The Seventh Crusade (1248-1254) was almost exclusively the work of France and its king, Louis IX the Saint. Egypt was again targeted. In June 1249, the crusaders took Damietta for the second time, but were later blocked and in February 1250 they surrendered in full force, including the king. In May 1250, the king was released for a ransom of 200 thousand livres, but did not return to his homeland, but moved to Acre, where he waited in vain for help from France, where he sailed in April 1254.
In 1270, the same Louis undertook the last, eighth Crusade. His goal was Tunisia, the most powerful Muslim maritime state in the Mediterranean. It was supposed to establish control over the Mediterranean in order to freely send crusader detachments to Egypt and the Holy Land. However, soon after the landing in Tunisia on June 18, 1270, an epidemic broke out in the crusader camp, Louis died on August 25, and on November 18, the army, without having entered into a single battle, sailed to their homeland, taking with them the body of the king.
Things in Palestine were getting worse, the Muslims took city after city, and on May 18, 1291, Acre fell, the last stronghold of the Crusaders in Palestine.
Both before and after this, the church repeatedly proclaimed Crusades against pagans (a campaign against the Polabian Slavs in 1147), heretics (see Albigensian Wars, Hussites) and against the Turks in the 14th-16th centuries, but they are not included in the total Crusades.
Historians have different assessments of the results of the Crusades. Some believe that these campaigns contributed to contacts between East and West, the perception of Muslim culture, science and technological achievements. Others believe that all this could have been achieved through peaceful relations and that the Crusades would remain only a phenomenon of senseless fanaticism.
Modern history attaches extremely great importance to the Crusades. In the reconstruction of the new chronology, their role grows even more. They determined further events in Europe and Asia for several centuries.
In traditional history, the crusaders strive to liberate the Holy Sepulcher, which is supposedly located in Palestine, in Jerusalem. But the fact is that during the Crusades there was no city of Jerusalem in Palestine. On the site of modern Israeli Jerusalem there was then a small town of El-Quds. Jerusalem in those years was called Constantinople on the Bosporus. Then they began to call it Constantinople, now Istanbul. Remember, dear reader, at the beginning of the book we talked about the transfer of geographical names. So, the Palestinian town of El-Quds was named Jerusalem only in the 17th century. Therefore, later historians attributed the events of the Crusades to Palestine.
In fact, the Crusades were directed not to Palestine, but to the capital of Byzantium, Constantinople. It was there that the Holy Sepulcher was located. The chronicle directly records: “Dobrynya Yadreikovich came from Constantinople and brought with him a tree from the Holy Sepulcher, and he himself took monastic vows in Khutin near the Holy Savior.”
The real goal of the Crusades was to seize power in Byzantium. For the ideological justification of military campaigns to the East - to New Rome, the idea of "liberating the Holy Sepulcher from the infidels" was put forward. This slogan is well known from documents of the Middle Ages. Supporters of the new chronology only offer to look at it in a new way. In their opinion, in the West, in particular in the theme-provinces of France, Germany, Italy, primary Christianity acquires the features of a cult, well known from the descriptions of “ancient” authors. This is a bacchic orgiastic cult, bacchic holidays, etc. In the East, in particular in Rus', a form of primary Christianity is maintained - more strict, restrained, even partly ascetic.
Over the years, contradictions between “Eastern Christianity” and “Western Christianity” have been brewing. Eastern Christians are declared "infidels." The West declared its recent fellow believers, the eastern themes, “infidels.” And since the eastern themes now controlled Constantinople (Constantinople), in the suburbs of which there was Mount Beinoye, and on the top of this mountain there was the grave of Jesus Christ (“Holy Sepulcher”). In the West, naturally, the main idea of the slogan sounded and found a lively response - to go to war against the “infidels” and liberate the Holy Sepulcher.
That is why the Crusades were directed mainly to Constantinople, that is, to the capital of the empire.
Thus, the West responded to the strengthening of the East with Crusades - military-ideological events. It was a struggle for power in the weakening imperial heart of Byzantium. Thus, the first step was taken in the direction of a religious split within the previously united Christian religion. Roughly speaking, into “Eastern” and “Western” religions.
The accumulated contradictions between the West and the East are resulting in a bloody and protracted war with far-reaching consequences for the entire history of Europe and Asia.
The history of the Crusades today is represented in the form of various wars, which we often date back to ancient times. Thus, the Crusades are reflected in traditional history as the legendary ancient Trojan War. In many documents it is also known as the Tarquinian War, the Gothic War, etc.
In the presentation, for example, of Homer, under the name “Greeks” the West appeared, and under the name “Trojans”, TRC, or TRNA, the East, i.e. Goths, “Mongols”, Turks, Tatars.
This war of the 13th century. n. e. is divided into a whole series of separate bloody wars, which is described, for example, by the supposedly “ancient” Homer and the medieval Procopius.
In the 13th century. the outcome of the Trojan War (Crusades) has not yet been determined - in some battles the West won, in others - the East.
But overall, the victory is tilted in favor of the East. On April 13, 1204, Constantinople was taken and brutally plundered by the Western armies of the Crusaders, but in 1261, under the attacks of the Eastern troops, Constantinople passed into the hands of the armies of the East. The Nicene emperor is placed on the throne. Subsequently, the Nicene dynasty began to lean towards the West. The Eastern armies again had to take Constantinople.
The eastern themes of the Byzantine Empire began to unite around Rus', which later received the name in the West as the Horde Mongol Empire, or Mongolia. The name "Mongolia" translated from Greek means "Great". Mongol Empire means "Great Empire".
In addition to the Russians, the empire included peoples of other nationalities. A multinational state was being formed, surpassing in size the Russian Empire of the 20th century.
This “battle of the nations” will end in 1453 with the complete fall of the moribund old Byzantine Empire and the capture of Constantinople by eastern troops. Thus, in the end, the East won.
| |
The peace concluded between Frederick II and the Egyptian Sultan ensured peace in the East for more than ten years. Although the pope recognized the act of the treaty on his part, he did not cease to cherish the hope of initiating a new crusade and used all measures in his power to collect donations and stir up the idea of holy places among European Christians.
That is why, as soon as the peace period expired, in 1239 a movement began in France and England, led by King Thibault of Navarre, Duke Hugo of Burgundy, the counts of Montfort, Brittany and many others. The emperor assisted the French crusaders, and the pope, fearing that this campaign would only serve to strengthen the imperial party in Jerusalem, now spoke out against the direction of the campaign to the East and indicated another goal: maintaining the Latin Empire in Constantinople. Thus, the goal was twofold depending on the interests of the secular and church parties, and the enterprise was doomed to failure at the very beginning. Some of the crusaders remained faithful to the original plan and went to Syria, others separated and obeyed the instructions of the pope.
Near Acre, French troops united with the Jerusalem troops, but there was no agreement between both, and most importantly, there was a lack of action plan. One detachment set out without the assistance of the Templars and Johannites against the Muslims, but suffered a complete defeat at Gaza, and Count Barsky was killed and Count Montfort was captured. This misfortune was followed by another. Encouraged by the easy success at Gaza, the Muslims decided to take a bold step. It was one of the small rulers of Syria, Annazir Daoud, who attacked Jerusalem, destroyed its fortifications and caused terrible devastation in the city. This could have led to the complete destruction of Christian possessions in Palestine if the Muslim rulers themselves had not been in constant war among themselves, which gave Christians the opportunity to stay in the coastal places they occupied. New reinforcements from England led by Earl Richard, nephew of King Richard the Lionheart, also helped them little. But the general situation seemed so deplorable that there was no point in thinking about large military enterprises. As a result, Richard rejected the offer of local Christians to enter into an alliance with the Damascus emir against the Egyptian Sultan and limited himself to strengthening Acre and Jaffa and renewed the peace treaty with the Sultan in February 1241. Although the French and British did not undertake anything important in the East and did not change there was a state of affairs that had existed before them, but still the renewed peace treaty with the Sultan secured them from the most serious enemy. It is necessary to attribute responsibility exclusively to the Syrian Christians themselves for the upcoming events that so damaged them. In the East, as in the West, the struggle between secular power and spiritual power caused sharp hostility and was accompanied by the formation of parties. The Templars were angry with the Johannites and German knights and attacked their possessions with weapons in their hands. The side of the former was supported by the Venetians - the strongest representatives of the church party. Supporters of the Roman Curia set out to destroy the imperial party in the East and took advantage of the first opportunity to do so. In 1243, Conrad, the heir to the crown of Jerusalem, who had reached adulthood by that time, demanded an oath of allegiance from his eastern subjects. But they contacted Queen Alice of Cyprus and invited her to take over the kingdom of Jerusalem. The imperial party, which owned the city of Tire, could not offer strong resistance to the united troops of the knightly orders and Venetians and was forced to surrender in Tire. In addition, opponents of the imperial party, in order to counteract Frederick and his ally, the Egyptian Sultan Eyyub, entered into an alliance with the Sultan of Damascus and the Emir of Kerak (Annazir Daoud), who had recently taken Jerusalem from the Christians. True, this alliance promised important benefits to the Christians - they again received Jerusalem into their possession, and even without the restrictions that were in the agreement between Frederick and Alkamil, but such benefits turned out to be illusory, since the alliance with the Syrian Muslims could not provide Christians with the powerful Egyptian Sultan , who had followers in Syria and Mesopotamia. The immediate consequence of this rash step was that Sultan Eyyub hired into his service a detachment of Khovarezmians - a tribe that first roamed the Aral Sea and in the 13th century. who achieved great military glory with his wild raids and unbridled courage. The Khovarezmians deployed a detachment of 10 thousand horsemen, which unexpectedly appeared in Palestine, terrifying the population and giving no mercy to anyone. When the enemy approached Jerusalem, Patriarch Robert could not think of anything else but to leave the city and escape to Jaffa. When the Christians remaining in Jerusalem fled the city in fear, a rumor suddenly spread among them that a Christian banner was flying at the gates of the abandoned city. This was an insidious trick of the Khovarezmians, which really deceived many. The fugitives returned to Jerusalem, which they had abandoned, and here they were surrounded by the enemy, who killed up to seven thousand people that day, partly in the city, partly in its environs on the road to Jaffa. Having taken possession of Jerusalem, the wild predators massacred all the Christians there, plundered the churches and did not spare the graves of the kings of Jerusalem. This happened in September 1244, and from then on Jerusalem was finally and forever lost to Christians. When the Palestinian Christians came to their senses from the terrible blow and began to think about means of salvation, the terrible horde of Khovarezmians devastated Bethlehem and headed towards Gaza, where they united with the troops of the Egyptian Sultan. The Muslim allies of the Christians, however, sent help, but it would be too frivolous to expect that the Muslim troops would zealously fight their co-religionists. Therefore, the most reasonable solution in these circumstances would be to provide unprotected places for predators and stay under the protection of the Ascalon fortress until the enemy ceases to find prey in the devastated country and is forced to leave. But at the council of leaders, the opinion of the Jerusalem Patriarch Robert prevailed, who demanded an attack on the army of the Sultan and his allies. The Battle of Gaza on October 18, 1244, when the Christians were abandoned by their allies and when they had incomparably superior forces against them, turned into a complete defeat and was accompanied by either the beating or capture of the entire Christian army. After such a brilliant victory, there could be no doubt that the Syrian alliance directed against Egypt would disintegrate. In 1245, Sultan Eyyub took Damascus and thus again restored the unity of the Muslim state, which was founded by Saladin and supported by Alkamil and Aladil. In 1247, he took Ascalon from the Christians, so that their possessions in Palestine were now limited to Acre and a few other coastal cities. To complete the disasters, at the same time, the Principality of Antioch became the prey of the Mongols. In view of these circumstances, which placed the Christian possessions in the East in an extremely cramped position and threatened to deprive the Europeans of the last fortifications behind which they still held on, there was no doubt left that it was impossible to do without a new and, moreover, extensive crusade undertaken. News of the events in the Holy Land, which reached Europe in a timely manner, made an extremely depressing impression, and yet the idea of a new crusade did not find sincere adherents for a long time. In fact, Europe, apparently, was already tired of the victims it had suffered, and the Pope had more interest in European events, where the struggle between secular power and spiritual power attracted all his attention, than in the state of the Christian cause in Palestine. The intelligent and energetic Innocent IV, encouraging preaching about the crusade and collecting donations for this purpose, more than once pointed out to those who accepted the cross that the fight against the Hohenstaufens was no less pleasing to God than the campaign in the Holy Land and calmly turned the money donated for the crusade into the needs of fighting the imperial troops. It is not surprising that under such circumstances it was difficult to organize a large campaign to Palestine.
