusaders were foiled though when the plot was discovered by the Emir who had him executed. The force marched on anyway with the intent of putting the city to siege but once they arrived a huge thunderstorm suddenly appeared and, being seen as an ill omen as well as a sign from god, made the soldiers refuse to actually attack the city. Having no other choice Baldwin II entered into negotiations with his Muslim counterpart and Damascus agreed to pay a tribute in exchange for the crusaders leaving the city alone. Putting an end to the Jerusalem-Damascus war and with that the final act of what's known as the first crusade.
  • The Second Crusade: Initially the greater Muslim leaders did not do anything about the Crusaders, as they had internal conflicts to deal with, and a period of relative calm followed in the Holy Lands between the Muslim and Christian population. Eventually, however, Muslim forces under Zengi, the Turkish Atabeg ("Count Palatine", more or less) of Mosul (in what is now northern Iraq) finally organized and retook the city of Edessa in 1144; a second crusade was launched to defend the new kingdoms. They had great success in the Mediterranean but failed to win any major battles in the Levant. King Louis VII of France and the Holy Roman Emperor Konrad II returned to their countries (although not before Louis led a completely futile and idiotic attack on Damascus—one of the few Arab allies of the Crusaders). This crusade was supposedly enlivened by the spectacle of Eleanor Of Aquitaine, the wife of the King of France (at the time anyway), conducting with her ladies-in-waiting a sort of pageant of "women-warriors" (as well as being accused of carrying on an affaire with her uncle(!), Raymond of Antioch).
  • The Third Crusade: Also known as the Crusade of the Three Kings. After the Second Crusade had ended, Turkish emir Nur ad-Din, Zengi's son, took control of Damascus, unified Syria, and subjected Egypt to his rule. When Nur ad-Din died in 1174, his general in Egypt, the Kurd Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, better known as Saladin, seized power and became his successor. Now commanding a unified Muslim front, Saladin defeated the King of Jerusalem's army in 1187 at the Battle of Hattin, conquered Acre, and headed towards Jerusalem itself; the city, not being able to stand against Saladin's army, surrendered after being put under siege. The fall of Jerusalem after it had been nearly a century in Christian hands caused widespread alarm across Europe, and a new Crusade was called to retake her. King Richard I "The Lionheart" of Englandnote  and King Philippe II "Augustus" of France suspended their war with each other and joined the crusade. Friederich I "Barbarossa" of the Holy Roman Empire also answered the call, but his crusade was cut short when he drowned in the River Saleph in Turkey on his way to Outremer; a tiny fraction of his army straggled on under the command of Leopold, Archduke of Austria. Philippe and Richard arrived in Acre in 1190 and 1191 respectively (Richard having paused along the way to be married and to conquer Cyprus) and recaptured the city. However, after a falling-out in the Crusader leadership (Richard had jilted Philippe's sister, threw Leopold's banner off the walls of Acre, and was supposedly complicit in the assassination of the King of Jerusalem), Philippe and Leopold left the Holy Land, while Richard carried on the campaign, defeating Saladin again at Arsuf and Jaffa. However, it became apparent to Richard that he would not be able to hold Jerusalem with his remaining forces; moreover, Philippe, back in Europe, was already plotting against him with Richard's brother, John. Richard therefore reached an agreement with Saladin which allowed unarmed Christian pilgrims into the city, and afterwards pulled back his army and set forth to England. As ill-luck would have it, he was forced to make his way home through the domains of Leopold of Austria — where he was recognized, seized, and held ransom in the castle of Dürrenstein by Leopold and his overlord, Barbarossa's son, the Emperor Henry VI.
    • Crusade of 1197: Also known as the Crusade of Henry VI. A desire to fulfil his fathers oath made the new Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI ask to pope to sanction another expedition to the Holy Land; but in an almost complete echo of what had happened before he would end up dying on the way after contracting malaria in Sicily. A good chunk of his forces had already made it to the levant at this point though and managed to capture booth Beirut and Sidon before the news arrived and made them return home in order to achieve favour with his successor.
  • The Fourth Crusade: In 1199, Pope Innocent III initiated another crusade to save the remaining Christian territories in the Holy Land through Egypt. After the failure of the Third Crusade, his call was largely ignored by the most powerful monarchs of the time, who were preoccupied in their own conflicts with each other. Nonetheless, those crusaders who heeded his call assembled in Venice, which had offered ships to transport them. However, the Venetians refused to transport the soldiers until the latter had paid in full, as the Venetians had devoted great expenses to preparing the expedition. The famous blind Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, perceived an opportunity to use the crusaders to crush the city of Zara, which had rebelled against Venice. The papal legate reluctantly authorized this, deeming it necessary to prevent the failure of the Crusade, but when Pope Innocent found out, he was alarmed and forbade the attack against fellow Christians under threat of excommunication; it nonetheless duly took place anyway. To make matters worse, one of the crusade leaders, Boniface of Montferrat, had left Venice earlier to meet with the son of the recently deposed Byzantine emperor Isaakios II Angelos, Alexios IV Angelos, who offered money, ships, and men to help the crusaders — if Boniface and his men would in turn sail to Byzantium and topple the reigning emperor Alexios III Angelos (brother and usurper of Isaakios II, and thusly the uncle of Alexios IV). This unsavory bargain ended in the infamous sacking of Constantinople in 1204 after Alexious IV was overthrown and murdered (and to be fair, he did try to uphold his end of the bargain) and division of the Byzantine Empire, marking the definitive point where the Crusades lost their original intent and making the schism between western and eastern Christianity all but absolute. Following crusades would be largely engineered by monarchs more for political than religious motivations; by the end of it almost none of the Fourth Crusade reached the Holy Land and the Pope excommunicated everyone who participated in it.
  • The Fifth Crusade: Despite his last attempt turning into a complete utter disaster Innocent III would call yet another crusade in 1217. This one is sometimes divided into two different parts
    • The first was the so called Hungarian Crusade led by Andrew II of Hungary who took up the cross mainly to stop Innocent III from pestering him about it regarding an oath made by his father. After arriving in Acre he and his forces would spend more time looting than engaging the Egyptians though and despite the pope threatening him with excommunication Andrew II eventually returned to Hungary without doing much. John of Brienne (the current "king" of Jerusalem) ended up leading the remaining forces who actually was there to carry the cross towards the city but ended up defeated after laying siege to Mount Tabor.
    • The second so called Dutch Crusade part (led by the papal envoy Pelagius Galvani and William I of Holland) would prove slightly more successful. After joining up with the remains of the Hungarian crusade they made the decision to assault Egypt itself and actually managed to conquer the port city of Damietta after a lengthy siege. Wanting to avoid a potential disaster the Ayyubid sultan Al-Kamil actually started sending envoys to the crusaders offering Jerusalem in exchange for them leaving but their minds were made up; they were gonna conquer Cairo itself which in hindsight proved to be a big mistake. After steadily marching towards the capital during 1221 the crusaders found themself lured into a trap near Mansurah and once they realised what had happened it was to late and Pelagio Galvani ended up surrendering to Al-Kamil. The end result was an 8 year truce with the Egyptians as well as them abandoning Damietta in exchange for being allowed to leave. Pelagius Galvani notable being scolded by the Pope himself for not taking up Al-Kamil's offer.
  • The Sixth Crusade: Many fingers ended up being pointed regarding who's shoulders the failure of the fifth crusade laid on. And one of the people in the spotlight was the Holy Roman Emperor Friederich II (aka Stupor Mundi, "Wonder of the World") who had actually taken an oath to join the crusade but who sat it out anyway. This oath came back to him in 1221 when pope Honorius III sent an envoy to remind him of his duty and after multiple delays he would end up leading the sixth crusade in 1228. This came with perfect timing as Sultan Al-Kamil was actually locked in a civil war with his rebellious brother over in Damascus and, not wanting to deal with crusaders as well, immediately started entering negotiations with Friederich II who despite being excommunicated for his fraternizing actually managed to reach a peace agreement with Al-Kamil (even becoming friends in the process, mainly through their mutual dislike of the papacy) and seized the rule of Christian Jerusalem for himself. A section of the kingdom, including Nazareth and Bethlehem as well as the Christian parts of the Holy City itself, was delivered to the crusaders through the Treaty of Jaffa for a period of ten years ―, until some Muslims who were not content with their leaders' decision to allow the crusaders back into Jerusalem put the city under siege and expelled the remaining Christian forces in 1244. This was the last time the crusaders would maintain any actual control of Jerusalem itself.
    • Crusade of 1239: Also known as the Barons' Crusade. Friederich II's success in taking Jerusalem trough diplomatic means didn't sit well with most European nations and wanting to take full advantage of the still ongoing Cairo-Damascus schism led Pope Gregory IX to call another crusade the same year that Friederich II truce deal ran out. Despite some initial hurdles such as attempted interference from Gregory IX (who wanted them to divert to Anatolia and help the still Latin controlled Constantinople) and a military blunder that left Jerusalem once more in Muslim hands for a while - The crusade would actually prove to be a major success that for a few years at least restored Latin rule in the levant to a state not seen since the time of the first crusade.
  • The Seventh Crusade: Lasting from 1248 to 1254 under the later-sainted Louis IX of France, this was an utter disaster after Louis and thousands of his troops were captured by the Ayyubid Sultan Turanshah. He was freed after payment of a large ransom. No significant territory changed hands though the crusade did have another significant effect on the region. The Ayyubids initial inability to contain the crusaders led to disgruntlements within their Mamluk regiments, and in 1250 Turanshah was assassinated in a military coup that saw his former general Izz al-Din Aybak take the throne and Egypt would remain under Mamluk/military rule for the next 267 years.
  • Interlude: In 1254, far to the east of Palestine, the Muslim lands of Persia fell to the Mongol horde under Hulagu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan through his youngest legitimate son Tolui. The Ilkhanate founded by Hulagu threw its weight around for a few years, but in 1260 was defeated by the forces of the Mamluk sultans of Egypt at the Battle of Ain Jalut in Palestine. Significantly, between 1254 and 1260, the Crusader states tried to get Mongol support against the Mamluks, but never got anything concrete, and after Ain Jalut Mongol power could not/would not reach the Levant. (The reason being that Hulagu's cousin Kublai won an election—mainly against Hulagu—and used his victory to direct Mongol power at the complete conquest of China, but neither the Crusaders nor the Mamluks knew that.)
  • The Eighth Crusade: In 1270, Louis IX with the aid of James I of Aragon instead tried to attack Tunis, but died shortly after arriving, with his army struck by disease and dispersing quickly back to Europe afterward. James I similarly never even made it to Egypt after his ships were crippled by a storm on the way.
  • The Ninth Crusade: The "last" crusade lasting from 1271-1272. It saw Prince Edward "Longshanks", son and heir of Henry III of England (and thus not yet Malleus Scottorum), attempt to reclaim Acre himself after his father had declined to join Louis IX on his crusade. Despite impressive victories over Baibars (the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt), Edward withdrew to England because of pressing concerns at home and inability to resolve the internal conflicts within the remaining Outremer holdings. The crusading zeal was nearly burned out by this point, and with the end of efforts to recapture the Holy Land the last Crusader states fell to the Muslims.