In 1248, the crusade of Louis IX took place. It was an enterprise more likely to be explained by the personal character of the king than by the public mood. Those close to him, on the contrary, tried by all means to cool the ascetic ardor of the king and explain to him the futility of new attempts to achieve such a goal, which was clearly unrealizable, especially in view of the fact that other Christian countries, engaged in internal struggle, were cold about a new campaign in the Holy Land. Louis sent the crusader army to the island of Cyprus, spent the autumn of 1248 and the winter of the following year here and, no doubt, under the influence of the advice of the Cypriot king and representatives of the papal party in Palestine, made a fatal decision, which was the source of innumerable disasters. It was precisely, despite the lesson that befell the crusaders in Egypt in 1219, that Louis decided to repeat the attempt of Cardinal Pelagius to “grab the bull by the horns,” that is, to attack the Sultan in his Egyptian possessions. In the spring of 1249, Louis set out with a huge fleet at sea and landed at the mouth of the Nile, losing a significant part of the ships on the way due to sea storms. The landing followed in the same place where the crusaders of the Fifth Campaign landed in 1218, that is, near Damietta. Sultan Eyyub was lying sick in Mansur, and therefore at first Louis was pleased with unexpected successes. Thus Damietta was occupied almost without resistance, and many supplies and weapons were found in it. But in the future, Christians faced a lot of unforeseen difficulties. On the one hand, the events of 1219-1220 were memorable, when the flood of the Nile was the cause of enormous disasters; on the other hand, a long stay near Damietta had a detrimental effect on the discipline of the army and gave time to the Egyptian Sultan to gather fresh forces and disturb Christians with unexpected attacks on their camp. When they began to discuss the plan of action in Egypt, extreme disagreement in opinions emerged. Some voted in favor of first securing the coastline and taking possession of Alexandria, others said that when you want to kill a snake, you must first crush its head, that is, they were of the opinion of marching on Cairo. In Louis's campaign, the same mistake was repeated as was made by Cardinal Pelagius. In November, the French broke camp and went up the Nile. They moved extremely slowly and, as a result, missed the favorable moment that the death of Sultan Eyyub gave them. Approaching the Mansura fortress in December, the crusaders had against themselves not only significant military forces, but also a strong fortification, which could only be taken with the help of siege operations. Until Eyub's heir Turanshah arrived at the scene of hostilities, the crusaders could still count on some success; their great happiness was that, according to the instructions of one Bedouin, they found a ford across the canal that separated them from Mansura, and thus approached the walls of the fortress . The siege work progressed, however, slowly, the Egyptians destroyed and burned with the help of Greek fire what the crusaders managed to build, in addition they made forays and inflicted painful defeats on the besiegers. The king's brother and many French knights and Templars died in these battles. At the end of February 1250, Turanshah arrived at Mansur with new troops from Syria, and the situation of Christians began to take on a serious character. His first task was to move the fleet to the rear of the crusader camp, as a result of which the Christian army found itself cut off from Damietta, from where it received food and military supplies. Egyptian partisan detachments intercepted French caravans, Mameluke detachments began to make daring attacks on the camp. This was accompanied by great troubles for Christians, who began to suffer from hunger, and the unusual heat caused great mortality. In view of these circumstances, Louis decided to pave the way for a retreat to Damietta in April 1250. But this retreat took place under extremely unfavorable conditions and was accompanied by the almost complete extermination of the crusader army. During the retreat, King Louis and his brothers Alphonse of Poitou and Charles of Anjou and with them many noble knights were captured.
A large mass of people were captured and sold into slavery. Celebrating the victory, the Sultan wrote to his governor in Damascus: “if you want to know the number of those killed, then think about the sand of the sea, and you will not be mistaken.” When negotiations began on the ransom of the prisoners, King Louis gave the queen, who was in Damietta, the solution to the issue of his ransom and agreed, without any dispute, to pay a huge sum of up to ten million francs for the release of the knights from captivity. According to the peace treaty with Turanshah, the French pledged to clear Damietta and not resume war for ten years.
Despite the terrible catastrophe that befell the enterprise of Louis IX, despite all the danger in which the Christian possessions found themselves after the victory of the Egyptian Sultan, the news that reached Europe did not make the same impression as it did in the 12th century. The Europeans had faith in the cause of the Crusades and did not want to make any more fruitless attempts. While most of the knights released from Egyptian captivity returned to their homeland, Louis himself went from Damietta to Acre and here began to consider measures to continue the war. But was it possible to do anything decisive when all his appeals were unsuccessful in France and when they decisively refused to go to the East? For another four years, Louis remained in Syria, waiting for reinforcements from Europe, strengthening the fortresses of Acre, Jaffa and Sidon and fighting small battles. At the end of 1252, his mother Blanca, who ruled France in his absence, died, and the general voice of the people demanded that Louis return to his homeland. The king finally yielded to necessity and in the summer of 1254 sailed from Syria.
The fate of Christian possessions now depended solely on the goodwill of the Muslim rulers of Syria and Egypt. One cannot, however, think that Christians were generally deprived of the means for an energetic struggle. In their hands were several cities that conducted large trade and served as intermediaries in the exchange of European and Asian goods; in these cities there was a large population that owned wealth and luxury. Although the fighting strength of the Christians was small, the military institutions and the French detachment left by Louis, with the addition of those crusaders who arrived annually in small numbers from Europe, could inspire some respect among the Muslims. The whole trouble was that Christians had lost the habit of thinking about common interests, and were guided by personal gain, changing their policy depending on random and momentary whims: today they were friends with Muslims, and the next day they went over to the camp of their enemies. The Templars and the Johannites jealously watched each other and often entered into open hostility among themselves. The merchant people who set the tone of life in the Syrian cities were distinguished by great moral depravity and unpleasantly struck the newcomer. The greatest disaster for Syrian Christians was the rivalry between the Italian republics of Venice, Genoa and Pisa and their representatives in the East. The bails of these republics, who had their offices in almost all the cities of Syria, represented a powerful aristocracy, which, with its wealth and influence, overshadowed the feudal rulers and was in constant enmity with them. It can be argued that trading people and commercial interests were the main reason that undermined the existence of Christian possessions. One war between the Genoese and the Venetians, waged in 1256-1258, cost Acre 20 thousand people, in addition, a huge number of ships died in the harbor of Acre and at sea. This war raged almost non-stop in the fifties and sixties of the 13th century. and captivated both the Syrian Christians and the Nicene emperors. Apparently, everyone had forgotten that this struggle only brought closer the final blow that the Muslims were preparing to inflict on the Christian dominions. When the Mongol Khan Gulagu invaded Persia and then conquered Mesopotamia and devastated Syria (1259), some Christians sided with the Mongols and thereby aroused extreme irritation among the Muslims, who could not forgive them for an alliance with their bitter enemy.
The Muslim possessions of Egypt and Syria were again united under the rule of Sultan Bibars, who in his importance and power resembles Saladin. Having set the main goal of his policy to give predominance to Islam and finally destroy European possessions in the East, Bibars did not neglect any means for this and took good advantage of the enmity and opposing currents that he noticed among the Christians themselves. Thus, he did not lose sight of the important events that were preparing in the Nicaean Empire, and entered into friendly relations with Michael Palaiologos, who took Constantinople from the Latins. Thus, he valued peaceful relations with Manfred of Sicily and considered it useful to support the imperial party in the East. The apparent reluctance of European Christians to make new sacrifices for campaigns in the East and the indifference of Syrian and Palestinian Christians to common interests gave Sultan Bibars ample opportunity to assess the comparative advantages of the Muslims and take advantage of the favorable moment to put an end to Christian dominions. In 1262, he undertook his first campaign in Syria and then repeated these campaigns four times over the course of six years. The consequence of his successful wars was that he took Antioch from the Christians, took Caesarea, Arsuf and Jaffa, and devastated the environs of Tire and Acre. It cannot be said that these successes came very dearly to Bibars; not once did he have the united forces of Christians against him, but defeated separate detachments of the Jerusalem and Antioch barons, Hospitalites, Johannites and Cypriot knights. It is difficult to find a more expressive description of the moral and political situation of Eastern Christians than the following words of Bibars, spoken in response to the intercession of Charles of Anjou for his co-religionists: “It is not up to me to prevent the death of the Franks, they are preparing their own destruction, the very last of them destroys what he creates the greatest".
The brilliant successes of Bibars and the desperate pleas for help from Syria once again aroused a significant movement in favor of the crusade. The leader of this movement for the second time was the French King Louis IX. One can be amazed at Louis's persistence in pursuing his cherished goal, despite the hard lesson learned from the First Campaign. Perhaps he could have extended the dominance of Christians in Syria for several years if he had reinforced them with fresh forces, but it was now too late to dream of inflicting a sensitive blow on the Muslims. When in 1270 the French knights, led by the king, his brothers and sons, boarded the Genoese ships, the direct purpose of the campaign, apparently, had not yet been determined. She first became famous in Cagliari (in Sardinia), where a military council took place and where it was decided to march on Tunisia. Externally, this campaign was motivated by the fact that the Tunisian emir showed an inclination towards Christianity and that by attracting him to the fold of the Catholic Church it was possible to acquire an important ally for the subsequent war with the Egyptian Sultan. But in fact, Louis in this regard was the instrument of a clever intrigue, which was probably prepared in Sicily and which had the goal of subjugating Tunisia to the political power of the Kingdom of Sicily, which had recently passed to the French royal house. In any case, the Tunisian campaign was an enterprise that very little met the goals and needs of Christians in the East. It turned out to be so in its consequences. Having landed on the Tunisian coast on July 17, 1270, Louis not only did not meet the willingness of the Tunisian Muslims to accept Christianity, but, on the contrary, he had an enemy in them ready to defend himself. Without starting, however, serious enterprises against Tunisia and waiting for the arrival of Charles of Anjou, the French gave the emir time to gather his strength and improve relations with Sultan Bibars. The only acquisition of the crusaders was the conquest of the Carthaginian fortress, which, however, was of no importance to them. Meanwhile, the Emir of Tunisia began to disturb the Christian camp with attacks, and the unusual African heat produced illness and high mortality. At the beginning of August, the king's son Tristan died, then death overtook the papal legate Bishop Rudolf, and finally the king himself fell into a serious illness, from which he died on August 25. The entire crusading enterprise was upset by this. After several battles with Tunisian troops, finding neither the desire nor important incentives to waste strength on the siege of a tightly defended city, Louis's heir Philip and Charles of Anjou began negotiations for peace. Both parties agreed to the following terms:
1) the Tunisian emir gives freedom to Christians to live in his regions and worship in churches built by them;
2) agrees to pay double tribute to the Sicilian king, compared to the previous one, and pays military expenses.
For their part, the Christian kings pledged to immediately clear the areas of Tunisia they occupied. Most of the knights considered their vow fulfilled and returned to their homeland. Only a small part of the French and Prince Edward of England considered it an obligation to go to Syria.
Although the thunder of the Syrian Christians, Sultan Bibars, died in 1277, this had little effect on the general course of affairs. In the East, in Syria and Egypt, war raged over the possession of the sultanate, and petty feuds, disputes over power, and rivalry between the Templars and the Johannites continued among Christians. Finally, Sultan Kilawun, with a brilliant victory at Gims over his rivals, who relied on the help of the Mongols, again gave unity and importance to Islam. At the same time, he concluded a number of agreements with knightly orders, with the Count of Tripoli and the rulers of Acre, according to which the Christians were guaranteed peace for ten years, ten months and ten days, and they, for their part, pledged not to build new fortifications and to let the Sultan know about the approach new crusaders from Europe to Syria. These agreements, however, were violated, mainly through the fault of Christians. In 1289, a power struggle in Tripoli caused Egyptian troops to besiege and take the city, ending the County of Tripoli. The following year, military men from Acre carried out brutal violence in the neighboring Mohammedan region. The Sultanate demanded satisfaction and declared war on Acre. Acre was a flourishing and populated city, whose inhabitants were distinguished by wealth and exquisite luxury. Christians could deploy up to 20 thousand troops to defend Acre, but unfortunately there was no discipline in the garrison and each leader considered himself entitled to follow his own defense plan. Meanwhile, in March 1291, the Sultan approached the city with huge throwing machines and a strong army. The matter began with small skirmishes under the walls and, although the Christians did not spare their strength and energy, it was foreseeable that they would not be able to hold out against the enemy. In May, King Henry of Cyprus arrived at Acre with a small auxiliary detachment, but he remained here no more than ten days and, seeing that the siege threatened the inevitable fall of the city, he returned to Cyprus, followed by up to three thousand fugitives from Acre. Several times the Egyptians made an attack, destroyed part of the wall and broke into the city. The besieged put together their last efforts, courageously repelled the Muslims and hastily repaired the collapsed wall, but it was clear that Acre would not be able to withstand a new attack. May 18 was the last and decisive thing. The Mohammedans struck the walls of Acre with particular force, broke one of the gates and rushed into the city in thick crowds. Many thousands fell victim to the sword, many women and children were captured and sold into slavery. The Egyptians left no stone unturned in Acre and razed the city to the ground. Although Christians still retained some cities and castles in Syria (Beirut, Sidon, Tire and others), they no longer considered it possible to stay here, and soon after May 18, the Syrian coast was completely free of Christian settlements. The Muslim world seemed to have irrevocably taken possession of Syria, Palestine and Egypt, depriving Christians of all positions in the East.
Seventhcrusade- a military campaign to the East carried out by the French king Louis IX in 1248-1254.
At the beginning of the 13th century, King John of England was involved in ongoing feuds with his barons. This gave his enemy, the French king Louis IX, an excellent opportunity to realize his cherished dream - crusade to the East.
He led two such campaigns - according to official numerology - Seventh And Eighth Crusades .
Known for his piety, he went down in history as Saint Louis IX.
France took a leading position in Europe, but Saint Louis used it only to implement outside his kingdom the ideal of justice and higher order that invariably guided him in domestic politics. His relations with foreign powers were subordinated primarily to the great cause crusade, then the desire to maintain peace among all his neighbors, a desire that is not often found among statesmen.
And here he dominated the king and prescribed his course of action. 8
Seventh crusade was very modest: his army was small and consisted almost exclusively of the French. In addition to Louis IX, the cross was accepted by his three brothers, the counts of Artois, Poitiers and the Duke of Anjou, their wives, as well as Queen Margaret, vowed to accompany the spouses. This example was followed by most of the nobility, including the Duke of Brittany, the counts of Soissons, Blois, Vendôme, Montfort, the king's historiographer, the loyal Joinville and many others. 10
In the 14th century, the French government estimated that from 1248 until his return to France in 1254, Louis spent 1,537,570 livres. This includes money paid for provisions and clothing for the king and his court, fees knights, archers, infantrymen, purchase of horses, mules and camels, hiring and equipping ships, gifts and loans crusaders, the ransom paid for the king when he was captured by the Muslims in April 1250, work to strengthen the fortresses in Holy Land etc.
This amount is six times the royal annual income of 250,000 livres, but it cannot be considered complete, since it is known that Louis subsidized through treaties, gifts and loans about 25% of those who followed him crusaders, for example, to Count Jean of Macon, having bought the county from him for 10,000 livres.
It also does not include money spent on activities such as the construction of a new royal harbor at Aigues-Mortes (on the southern coast of France, in the Gulf of Lyon in the Mediterranean Sea) to accommodate French crusader fleet or the costs of establishing peace and stabilizing the situation in France before leaving for crusade .
270,000 livres were collected by Louis as a tax from his vassals, and the French church collected about 1,000,000 livres more for this campaign, which enabled Louis IX to not need additional funds for the first four years of his campaign.
The total sum was probably something around 3,000,000 livres, or 12 times the king's annual income. At the same time, we must remember about the personal expenses of the large feudal lords who participated in the campaign (such as Alphonse of Poitevin or Charles of Anjou) and knights(such as Jean de Joinville) and their vassals. 
So the total cost crusade Louis IX was much higher than the sums spent by the king himself. In light of all this, it is not surprising that financial issues were a constant concern crusaders of all classes.
Moreover, self-sustaining Crusades you can’t name it: although the amount of loot and trophies could be enormous, its value very rarely compensated for expenses and losses... 9
Louis's plan was not to invade Palestine. This plan was the result of accumulated crusaders military experience: the capture of Palestine was like capturing the tail of a lion, whose claws and fangs remained free, ready to attack.
A wise commander had to cut off the lion's head, that is, the center of the Islamic world, and then the tail, it was believed, would fall off on its own. This center was then Egypt, and it was to Egypt that Louis IX led his army. 5
In particular, Louis studied history Fifth Crusade when in 1218 crusaders attacked Egypt and besieged Damietta, a city at the eastern end of the Nile mouth. The siege lasted eighteen months and the city was taken.