European Crusades

  • The Northern Crusades (1147 - 1387): Eventually successor Popes got the idea, lets call for Crusades against the remaining pagans of Europe and complete the Christianization of Europe. Crusaders traveled into the Baltic countries and mounted campaigns against the Wends. These were led by The Teutonic Knights and other orders such as the Livonian Sword Brothers that were later absorbed (grudgingly) by the Teutonic Knights. The success was complete and total, albeit filled with horrific scenes of violence such as the supposed mass suicides of Pilenai where - according to the so-called Rhyming Chronicle, 4000 Lithuanian pagans, committed suicide rather than submit or convert to Christianity. Since the Rhymer was an advocate of the Teutons, and possibly a member, and no one is sure where Pilenai actually is, most historians are sceptical about the details - though it wasn't exactly out of character. After the union with the Livionians, they also clashed with the Orthodox states like Novgorod where they were famously defeated by Alexander Nevsky.
  • The Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229): Far and away the bloodiest of all crusades, concentrated on the practitioners of the Cathar sect in Languedoc which ultimately crushed it. Reports of casualties range from 200,000 to 1,000,000. Famous for Arnaud Amalric's famous dictum at the massacre at Béziers. Fun fact for fans of English history: One of the main military commanders who executed Arnaud Almaric's order was the local Catholic lord of Béziers, one Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester—father of the same Simon de Montfort (the 6th Earl of Leicester) who had such a powerful effect on the development of the English constitution.
  • Spanish Reconquista (718-1492): While the Iberian Peninsula was under occupation by Muslims long before the official call for the Crusades and it was concluded long past the time the ones in the Levant were over, up until that point the struggle of the Northern Christian kingdoms to recover the region was an purely territorial one for dominance. After the call of the Crusades, the conflict gained a religious dimension and Crusaders frequently lent assistance to the Spaniards and Portuguese to fight their enemies like in Siege of Lisbon and the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.