The Egyptian Sultan then offered to exchange all Muslim conquests for holy land, including Jerusalem, for all conquests crusaders in Egypt. Unfortunately, the success kindled the enthusiasm of the papal legate, and he refused the Sultan's offer, ordering soldiers of Christ conquer all of Egypt, even though the Nile was in flood and it was almost impossible to advance further.
Naturally, crusaders suffered a crushing defeat...
Louis reasoned that Damietta was just as important to the Egyptian Sultan now as it was then, and having taken the city, he could exchange it for Jerusalem.
Therefore, the main blow was again supposed to be directed against Egypt and first had to take Damietta by storm.
Two years after accepting the Cross, Louis convened a new parliament in Paris, which approved the departure knights of the cross for June 1248. The Pope sent his blessing to the French monarch and his army, while threatening punishment for those who, having made a vow, postponed their departure to the Holy Land.
On the feast of John the Baptist, Louis, together with his brothers, went to the Abbey of Saint-Denis and received from the hands of the papal legate the pilgrim's staff and knapsack, as well as the oriflamme banner, which had already accompanied him twice. Holy land his predecessors. 10
At the end of the summer of 1248, the French squadron set sail from Aigues-Mortes and arrived in Limassol (Cyprus) on September 22. Louis spent several months in Cyprus, waiting for his brothers and collecting provisions. 
The heavenly climate and prolonged idleness have corrupted crusaders and were not slow to affect the weakening of discipline, and intemperance led to illness. Many began to grumble and repent of the costs incurred, and only generous royal gifts somehow eased the tension. 10
At the same time, Saint Louis, who had a reputation as a fair judge, was also involved in arbitration proceedings here, settling, in particular, the endless disputes between the Templars and the Johannites.
Here, in Cyprus, embassies from near and far began to come to him: Christians from Constantinople, Armenia and Syria came with gifts and requests.
Ambassadors arrived from the “great king of the Tatars” to propose an alliance in the fight against Egypt, which promised completely unexpected and very beneficial combinations for European policy in the East.
To interest the Tatars in accepting Christianity, Louis sent monastic preachers to the “great king of the Tatars” with a gift - a tent-chapel, on the panels of which the Annunciation and other provisions of the Christian faith were depicted. 7
It was decided to start with an attack on Egypt. Louis, true to medieval customs, sent a letter to the Sultan, offering to submit and threatening otherwise a merciless war.
“You know that I am the head of the Christian community. I accept that you are the leader of the Muslims.<...>If I take possession of your country, it will be a gift from above for me. If you defend it in battle, you will be able to rule over me.
I inform you of this and warn you against my troops, which have flooded the mountains and plains, they are as many as the stones on the earth, they are directed against you, like the sword of fate.” (From a letter from Louis IX to the Sultan of Egypt.) 6
Sultan Melik-Negmeddin, son of the late Melik-Kamel, naturally responded in the same tone...
At the beginning of June 1249 crusaders left Cyprus and soon reached the banks of the Nile.
As soon as they were noticed from the towers of the city, the entire coast was covered with Muslim warriors. A council was held on the flagship ship, and most of the barons proposed to refrain from an immediate landing, first waiting for the lagging ships, but Louis did not want to hear about it.
The entire army moved from ships to boats. Louis and his two brothers were in front.
Approaching the shore, the army rushed into the sea with the traditional royal cry: “Montjoie Saint-Denis!” and a battle ensued.
Muslim cavalry raided the ranks several times crusaders, but unsuccessfully. The battle continued all day.
Having suffered heavy losses, the Muslims retreated to Damietta, leaving the sea coast and the northern bank of the Nile in the hands of Christians. We spent in joy crusaders that night in their tents, and the next morning their advance detachment, not meeting anyone on its way, approached the city.
What a surprise it was Knights of Christ, when they discovered that the enemy had left Damietta! Army crusaders she entered the city singing hymns; A thanksgiving prayer was held in a large mosque, which was converted for the second time into the Church of the Mother of God. 10 
The rumor of the fall of Damietta excited all of Egypt. The Sultan ordered the beheading of many of his soldiers who left the city without a fight, but the retreat of the Muslims continued - they were seized by some kind of superstitious fear of the numerous, iron-clad army. As a result knights Saint Louis was not seen by the enemy for several weeks.
Many barons suggested that the king, in the wake of this panic, immediately march on the capital of Egypt. The king, faithful to his knightly In a word, I decided to wait for my brother, the Count of Poitiers, whose army was very late. This delay turned out to be fatal...
As before, in Cyprus, princes and barons quickly forgot military prowess. Since they were promised all the riches of Egypt, they without hesitation spent all the funds from their mortgaged estates on feasts and gambling. The passion for the game took possession of both the leaders and the common people. knights, and sometimes it came to losing the helmet and sword.
“Under the shadow of the banners,” says Joinville, “ Army of the Cross indulged in shameful debauchery." The merchants who delivered food to the army were robbed, there were continuous quarrels in the camp, the king’s authority was not recognized, and even the brothers did not want to listen to him.
Almost no care was taken about guarding the camp, located on the plain, and the Arabian Bedouins, reaching the very tents, attacked the sleeping guards and, having beheaded the sentries, sent their heads to the Sultan.
The Sultan, having retired to Mansur, gathered an army. Reinforcements rushed to him from all the provinces of Egypt. The presence of prisoners who were taken around the cities, the sight of heads displayed on the walls of Cairo and, most importantly, long inactivity crusaders, which was attributed to fear, gradually dispelled the anxiety of the Muslims, and the entire Egyptian people were ready to rise at the call of their master. 10
Meanwhile crusaders they were still waiting for the Count of Poitiers, who was marching with a large army recruited from the southern provinces of France. Immediately after his arrival, a council was convened, at which it was decided whether to go to Alexandria, or directly to Cairo.
The capture of Alexandria presented fewer difficulties and promised more benefits, but Count Robert of Artois, an ardent and enthusiastic warrior, passionately defended the plan to attack Cairo. “If you want to kill a snake,” he said, “crush its head.”
This opinion prevailed, and the army of Christ, consisting of sixty thousand fighters, including twenty thousand cavalry, set off; she was accompanied by a fleet carrying food, luggage and military vehicles along the Nile. 
Leaving the camp on December 7, twelve days later crusaders arrived at the Ashmon Canal and stopped at the very place where the army of John of Brienne once stood. Since the bank was very steep and the channel was deep, crusaders They stood there for several weeks, not knowing how to arrange the crossing.
The enemies used this time by daily raiding the Christian camp, showering them with arrows and roasting them with “Greek fire.”
It was only at the end of February 1250 that the ford was discovered with the help of an Arabian defector. The crossing turned out to be difficult and took a lot of time.
Those who managed to cross first did not want to wait for the others; the impatient Count of Artois rushed into the Saracen camp, and his warriors indulged in unbridled robbery.
The enemy, who at first fled, soon noticed that in front of him was only a small part crusaders. This inspired the Muslims, they turned back, and a fierce battle ensued on the Manzurakh plain, in which the Count of Artois, the Master of the Templars and many French were killed. knights.
Only the crossing of the main forces crusaders led by the king, changed the scales: the battle, which lasted until the evening, ended in victory for the French; but the losses they suffered were enormous. The main thing is that the Muslims managed to block the road to Cairo... 10
The next day camp crusaders was surrounded by countless Muslim forces and the battle resumed with the same fury. Louis appeared wherever it was dangerous; “Greek fire” burned his clothes and the harness of his horse, he himself could barely stay in the saddle from fatigue, but nothing could stop him.
And again the victory remained with the French - but it was, as the day before, only a moral victory, since all the advantages remained with the enemy, and army of the cross Now I had to think not about the Egyptian capital, but about how to get out from under Mansur.
The Muslims, meanwhile, regrouped and counterattacked the weakened forces. crusaders.
The Knights of Christ's food supplies ran out, famine and widespread disease began, and the scorching Egyptian sun caused unbearable suffering. 2
Despair gradually took hold of both commanders and soldiers; Now all they were thinking about was the speedy conclusion of peace.
Negotiations soon began with the new Sultan, Almodam. It was proposed to return Damietta to the Muslims, and in return crusaders demanded unhindered passage and cession of Jerusalem. Almodam agreed to these conditions, but demanded that Saint Louis himself be given as a hostage as a guarantee.
The king agreed to everything, but the barons and knights declared that they would rather accept death than pledge their monarch. Negotiations were interrupted... 10 
Louis was forced to retreat: having put women, children and the sick on ships, the rest of the army decided to fight their way by land. The king was offered to board the legate's ship, but Louis, sick and exhausted, categorically refused, deciding to share the fate of his armies of the cross.
At night, thinking that the darkness would weaken the enemy’s vigilance, taking all precautions, they set off on their journey, but they failed...
The retreat soon turned into a disorderly flight, the fugitives were hunted down like hares, and when dawn broke, almost everyone crusaders either ended up in the hands of the Saracens, or died from their swords.
Those who went down the Nile fared no better: the Saracens guarded them along the river and either drowned them, killed them, or took them prisoner; Only the legate's ship managed to reach Damietta.
The king and the small rearguard he led, to the astonishment of the Muslims, still resisted; but finally this tiny island of the French disappeared into the enemy's abyss: Louis, his brothers and all who fought side by side with them were imprisoned, and the oriflamme and other banners became the victorious trophies of the Muslims. 10
The prisoners were taken to Mansur and placed in different houses; simple ones knights They were imprisoned in a courtyard surrounded by brick walls that could accommodate up to ten thousand people.
Louis endured captivity with true Christian humility; of all his wealth, he saved only the book of psalms and now drew from it his philosophy and mental fortitude.
He was offered freedom with the condition of the return of Damietta and all other cities under Christian rule.
The Christian cities of Palestine do not belong to me,” replied the king. “As for Damietta, God himself gave her into the hands of Christians, and I cannot have her at my disposal.” 10
They began to threaten him with a terrible execution, but even here he remained unshaken. The Sultan tried to obtain from the barons what their master had refused; but those who until recently barely recognized the power of Louis now seemed to live by his thought and his will - they all neglected the exhortations and threats of the Saracens.
As for the ordinary captives, crowded together in the cramped space of one courtyard and not hoping for ransom, they were not required to cede the cities, but were forced to renounce their faith; every night they were taken two to three hundred people to the banks of the Nile, and those who showed persistence died under the blows of swords, and their corpses were carried away by the river...
Nothing depressed the king more than this suffering of his warriors; so he offered to pay 
ransom for all the poor and get your own freedom after everyone else; just as he was the last one left on the battlefield, he wished to be the last one to escape captivity from the enemies.
Months passed. The Nile, having irrigated the fields, returned to its channel, and the French king and his army were still in captivity. Finally, Sultan Almodam spoke of peace.
Now they demanded from Louis four hundred thousand solidi and the return of Damietta. “I am ready to give the city for my liberation, and four hundred thousand solids for the liberation of all captives,” replied the monarch. We decided on this.
The four large galleys that were to go down the Nile housed the barons and knights. The Sultan had left before them and was waiting for the captives in Serenzak, in a wooden palace specially built to celebrate the conclusion of peace. Emirs from Syria arrived here to congratulate the Sultan on his victory, the Caliph of Baghdad also sent his ambassadors; all Muslims blessed him as the savior of Islam.
The young sultan reveled in universal praise and rude flattery, not suspecting that envy had prepared a conspiracy against him and that his hours were numbered. During a feast given in honor of the leaders, several Mamelukes suddenly rushed at the Sultan with drawn swords. Almodam tried to escape, but he was overtaken near the Nile, and here, in full view of the galleys with French prisoners, he was pierced by the assassin's sword.
Following this, many Mamelukes, armed with swords, jumped onto the galleys where the king and the nobles were, and began to threaten them with immediate death.
Fortunately, so far these have only been threats...
The life of the king and his retinue had been in danger since their capture by the Mamelukes. The champagne seneschal Joinville, who accompanied the king on the campaign, later recalled: “There were thirty of them in our galley, with drawn swords and Danish axes. I asked Baldwin of Iblen, who understood in Saracen what they were saying. And he said they were going to cut off our heads...
People crowded around, hurrying to confess to their Trinitarian brother...
But I couldn’t remember a single sin...” 7
The situation remained uncertain for several days, then the victors re-entered an agreement with the king on the terms of the immediate surrender of Damietta and the advance payment of part of the ransom. But even after this, the lives of the prisoners continued to hang by a thread.
Encouraged by the cries of the crowd, many Mamelukes believed that all the Franks should be killed, and only greed for money averted this terrible plan.
The galleys were escorted to Damietta, which was given to the Muslims, Louis paid the amount promised under the treaty, received freedom and on May 14 with his family and a few knights landed at Ptolemais (Palestine).
Louis's first concern upon arriving in Ptolemais was the fate of his fellow captives remaining in Egypt. He immediately sent the due debt to Cairo, but received only four hundred prisoners in return. At the same time a message arrived from France from the Queen Mother; Blanca begged the king to immediately return to his homeland, while the Palestinian Christians begged him to stay with them.
Torn by opposing feelings, the king, despite the demands of the barons, nevertheless decided that his duty was to remain in the East until the complete liberation of the French, who were languishing in captivity under the Mamelukes. This decision upset many of the king’s associates, who did not want to endure the protracted odyssey any longer; they, including both of Louis' brothers, left Ptolemais and returned to France.
The king instructed them to take a letter to their compatriots, telling about victories and misfortunes crusaders calling for help holy land. This letter, however, was not successful... 10
The only thing that helped Louis to some extent was the discord among the Muslims themselves. The Sultans of Damascus and Aleppo offered him an alliance against Egypt to punish the Mamelukes. The king replied that he could not do this because he was bound by a treaty with Egypt.
In turn, he sent an embassy to the Mamelukes, demanding compliance with the terms of the treaty and threatening war otherwise. Two hundred more in response knights were released.
All Muslim rulers in their feuds sought an alliance with the French monarch, and if he had an army, he could still correct a lot of things; but the East provided him with only a handful of warriors, and the West was not going to come to the rescue... 
Because the crusaders wars were no longer fought, pilgrimages resumed. Throwing away their weapons, picking up the knapsack and pilgrim's staff, the barons and knights went to worship places associated with the life of Jesus.
Louis himself visited Mount Tabor, Cana of Galilee, Nazareth; but he did not go to Jerusalem, being convinced that only victory could open the gates of the Holy City for him.
He did not stop negotiations with the Mamelukes and concluded a new agreement with them, according to which Jerusalem and many cities in holy land should have gone over to the Christians, and in return the French pledged to help Egypt recapture Syria. Both armies agreed to meet in Gaza; but the Egyptians did not appear.
After waiting for them for several months, Louis learned that the Sultan of Damascus and the Sultan of Cairo had made peace and entered into an alliance against Christians.
Thus, all treaties with Egypt were violated. It was necessary to focus on strengthening the cities of Jaffa, Caesarea, Ptolemais and Sidon, which were now threatened from two sides. 10
In 1252, Blanca, the mother of King Louis IX, dies in France. When news of his mother's death reached Louis, the king knew it was time for him to return.
In 1254 he returned to France...
The fact that Seventh Crusade ended so shamefully, although he himself was the personification of piety, aggravated the discredit of everything crusader movements.
Louis IX himself felt disgraced. Having lost to the Saracens, he did not want to wage war with Christians and made a strong-willed decision to conclude a final peace with England and end the sluggish war that had lasted since the time of William the Conqueror. 5
Although Crusade Saint Louis was carefully prepared both militarily and ideologically, distinguished by many bold and even heroic actions; some contemporaries of Louis IX considered the very goals of this enterprise erroneous. They were hostile to the campaign, which is aimed at conquering countries with a different faith, even if we are talking about the spread of Christianity there:
“We believe that God was offended because Christians had to sail overseas just to reclaim the inheritance of Christ.”
It seemed that the policy of the King of France was more oriented towards the conquest of Egypt than towards providing conditions that would facilitate the return of the Crusades"
Crusades Nesterov Vadim
Seventh Crusade (1248–1254)
Seventh Crusade
Pope Innocent IV announced a new campaign. The crusaders were led by the French king Louis IX the Saint. Despite the fact that Germany and England did not participate in the campaign, the leaders of the campaign managed to gather about three thousand knights under the banner.
During the Seventh Campaign in Egypt, Damietta was temporarily returned to Christian control (1249) and the fortress of Mansura was conquered. But in the end, just short of reaching Cairo, the expedition failed: in 1250 the king was captured and ransomed for the fabulous sum of 200 thousand livres.
From the book History of the Crusades author Joinville Jean de From the book The Complete History of Islam and Arab Conquests in One Book author Popov AlexanderThe German Crusade and the Campaign of the Nobles In May 1096, a German army of about 10,000 people, led by the petty French knight Gautier the Beggar, Count Emicho of Leiningen and the knight Volkmar, carried out a massacre together with the crusading peasants
From the book History of the Crusades author Monusova EkaterinaThe Last Love of Saint Louis, Seventh and Eighth Crosses
From the book History of the Middle Ages author Nefedov Sergey AlexandrovichCRUSADE With their swords drawn, the Franks scour the city, They spare no one, even those who beg for mercy... Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres. The Pope instructed all monks and priests to preach a crusade to liberate the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Bishops
author2. 1st CRUSADE Clashes between popes and emperors continued for decades, so the crusading movement, organized on the initiative of the pope, initially did not find much response in the German lands. The Emperor and his nobles
From the book History of the Military Monastic Orders of Europe author Akunov Wolfgang Viktorovich12. THE CRUSADE OF KING LOUIS IX THE SAINT (1248-1254) In terms of character, worldview and motivation, the Roman-German Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen and King Louis IX of France (1226-1270) were the complete opposite.