Some of the later "Crusades"

  • The Aragonese Crusade (1284–1285): Part of the greater War of the Sicilian Vespers that saw pretty much every european power try to claim the island. The Aragonese crusade in question was called by Pope Martin IV against Peter III of Aragon with the justification that he had claimed the island despite his father having surrendered it as an fiefdom to the Holy See.
  • The Smyrniote crusades (1343–1351). Two separate crusades sent out by Pope Clement VI against the Anatolian Emirate of Aydin in order to protect Christian merchants from Turkish piracy. While the crusaders were successful in capturing the city of Smyrna which was their target. It came at a huge cost and failed to do much regarding the wider piracy issue.
  • The Alexandrian Crusade (1365): Called by Peter I of Cyprus against the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt in order to secure his own position and weaken the later economically. While it was successful in "taking" (read, almost completely destroy) Alexandria, the nobles accompanying Peter refused to participate any further and he was forced to leave after just three days.
  • The Savoyard crusade (1366–67): The growing Ottoman threat to Europe saw Pope Urban V call yet another crusade in order to provide assistance to the weakening Byzantines. After taking Gallipoli though the crusade somehow morphed into an invasion of Bulgaria. And by the time that little excursion was finished not enough crusading spirit (or funds) remained among the troops to make further incursions against the Ottomans.
  • The Barbary Crusade (1390): Called by king Charles VI of France against the Hafsidi kingdom of North Africa, if mostly to give his knights something to do during one of the calmer parts of the The Hundred Years War. It ultimately ended in a stalemate though with booth the Hafsidi and the crusaders realizing that continuing would lead to a war of attrition. And the later went home without accomplishing much.
  • The Crusade of Varna (1443-44): Called upon by the Papacy to counter the rising power of the Ottomans in the Balkans. The crusading army was led by Władysław III, King of Poland, Hungary and Croatia, Grand Duke of Lithuania and had some early successes to conclude in the favourable Peace of Szeged in August 1444. Unfortunately, at papal urging and overconfidence, the crusade resumed the next month and was utterly crushed in the Battle of Varna on November 10, 1444 where Władysław was killed, plunging half of Eastern Europe into a period of interregnum and civil war in Poland and Hungary respectively. This instability would allow the Ottomans to concentrate all their attention on taking a strategically important city on the Bosphorus.
  • The Holy Leagues (1535-1717): A sort of spiritual successor to the concept of Christian European nations allying against Muslims, though usually focused on defense in times of crisis rather than conquest. Like the crusades themselves the they were often instigated by the Pope and six different ones ended being formed in total with various degrees of success in stopping Ottoman advances into Europe.

Works dealing with, or set in the era of the Crusades:

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    Anime and Manga 

    Comic Books 
  • Batman: The Order of St. Dumas is an offshot of The Knights Templar dedicated to the teachings of the titular Dumas (who, according to Oracle, "no one else ever accused of being a saint."), the Order quickly fractured further due to the Tautological Templar nature of its followers, but somehow managed to survive over the centuries into the present day. They're best known as The Man Behind the Man to Azrael.
    • Speaking of Azrael, he eventually gained a villain of his own called the Crusader, who is about as loony as the Marvel Comics Crusader above.
  • Black Knight: The Black Knight lineage can be traced back to the days of King Arthur. One of the bearers of the title, Eobar Garrington, fought as a crusader knight during the days of the Third Crusade (and was incidentally the best friend of Bennet du Paris, the future Exodus as detailed above). The current Black Knight, Dane Whitman, also spent some time in the past during the Crusades and falls into some trouble with the parents of Faiza Hussain, his Pakistani-English Muslim Squire (who has Healing Hands, wields Excalibur, and treats superheroics as her 'fandom') when her father points out that while he's not as informed as his daughter, he knows where Dane got his facility with Middle-Eastern languages from.
  • Lady Death: Throughout several different continuities, the character's backstory was tied or at least took the same time concurrently with the Crusades. In both the Chaos! and Avatar versions, Hope's father was an feudal lord who conscripted his peasants to fight in the Crusades, but was in reality an evil sorcerer who sacrificed his men souls to Hell in exchange for power (leading to a uprising against him that leads Hope to be sent to the underworld. In the Crossgen title Medieval Lady Death which features an completely different setting and background, the title character is mentored by an Teutonic Knight operating in the Novgorod Republic.
  • The Mighty Thor: An ex-seminary student of unstable mind, Arthur Blackwood eventually had a vision of one of his ancestors, who is identified as having served in the Crusades (in which Crusade and in what role is not specified). Being bequeathed a suit of knightly armor and a sword by said ancestors, Blackwood went on to become the ranting Tautological Templar villain Crusader, fighting heroes such as Thor, Luke Cage and Nate Grey the X-Man (who was at the time being referred to as 'the Mutant Messiah').
  • X-Men: The Knight Templar villain Exodus was eventually revealed to have been a French knight who fought for King Philippe II and the medieval Catholic Church during the Third Crusade. Being an early mutant and Superpower Lottery winner, he survived becoming a Sealed Badass in a Can for the next 800 years before being revived in the present day by Magneto.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The Italian comedy The Incredible Army of Brancaleone takes place during the Crusades, but it's unclear which one. The titular bunch of underdogs temporarily join a pilgrimage to the Holy Land lead by a fanatical priest, complete with "Deus Vult" but they don't make far until he falls off a bridge. The movie ends with him returning to rescue the heroes when they are about to be executed by a knight whom they robbed at the start of the movie so they can go on a crusade to expiate for their crimes. The second movie Brancaleone at the Crusades revolves entirely on that.
  • Kingdom of Heaven, directed by Ridley Scott, features Orlando Bloom as a French blacksmith who enlists in a crusader army to the defend the now conquered city of Jerusalem from the Saracen leader Saladin. It's not exactly historically accurate, but that's pretty much a given, and it's (relatively) fair to those involved. It basically uses the conflict as a metaphor to criticise religion in general in a more modern sense, although one character is heavily implied to be an angel or even God himself, so who knows what the ultimate moral is.
  • Nearly all versions of Robin Hood have King Richard I out fighting the Crusades, leaving his no-good brother Prince John in charge. In some versions (Kevin Costner's Prince of Thieves, for example), Robin himself is a Crusader.
  • King Richard and the Crusaders, from 1954 pits a knight of the Third Crusade not against the Muslims, but against the corrupt Christian "Castellains," while Saladin is played as a supporting hero by Rex Harrison.
  • Much like the Innocents Shounen Juujigun example above, Lionheart is a 1987 film (not to be confused with 1990's Lionheart) that is a dramatized re-telling of the Children's Crusade. It takes place a few years earlier, during the Third Crusade, and stars Eric Stoltz as an exiled knight who comes to lead a band of war orphans.
  • Season of the Witch opens with the main protagonists, two German knights, serving in the Crusades switching back and forth between the Middle-East and Northern Europe until they become disillusioned with the violence. Notably a very late period in time, since it takes place after during the 14th Century where there actually were several minor crusades in the Middle-East after the Ninth one.
  • The soviet epic Alexander Nevsky is about the invasion of Novgorod by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and their subsequent defeat by the titular prince Alexander at the Battle of the Ice.

    Literature 
  • Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Set Free) is a poetic version of the First Crusade; the original version included fantasy elements, which Tasso later suppressed, to no good literary effect.
  • Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (and its various film versions — and the opera by Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan) and The Talisman (and its film version, unimaginatively re-titled King Richard and the Crusaders); the former features characters who have returned from the Third Crusade, the latter is set actually in the crusade itself. King Richard the Lionheart is prominent in both.
  • Jan Guillou's Crusades Trilogy focuses on the life of Arn Magnusson, a Swede who is forced to join the Knights Templar as penance. During his service in the Holy Land during the Third Crusade, he saves the life of and later befriends Saladin, who saves Arn's life in turn and gives him the means to return to his homeland and establish himself as a force to be reckoned with.
  • The Alexiad is a historical account written by Byzantine princess Anna Komnene who recorded the reign of her father Alexius I and also covers the First Crusade from her people's perspective, showing that the relationship between the Greeks and Latins was uneasy at best or downright hostile at worse.
  • Umberto Eco's Baudolino begins in Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.
  • In The Crowner John Mysteries, Sir John de Wolfe is a returned Crusader, and the 15th book Crowner's Crusade is a prequel taking place during his time in the Third Crusade.
  • The second book of Angus Donald's The Outlaw Chronicles bears the title "Holy Warrior", and with a title like that you already know it's the one where series protagonist Alan Dale (along with his master Robin Hood) travel to the Middle East to fight in the Third Crusade.
  • Pagan's Crusade by Catherine Jinks is a young adult novel in which the ironically-named Pagan Kidrouk becomes a squire to one of The Knights Hospitallers in the Third Crusade. (In the sequels, Sir Roland returns to his native France, taking Pagan with him, and they eventually get tangled up in the Albigensian crusade as well.)
  • Piers Anthony's For Love of Evil portrays some of the horrors of the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars of southern France, as does his Tarot trilogy.
  • Throughout the Requiem series of books by Robyn Young, which follows the fall of the Templars, we see the fall of Acre and the attempts of the Templar Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, and Pope Clement V to get another crusade going. They never do.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Derek Jacobi's crime-solving Benedictine monk Cadfael is a veteran of the First Crusade.
  • The 1965 Doctor Who serial "The Crusade" sees the Doctor and his companions land in Palestine during the Third Crusade and encountering both Richard the Lionheart and Saladin.