authorThe campaign of chivalry, or the First Crusade itself. Historians traditionally count the beginning of the First Crusade with the departure of the knightly army in the summer of 1096. However, this army also included a considerable number of common people, priests,
From the book History of the Crusades author Kharitonovich Dmitry EduardovichChapter 10 The Seventh Crusade (1248–1254)
From the book Crusades. Volume 2 author Granovsky Alexander Vladimirovich From the book 500 famous historical events author Karnatsevich Vladislav LeonidovichTHE SEVENTH CRUSADE Louis IX the SaintThe French king Louis IX the Saint had a lot of virtues. He was a completely decent person, a capable diplomat and not the worst administrator. Under him, the internal policy of France was quite balanced, the power of the king
From the book Millennium around the Black Sea author Abramov Dmitry MikhailovichFrench King Louis the Saint and the Seventh Crusade The loss of Jerusalem caused the papacy to sound the alarm again. The Council of Lyon in 1245, at the request of Innocent IV, decreed the Seventh Crusade. The organizer of this campaign was the French king
From the book Crusade against Rus' author Bredis Mikhail AlekseevichCrusade against Rus' MOSCOW "ALGORITHM" 2007UDK 94(47) BBK 63.3(2) B 87 Design of the series by G.I. SaukovaBredne M.A.B 87 Crusade against Rus' / M.A. Bredis, E.A. Tyanina. - M.: Algorithm, 2007. - 416 p. - (Ancient history of Rus').ISBN 978-5-9265-0463-4UDK 94(47) BBK 63.3(2)ISBN 978-5-9265-0463-4© Bredis M.A., Tyanina EL.,
From the book The Epoch of the Battle of Kulikovo author Bykov Alexander VladimirovichCRUSADE And at this time, the Turkish power was gaining strength in the south. Macedonia and Bulgaria were subjugated. In 1394, the Turkish Sultan planned an attack on the capital of Byzantium itself. The first step towards this was the blockade of Constantinople. For seven years the Turks blocked
From the book The Gambino Clan. New generation of mafia author Vinokur BorisCrusade Before Rudolph Giuliani arrived in New York, he worked for many years in Washington, holding senior positions in the US Department of Justice. The New York University Law School graduate's career was going well, propelling him
From the Book of God Nobles author Akunov Wolfgang ViktorovichThe Crusade of King Louis IX the Saint (1248-1254) In terms of character, outlook and motivation, the Roman-German Emperor Frederick II and King Louis IX of France (1226-1270) were the complete opposite. Frederick II, born
From the book Templars and Assassins: Guardians of Heavenly Secrets author Wasserman JamesChapter XXII The Seventh Crusade and the rise to power of Baibars The last major crusade was undertaken under the leadership of the French king Louis IX. This happened after the defeat at La Forbie. Louis IX was born in 1214 in the south of France. He was very
Ministry of Education and Science
Russian Federation
Municipal educational institution
Municipal educational institution secondary school No. 22
HISTORY ABSTRACT ON THE TOPIC
"CRUSADES"
"MYSTERIES OF HISTORY"
I've done the work
10th grade student
Malyshev Andrey
Scientific director
Tsvetkova Margarita Arkadyevna
Tver 2009
Introduction……………………………………………………………...1
· Chapter 1 Crusades.................................................... .........3
1.1First Crusade……………………………5
1.2Second Crusade…………………………….6
1.3 Third Crusade…………………………….7
1.4The Fourth Crusade………………………...7
1.5Children's Crusade……………………………...8
1.6Fifth Crusade……………………..............8
1.7Sixth Crusade……………………………9
1.8Seventh and eighth crusades......................9
1.9 Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders......................10
· Chapter 2 Albigensian Wars……………………………...12
· Chapter 3 The fate of the orders during the Crusades...15
3.1 Teutonic Order……………………………………15
3.2 Templars………………………………………………………18
3.3 Ioannites……………………………………………………….19
Conclusion………………………………………………………………… ……………..22
References……………………………………………………..23
INTRODUCTION
Trace the formation and development of the crusaders and their influence on the historical process.
1. Find out the reasons, goals and objectives of the crusades in the West and East, including in Russia until the twentieth century.
2. Follow the fate of orders in the modern world.
When studying history, we often come across such concepts as “Teutonic Order”, “Order of the Swordsmen”, “Crusaders”. And last year, the sensational bestsellers by D. Brown “The Da Vinci Code”, “Illuminati”, “Templars” and “Holy Blood”, “The Holy Grail” by Michael Baigent appeared.
Who are these people, what are the mysteries behind them? Why is our history and literature connected with the times of the Crusades?
The goal of these military-religious expeditions of Western Europeans to the Middle East was the conquest of Holy places associated with the earthly life of Jesus Christ - Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulcher.
Chapter 1 Crusades
Let's look into the distant past...
Let's flood the fields with a stream of enemy blood,
Or our honor is forever disgraced!
And he will prepare glory, honor and happiness
For those returning, their native country.
The poet-crusader thus expressed his faith in the righteousness of the peasants and hatred of infidels.
CRUSADES, campaigns (1096-1270) in the Middle East (Syria, Palestine, North Africa), organized by Western European feudal lords and the Catholic Church under the banner of the struggle against the “infidels” (Muslims), the liberation of the Holy Sepulcher and the Holy Land (Palestine ). The 1st Crusade (1096-99) ended with the capture of Jerusalem from the Seljuks by the crusaders and the formation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The 2nd (1147-49, occasioned by the capture of Edessa by the Seljuks in 1144) and the 3rd (1189-92, occasioned by the conquest of Jerusalem in 1187 by Salah ad-din) were ineffective. The 4th Crusade (1202-04), organized on the initiative of Pope Innocent III, was directed (mainly through the efforts of the Venetian merchants) against Byzantium, on part of whose territory, after the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders, the Latin Empire (1204-61) was created. The last campaigns - the 5th (1217-21), 6th (1228-29), 7th (1248-54), 8th (1270) - did not play a significant role. With the transfer of Acre to the Muslims (1291), the crusaders completely lost their possessions in the East.
Crusades are often called the campaigns of German feudal lords in the 12th and 13th centuries. against the Slavs and other Baltic peoples, as well as the Albigensian Wars.
CRUSADES (1096-1270), military-religious expeditions of Western Europeans to the Middle East with the aim of conquering Holy places associated with the earthly life of Jesus Christ - Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulcher.
Prerequisites and start of hikes
The prerequisites for the Crusades were: traditions of pilgrimages to Holy Places; a change in views on war, which began to be considered not a sinful, but a good deed if it was waged against the enemies of Christianity and the church; capture in the 11th century the Seljuk Turks of Syria and Palestine and the threat of capture by Byzantium; the difficult economic situation of Western Europe in the 2nd half. 11th century
On November 26, 1095, Pope Urban II called on those gathered at the local church council in the city of Clermont to recapture the Holy Sepulcher captured by the Turks. Those who took this vow sewed crosses from rags onto their clothes and therefore were called “crusaders.” To those who went on the Crusade, the Pope promised earthly riches in the Holy Land and heavenly bliss in case of death, they received complete absolution, they were forbidden to collect debts and feudal obligations during the campaign, their families were under the protection of the church.
1.1 First Crusade
In March 1096, the first stage of the First Crusade (1096-1101) began - the so-called campaign of the poor. Crowds of peasants, with families and belongings, armed with anything, under the leadership of random leaders, or even without them at all, moved east, marking their path with plunder (they believed that since they were soldiers of God, any earthly property belonged to them) and Jewish pogroms (in their eyes, the Jews from the nearest town were the descendants of the persecutors of Christ). Of the 50 thousand troops of Asia Minor, only 25 thousand reached, and almost all of them died in the battle with the Turks near Nicaea on October 25, 1096.
In the autumn of 1096, a knightly militia from different parts of Europe set out, its leaders were Godfrey of Bouillon, Raymond of Toulouse and others. By the end of 1096 - beginning of 1097, they gathered in Constantinople, in the spring of 1097 they crossed to Asia Minor, where, together with Byzantine troops, they began the siege of Nicaea, They took it on June 19 and handed it over to the Byzantines.
Further, the path of the crusaders lay in Syria and Palestine. On February 6, 1098, Edessa was taken, on the night of June 3 - Antioch, a year later, on June 7, 1099, they besieged Jerusalem, and on July 15 captured it, committing a brutal massacre in the city. On July 22, at a meeting of princes and prelates, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was established, to which the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch and (from 1109) the County of Tripoli were subordinate. The head of state was Godfrey of Bouillon, who received the title “Defender of the Holy Sepulcher” (his successors bore the title of kings). In 1100-1101, new detachments from Europe set off for the Holy Land (historians call this a “rearguard campaign”); The borders of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were established only in 1124.
There were few immigrants from Western Europe who permanently lived in Palestine; spiritual knightly orders played a special role in the Holy Land, as well as immigrants from the coastal trading cities of Italy who formed special privileged quarters in the cities of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
1.2 Second Crusade
After the Turks conquered Edessa in 1144, the Second Crusade (1147-1148) was declared on December 1, 1145, led by the King of France Louis VII and the German King Conrad III and which turned out to be inconclusive.
In 1171, power in Egypt was seized by Salah ad-Din, who annexed Syria to Egypt and in the spring of 1187 began a war against Christians. On July 4, in a battle that lasted 7 hours near the village of Itin, the Christian army was defeated, in the second half of July the siege of Jerusalem began, and on October 2 the city surrendered to the mercy of the winner. By 1189, several fortresses and two cities remained in the hands of the crusaders - Tire and Tripoli.
1.3 Third Crusade
The campaign was led by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, the kings of France, Philip II Augustus, and the kings of England, Richard I the Lionheart. On May 18, 1190, the German militia captured the city of Iconium (now Konya, Turkey) in Asia Minor, but on June 10, while crossing a mountain river, Frederick drowned, and the demoralized German army retreated. In the fall of 1190, the crusaders began the siege of Acre, the port city and sea gate of Jerusalem. Acre was taken on June 11, 1191, but even before that Philip II and Richard quarreled, and Philip sailed to his homeland; Richard launched several unsuccessful attacks, including two on Jerusalem, concluded an extremely unfavorable treaty for Christians with Salah ad Din on September 2, 1192, and left Palestine in October. Jerusalem remained in the hands of Muslims, and Acre became the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
1.4 Fourth Crusade. Capture of Constantinople
In 1198, a new, Fourth Crusade was announced, which took place much later (1202-1204). It was intended to strike Egypt, to which Palestine belonged. Since the crusaders did not have enough money to pay for ships for the naval expedition, Venice, which had the most powerful fleet in the Mediterranean, asked for help in conquering the Christian (!) city of Zadar on the Adriatic coast, which happened on November 24, 1202, and then prompted the crusaders march on Byzantium, the main trading rival of Venice, under the pretext of intervening in dynastic feuds in Constantinople and uniting the Orthodox and Catholic churches under the auspices of the papacy. On April 13, 1204, Constantinople was taken and brutally plundered. Part of the territories conquered from Byzantium went to Venice, and on the other part the so-called Latin Empire was established. In 1261, the Orthodox emperors, who had established themselves in Asia Minor, which was not occupied by Western Europeans, with the help of the Turks and Venice's rival Genoa, again occupied Constantinople.