    Music 
  • Grave Digger's Concept Album Knights of the Cross.
  • Iron Maiden's "Montségur" from Dance of Death is about the siege of the titular fortress during the Albigensian Crusade and the massacre of Cathars that followed its capitulation.

    Tabletop Games 
  • GURPS campaign Banestorm takes place in a Magical Land that has summoned Crusaders and Saracens from this time period, who managed to establish Christianity and Islam and convert most of the local natives into their faiths. The opening quote goes on to say that the Crusades never ended in this universe.
  • Warhammer had a Fantasy Counterpart version. The Skaven (who had been trading services of espionage and assassination for warpstone for the Sultan) convinced Sultan Jaffar (by lying of course) that Estalia is planning to invade Araby and that he should strike first, which he does, conquering the city of Magritta and moving onto Tilea. Two-hundred years of warfare follow in which Bretonnia and the Empire get involved sending thousands of Knights to fight the Arabyans. The Empire's Knights Panther knightly order was founded during the crusades and named after the exotic animal the brought back from Araby. The Skaven disappeared once the tide turns against Jaffar having caused much destruction with not single Skaven casuality.
  • Ars Magica takes place in the year 1220 so the crusades (and Reconquista) are an important background event or perhaps even something the characters themselves will take part in.

    Theater 
  • Nathan the Wise by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing is set in Jerusalem during the Third Crusade, with Saladin as one of the main characters.