1.5 Children's Crusade
In view of the failures of the crusaders, the belief arose in the mass consciousness of Europeans that the Lord, who did not give victory to the strong but sinful, would grant it to the weak but sinless. In the spring and early summer of 1212, crowds of children began to gather in different parts of Europe, declaring that they were going to liberate Jerusalem (the so-called children's crusade, not included by historians in the total number of Crusades). The church and secular authorities treated this spontaneous explosion of popular religiosity with suspicion and did their best to prevent it. Some of the children died on the way through Europe from hunger, cold and disease, some reached Marseilles, where clever merchants, promising to transport the children to Palestine, brought them to the slave markets of Egypt.
1.6 Fifth Crusade
The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221) began with an expedition to the Holy Land, but, having failed there, the crusaders, who did not have a recognized leader, transferred military operations to Egypt in 1218. On May 27, 1218, they began the siege of the fortress of Damietta (Dumyat) in the Nile Delta; The Egyptian sultan promised them to lift the siege of Jerusalem, but the crusaders refused, took Damietta on the night of November 4-5, 1219, tried to build on their success and occupy all of Egypt, but the offensive floundered. On August 30, 1221, peace was concluded with the Egyptians, according to which the soldiers of Christ returned Damietta and left Egypt.
1.7 Sixth Crusade
The Sixth Crusade (1228-1229) was undertaken by Emperor Frederick II Staufen. This constant opponent of the papacy was excommunicated from the church on the eve of the campaign. In the summer of 1228, he sailed to Palestine, thanks to skillful negotiations, he concluded an alliance with the Egyptian Sultan and, in return for help against all his enemies, Muslims and Christians (!), received Jerusalem without a single battle, which he entered on March 18, 1229. Since the emperor was under excommunication, the return of the Holy City to the fold of Christianity was accompanied by a ban on worship there. Frederick soon left for his homeland; he had no time to deal with Jerusalem, and in 1244 the Egyptian Sultan again and finally took Jerusalem, carrying out a massacre of the Christian population.
1.8 Seventh and Eighth Crusades
The Seventh Crusade (1248-1254) was almost exclusively the work of France and its king, Louis IX the Saint. Egypt was again targeted. In June 1249, the crusaders took Damietta a second time, but were later blocked and in February 1250 the entire force, including the king, surrendered. In May 1250, the king was released for a ransom of 200 thousand livres, but did not return to his homeland, but moved to Acre, where he waited in vain for help from France, where he sailed in April 1254.
In 1270, the same Louis undertook the last, Eighth Crusade. His goal was Tunisia, the most powerful Muslim maritime state in the Mediterranean. It was supposed to establish control over the Mediterranean in order to freely send crusader detachments to Egypt and the Holy Land. However, soon after the landing in Tunisia on June 18, 1270, an epidemic broke out in the crusader camp, Louis died on August 25, and on November 18, the army, without having entered into a single battle, sailed to their homeland, taking with them the body of the king.
Things in Palestine were getting worse, the Muslims took city after city, and on May 18, 1291, Acre fell - the last stronghold of the Crusaders in Palestine.
Both before and after this, the church repeatedly proclaimed crusades against pagans (a campaign against the Polabian Slavs in 1147), heretics (see Albigensian Wars, Hussites) and against the Turks in the 14th-16th centuries, but they are not included in the total number of crusades .
1.9 CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE BY THE CRUSADERS (1204)
10. A few days later the Latins, seeing that no one was resisting them from land, moved closer to the shore. The cavalry retreated further from the sea, and the ships headed into the bay. After that, some from land, others from the sea began to besiege the tower, to which a heavy iron chain was attached, which was raised in the event of an attack by the enemy fleet.
At the same time, some of ours fled after short-term resistance, others were killed or captured; others descended on a chain, like a rope, onto our ships; many, not having time to grab hold of it, were thrown into the sea. Having broken the chain, the entire enemy fleet moved forward: some of our ships were captured, while others, driven to the shore and abandoned by their people, were destroyed. Disasters appeared in such diverse forms that hardly anyone’s mind could fully comprehend them. All this happened in the month of July 6711 (1203).
3. After that (i.e. after the flight of Constantine Laskaris), the enemy saw beyond all expectation that no one was coming against him with weapons in their hands and no one was resisting: on the contrary, everything remained wide open, alleys and intersections were not protected, nowhere the slightest danger and complete freedom for the enemy. The inhabitants of the city, abandoning themselves to fate, came out to meet the Latins with crosses and holy images of Christ, as is done on solemn and festive occasions; but this spectacle did not soften the souls of the Latins, did not touch them and did not tame their gloomy and furious spirit: they did not spare not only private property, but, drawing their swords, robbed the shrines of the Lord and with the sound of trumpets encouraged the horses to go forward... About the plunder of the main thing temple [St. Sofia] cannot be listened to indifferently. The holy lecterns, woven with jewels and of extraordinary beauty that led to amazement, were cut into pieces and divided among the soldiers along with other magnificent things. When they needed to remove sacred vessels from the temple, objects of extraordinary art and extreme rarity, silver and gold with which the pulpits, pulpits and gates were lined, they brought mules and horses with saddles into the vestibules of the temples; the animals, frightened by the shiny floor, did not want to enter, but they beat them and thus desecrated the sacred floor of the temple with their feces and blood.
4... It was very difficult to soften with prayers and appease the barbarians, irritated and filled with bile to the point that nothing could withstand their rage; if anyone made such an attempt, they considered him crazy and laughed at him. Anyone who contradicted them in any way or refused their demands was threatened with a knife; and there was no one who did not cry that day. At crossroads, in alleys, in churches - complaints and
crying, sobs, groans, cries of men, howls of women, robberies, adultery, captivity, separation of friends. The noble were covered with dishonor, the elders wept, the rich wandered around robbed. All this was repeated in squares, in nooks and crannies, temples, and basements. There was no place that remained untouched or could serve as a refuge for the sufferers. Disasters spread everywhere...
2. When they began to divide provinces and cities by lot, they discovered the senselessness, not to say the stupidity, of people inflated with amazing arrogance. Looking at themselves as reigning kings and as if holding the universe in their right hand, the Latins sent people throughout the Greek provinces in order to divide them by lot based on annual income.
Results of the Crusades
Chapter 2 ALBIGOIAN WARS
ALBIGOIAN WARS 1209-29, crusades undertaken by northern French knights in the south of France against the Albigensians, initiated by the papacy. At the end of the wars, the French king Louis VIII joined the crusaders with his troops. The Albigensians were defeated and part of the County of Toulouse was annexed to the royal domain.
At the end of the 11th - beginning of the 12th centuries. in the south of France in Languedoc and especially the county of Toulouse, the heresy of the Cathars, also called Albigensians, spread. The Albigensian heresy was popular among the lower strata of the population, especially among townspeople; it was also supported by the local nobility in an effort to resist the centralizing intentions of the French kings.
The papacy tried to fight against the Albigensians from the beginning of the 12th century: they were excommunicated in 1119, 1139 and 1163; in 1185 the church even made an unsuccessful attempt to organize a crusade against them. A decisive attack on the Albigensians was launched by Pope Innocent III, a supporter of strict centralization of the church, including in matters of faith. In 1204, he demanded from Count Raymond VI of Toulouse a decisive fight against heretics in his lands. Raymond VI, who patronized the Cathars, did not directly refuse, but did not agree either. In 1207, Innocent called upon Raymond's overlord, King Philip II Augustus of France, to carry out the sentence of the church against heretics. Busy with the war with England and fearing a fight on two fronts, Philip refused. On January 15, 1208, in Toulouse, the squire of Raymond VI killed the papal legate. At the beginning of 1209, the Pope declared a crusade against the Albigensians and Raymond VI, who supported them, although he repented for this murder.
The campaign began in June 1209. The bulk of the crusader army consisted of barons and knights of Northern France. The papal legate Arnaud Amaury was appointed leader of the campaign. In July, the crusaders besieged the city of Beziers. On the eve of the assault, the soldiers turned to the legate with the question of how to distinguish heretics from Catholics, of whom there were also many in besieged Beziers. Amaury replied: “Kill everyone! The Lord will separate his own.”
Among the crusaders, Simon de Montfort, a petty feudal lord from Ile-de-France, famous for his piety and inexorability, stood out. He became the military leader of the crusaders. The war was fought with incredible ferocity. Most of Languedoc was conquered by 1215, the bulk of these lands were received by Simon de Montfort. At the Lateran Council, despite 
resistance from the pope himself, Raymond VI was sentenced to exile, his son, Raymond VII, received a small share of his father's possessions.
The brutal regime established by the crusaders in Languedoc caused widespread outrage. Raymond VII, supported by the population and England, invaded his father's possessions and returned almost all of them. The new campaign, led by the son of Philip Augustus, the future Louis VIII, was unsuccessful. Simon de Montfort died on June 25, 1218 while trying to recapture Toulouse. By 1223 almost the entire south was in the hands of the Cathars.
Raymond VII tried to reconcile with the pope, but this did not happen and on January 28, 1226 he was excommunicated. The heir of Simon de Montfort transferred his possessions to France, and in the same year Louis VIII began a new crusade, which ended, despite the death of the French king, with the defeat of the southerners. In 1229, Raymond signed a treaty according to which he was left with part of his county, subject to a tough fight against heretics. This is considered the end of the Albigensian Wars. However, the persecution of heretics and Catholics who tolerated them caused an uprising in 1240, suppressed by Louis IX (the crusade was no longer declared).
The Albigensian Wars led to the inclusion of the south into the French kingdom, the destruction of the original southern French civilization, and served as one of the reasons for the establishment of the Inquisition.