    Video Games 
  • Age of Empires II has two campaigns with missions set during the Third Crusade. The Saladin campaign has you commanding the Saracens to drive the Crusaders out of the Holy Land. The last two missions of the Friederich I Barbarossa campaign, meanwhile, cover his ill-fated attempt to join the crusade - in one, the Teuton army must survive the grueling trek through Turkey to a Hospitaller camp, while the finale is an ahistorical effort to invade Jerusalem and bring the emperor's preserved body to the Dome of the Rock (in real life, the plan failed because Barbarossa's crusaders didn't preserve his body properly). The Forgotten expansion adds a standalone battle based on Richard the Lionheart's conquest of Cyprus.
  • Anno Domini 1257 features medieval European kingdoms as the main powers, but also others kingdoms and empires like the the Crusader states (reworked as a single united faction), the Mamluk Sultanate, the Roman Empire of Nicaea, and the Latin Empire (respectively the remnants of the Byzantine Empire post-Fourth Crusade, and the Empire founded by the Crusaders after said crusade) as factions that can be joined or fought against. Also, when playing as a lord in a catholic faction, you can ask to temporarily leave your liege's service by announcing you're going to fight in the Holy Land. The European crusades against North-Eastern Europe pagans are also alluded to in the mod (the map features the Teutonic Knights and natives from the Baltic region as other playable factions).
  • Assassin's Creed:
    • The Animus part of the first Assassin's Creed game is set during the Third Crusade. You play as Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, a member of the third side in the conflict, the Assassins, and an ancestor of modern-day protagonist Desmond Miles. Again, it isn't much of a historic representation of the period, what with those pesky Templars orchestrating the entire thing in yet another of their Ancient Conspiracy schemes. However, if you look past the conspiracy stuff and the reimagining of the Hashashin sect, the game has a surprising amount of historical accuracy.
    • Assassin's Creed II has Desmond unwittingly going through a memory of Altaïr in Acre at the time of the Third Crusade.
    • Assassin's Creed: Revelations has a few memories of Altaïr set during the Third Crusade. There's also the Crusader unit in multiplayer.
  • Crusader Kings is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, especially with Deus Vult expansion. The sequel opens the game's time period, and being an Alternate History game from the second you start playing, the crusades will almost never play out the way they actually did. In fact, you can entreat the Pope to call a Crusade on a non-Catholic realm, or have a rival leader excommunicated and then call a Crusade to take his realm from him. With the Sword of Islam expansion pack, playing as a Muslim leader allows you to call Jihads on any realm with a non-Muslim religion, making them Crusades in all but name. And the Old Gods expansion makes it possible to reform several faiths that historically were marginalized, making them major religions and launching their own holy wars.
    • Europa Universalis IV begins the day after the Battle of Varna and the vacant thrones in its aftermath, as well as lack of allies available to the Byzantines before 1453.
  • Dante's Inferno takes place during the Third Crusade and behavior of crusaders as a major plot point, as Dante was a crusader in his back story.
  • Dragon Age: The Exalted Marches are Thedas' equivalent to the Crusades as holy wars led by the Chantry against their enemies, though technically speaking, the first ever Exalted March preceded the Chantry's foundation as it was carried out by their Jesus-like figure Andraste. These wars were fought against the Dalish Elves (which was an excuse by the newly formed Chantry to annex their territory of the Dales into Orlais), Tevinter several times over theological differences (mirroring the conflict between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy) and the Qunari (who are partly inspired by Muslims, but they are more complicated than that).
  • If you play with a Catholic State in Knights of Honor the Papal States can request/order your best marshall to head a Crusade, and not complying with this decreases your relationship with the Papal States and other Catholic States immensely. If you play with an Islamic State, the moment you become the least bit powerful, or start conflicts with a Catholic State, Crusades will be called against you.
  • Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader is an Alternate Universe take on the Crusades of the 12th century and features appearances from several notable medieval figures who appear to have been born a few centuries earlier in this timeline, from Jehanne D'Arc to Leonardo da Vinci.
  • Medieval II: Total War:
    • Crusades are a core game mechanic, in which The Pope will either on his own initiative, or upon the urging of a favored Catholic kingdom, declare a crusade for a city held by non-Catholics, excommunicated Catholics, or rebels. A general who declares that his army has joined the crusade enjoys a substantial boost to strategic map movement, and can recruit high-morale professional soldiers as well as religious fanatics to fill out his army. But if the crusading army doesn't end a turn closer to the objective, or if the crusading general should die, the army will rapidly fall apart as disillusioned soldiers desert. Joining a crusade is an easy way to earn the Pope's favor, while a Catholic ruler who declines to take part may see Inquisitors in their territory investigating their lack of piety. Muslim factions have a near-identical jihad mechanic, though since they lack a central religious authority, any high-level Imam may declare a jihad if a Muslim ruler wills it.
    • The Kingdoms expansion has two campaigns set during crusades. The Crusades is set in the Holy Land in the aftermath of the First Crusade, and includes the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch, the Turks, the Egyptians, and the Byzantine Empire. The Teutonic campaign is set in the Baltic region, and features the Teutonic Knights, Lithuania, Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Holy Roman Empire, and Novgorod.
  • Stronghold Crusader, with both historical campaigns and a skirmish mode featuring opponents such as Saladin and Richard the Lionhearted.
  • Star Wars: The Old Republic: The background lore details a distant time in the past when the Republic was taken over by an human supremacist cult known as Pius Dea that venerated a deity only known as the Goddess and they fought an series of wars against aliens in general. Initially, they gained great support due to targeting the Hutts since they were launching slave raids into Republic territory, but soon they escalate into an all-out war against all aliens and end up alienating the Jedi Order with their actions. If the parallels with the Crusades weren't obvious enough, their battle cry was "The Goddess Wills It" an parallel with historical Crusader war cry "Deus Vult".
  • Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption features a French Crusader-turned-vampire called Christof Romuald as The Hero, though it takes place in 1141 just before the Second Crusade took place and he is fighting against pagans in Prague.

    Web Animation 
  • Extra Credits program Extra History tackles the First Crusade from its political origins to its bloody climax. It also covers the violent and destructive People's Crusade, a Wacky Wayside Tribe that collapsed into the first mass anti-semitic pogroms in European history.

    Web Video 

    Western Animation 


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