Chapter 3 THE FATE OF ORDERS DURING THE CRUSADES
3.1 TEUTONIAN ORDER
TEUTONIC ORDER (German Order) (Latin Ordo domus Sanctae Mariae Teutonicorum, German Deutscher Orden), a German spiritual knightly order founded in the 13th century. military-theocratic state in the Eastern Baltic. In 1190 (during the siege of Acre during the Third Crusade), merchants from Lübeck founded a hospital for German crusaders, which in 1198 was transformed into a knightly order. The main task of the order was to be the fight against paganism and the spread of Christianity.
The distinctive sign of the knights of the Teutonic Order is a black cross on a white cloak. Under the fourth master Hermann von Salza (d. 1239), a close associate of Emperor Frederick II, the Teutonic Order received the same privileges as other knightly orders. In 1211-25, the knights of the Teutonic Order tried to gain a foothold in Transylvania (Kingdom of Hungary), but were expelled by King Endre II. In 1226, the Polish Duke Konrad of Mazovia invited them to the Chelmin (Kulm) land to fight the pagan Prussians. The conquest of the Prussians and Yatvingians, begun in 1233, was completed in 1283; two large uprisings of the Prussian tribes (1242-49 and 1260-74) were brutally suppressed. In 1237, the Teutonic Order was joined by the remnants of the Order of the Sword, which had suffered defeat from the Russians and Lithuanians shortly before. As a result of this unification, a branch of the Teutonic Order was formed in Livonia and Courland - the Livonian Order. After the subjugation of Prussia, regular campaigns against pagan Lithuania began. In 1308-1309, the Teutonic Order captured Eastern Pomerania with Gdansk from Poland. In 1346, the Danish king Valdemar IV ceded Estland to the order. In 1380-98 the order subjugated Samogitia (Zhmud), thus uniting its possessions in Prussia and Livonia, in 1398 it captured the island of Gotland, and in 1402 it acquired the New Mark.
The order consisted of full-fledged brother knights who took three monastic vows (chastity, poverty and obedience),
brothers-priests and half-brothers. At the head of the order was a Grand Master elected for life, who had the rights of an imperial prince. Under him there was a council of five highest dignitaries. The Order had extensive possessions in Germany; its territorial branches were headed by landmasters (Livonian, German). The residence of the Grand Master was in Acre until 1291; after the fall of the last possessions of the Crusaders in the Middle East, it was moved to Venice, and in 1309 - to Marienburg (modern Polish Malbork).
During the conquest of Prussia and in campaigns against the Lithuanians, the order was assisted by secular knighthood (from Germany and other countries). German colonists arrived in the conquered lands. The surviving Prussian population by the 17th century. was completely assimilated. Prussian and Livonian cities (Gdansk, Elbląg, Torun, Königsberg, Revel, Riga, etc.) were members of the Hansa. The Teutonic Order received large incomes from trade and customs duties (the mouths of the Vistula, Neman and Western Dvina were in the hands of the knights).
The threat from the Teutonic Order led to the establishment of a dynastic union between Poland and Lithuania (Union of Krevo 1385). In the “Great War” of 1409-11, the Teutonic Order was defeated at Grunwald (see Battle of Grunwald) by the combined forces of Poland and the Principality of Lithuania. According to the Peace of Torun of 1411, he, having abandoned Samogitia and the Polish Dobrzyn land, paid an indemnity.
The economic policy of the Teutonic Order and its restriction of the rights of the estates caused discontent among the townspeople and secular knighthood. In 1440, the Prussian Union arose, which in 1454 raised an uprising against the Teutonic Order and turned to the Polish king Casimir IV for help. Having been defeated in the Thirteen Years' War of 1454-66, the Teutonic Order lost Gdansk Pomerania, Torun, Marienburg, Elblag, the bishopric of Warmia and became a vassal of the Kingdom of Poland. The residence of the Grand Master was moved to Konigsberg. The Livonian Order actually became independent. In 1525, Master Albrecht of Brandenburg, having converted to Protestantism, on the advice of Martin Luther, secularized the lands of the Teutonic Order in Prussia, turning them into a secular duchy. The Landmaster of the possessions of the Teutonic Order in Germany was elevated to the rank of Grand Master by Emperor Charles V.
The German lands of the Teutonic Order were secularized at the beginning of the 19th century, and the order itself was dissolved by Napoleon's decree in 1809. Restored by the Austrian Emperor Francis I in 1834. Currently, members of the Teutonic Order are mainly engaged in charitable activities and research in the field of the history of the order. The residence of the Grand Master is located near Vienna.
3.2 TEMPLAR
TEMPLIERS (templars) (from Latin templum, French temple - temple), spiritual knightly order of the Temple of Solomon. Founded by Hugh of Payen in 1118 on the supposed site of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, in contrast to the Johannites, as an exclusively military organization. The order owes its growth to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who recruited supporters for the Templars and in his essay “In the Glory of the New Army” compared them with Christ, who expelled the merchants from the Temple.
Having acquired considerable funds in the Crusades and through numerous donations, the Templar Order became one of the richest spiritual institutions in Western Europe and was the first to master the then new banking services - deposits and transactions, which was facilitated by an extensive network of order houses and significant military potential that guaranteed safe storage. After the loss of Christian possessions in Palestine in 1291, the order moved to Paris; Conflicts soon arose with the French king, who sought to use the financial resources of the Templars in his own interests. In 1307, Philip IV ordered the arrest of all French Templars, and in 1312 he forced the pope to dissolve the order. The last Supreme Master was burned at the stake on charges of heresy. Some of the Templars joined the Portuguese Order of Christ, specially founded in 1319. The accusations fabricated by French lawyers became the source of the later mythologization of the Templars, which was greatly facilitated by the closeness of the order and the custom of keeping its internal structure in the strictest confidence.
The symbol of the Templars was a red cross on a white cloak.
3.3 JOHNITES
JOHNITIES (Hospitaliers, Order of Malta, Knights of Rhodes), spiritual knightly order of St. John (first of Alexandria, later John the Baptist) at the hospital in Jerusalem. Founded around 1070 as a brotherhood serving pilgrims and the infirm (hence the name Hospitallers). Around 1155 they received the charter of a spiritual knightly order, modeled on the Templars. The central hospital in Jerusalem at the end of the 12th century. served more than one and a half thousand patients, it had a maternity ward and a shelter for infants. Gradually, the responsibilities of caring for pilgrims and the infirm were transferred to the “serving brothers” (sergeants) and order priests. The top of the order consisted of knights, mostly the younger scions of noble families, busy
exclusively in military matters. In 1291, with the loss of Christian possessions in Palestine, the Johannites moved to Cyprus, in 1310 they conquered Rhodes from Byzantium, but under the pressure of the Turks in 1522 they left it, and in 1530 they received Malta as a fief from the German Emperor Charles V, which they owned until 1798 In addition to the island states, the Johannites also owned two independent territories in Germany: Heitersheim and Sonnenburg.
Contacts with Russia date back to the end of the 17th century, when a special envoy of Peter I, boyar B.P. Sheremetev, was sent to Malta. He became the first Russian to receive the insignia of the order. During the reign of Catherine II, the order and Russia concluded a military alliance against Turkey, Russian officers underwent training on the ships of the order. And some knights took part in hostilities on the side of the Russians. Count de Litta became especially famous. At the court of Paul I, Count de Litta appeared as an admiral of the Russian fleet in 1796 to establish the priory of the order in the Russian Empire. Order insignia were presented to Paul I, including the gift of the ancient cross of the Grand Master, which was never returned to the order (now in the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin). On January 4, 1797, the order and the Russian Tsar signed a convention on the establishment of two priories in Russia - a Catholic one on the territory of Russian Poland and an Orthodox one in Russia itself. The Order received great rights and monetary income in Russia. In 1798, the island of Malta was captured by Napoleon's troops and the knights were expelled from the island. The Russian cavaliers and dignitaries of the order, led by the same de Litta, decided to remove their Grand Master and ask Emperor Paul to accept this title. The insignia of the order was included in the coat of arms and state seal of the Russian Empire, and the sovereign included the title of Grand Master in his official title. 50 thousand serfs with lands, in addition to other houses and possessions, were given by Paul to the income of the order. Each nobleman with three thousand income could establish a commandery of the order with the approval of the emperor, assigning a tenth of the income to the order's treasury. In addition, Paul also established the institute of honorary commanders and holders of the order (crosses were worn on the neck and in the buttonhole, respectively), as well as two classes of the order for awarding women.
In 1801, Malta passed from the French to the British and Paul, offended that England was not going to return the island to the knights, began to prepare for war, but was killed.
Immediately after ascending the throne, Alexander I declared himself the patron of the order (protector), but its signs were removed from the Russian coat of arms and seal. In 1803, Alexander resigned his title of protector; in 1817, the order was abolished in Russia.
After much ordeal, the order's regalia were made anew in 1879.
Currently, the Johannites occupy the Palazzo di Malta in Rome and maintain diplomatic relations with a number of countries.
The symbol of the Johannites is an eight-pointed white cross (Maltese) on a black (from the 13th century red) jacket and cloak.
Conclusion
Results of the Crusades
Historians have different assessments of the results of the Crusades. Some believe that these campaigns contributed to contacts between East and West, the perception of Muslim culture, science and technological achievements. Others believe that all this could be achieved through peaceful relations, and the Crusades would remain only a phenomenon of senseless fanaticism.
 |
Consequences of the Crusades for European countries
Bibliography
1. Skazkin S.D. – From the history of the socio-political and spiritual life of Western Europe in the Middle Ages: materials of scientific heritage, M. 1981.
2. Samarkin V.V. – Historical geography of Western Europe in the Middle Ages – 1996.
3. Yastrebitskaya A.L. – Western Europe XI – XIII centuries, M. 1988.
4. World History volume 7 - Early Middle Ages, M. 2001.
5. New school encyclopedia. World History, M. 2003.
6. Encyclopedic Dictionary of a Young Historian. General history, M. 2001.
7. http:/www.hsono.ru/ - chronological and synchronistic tables, reference materials on World History.
8. Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius.