![]() ![]() ![]() There was immediately a dispute among the various leaders as to who would rule the newly-conquered territory, the two most worthy candidates being Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine, and Raymond of St. The kingdom came into being with the arrival of the crusaders in June 1099 a few of the neighbouring towns ( Ramla, Lydda, Bethlehem, and others) were taken first, and Jerusalem itself was captured on July 15. Very soon, however, the participants saw the main objective as the capturing or recapturing of the Holy Land. The First Crusade was preached at the Council of Clermont in 1095 by Pope Urban II, with the goal of assisting the Byzantine Empire against the invasions of the Seljuk Turks. The Mamluk sultans Baibars and al-Ashraf Khalil eventually reconquered all the remaining crusader strongholds, culminating in the destruction of Acre in 1291. The kingdom became little more than a pawn in the politics and warfare of the Ayyubid and Mamluk dynasties in Egypt, as well as the Khwarezmian and Mongol invaders. The kingdom was also increasingly dominated by the Italian city-states of Venice and Genoa, as well as the imperial ambitions of the Holy Roman Emperors. In this period, the kingdom, sometimes referred to as the "Kingdom of Acre", was ruled by the Lusignan dynasty of the crusader Kingdom of Cyprus, and ties were also strengthened with Tripoli, Antioch, and Armenia. Jerusalem itself was lost to Saladin in 1187, and by the thirteenth century the Kingdom was reduced to a few cities along the Mediterranean coast. Socially, however, the "Latin" inhabitants were dominant and the Muslims and eastern Christians were a marginalized lower class.Īt first the Muslim world held little concern for the fledgling kingdom, but as the twelfth century progressed, the kingdom's Muslim neighbours were united by Nur ad-Din Zangi and Saladin, who vigorously began to recapture lost territory. The kingdom had closer ties to the neighbouring Kingdom of Armenia and the Byzantine Empire, from which it inherited "oriental" qualities, and the kingdom was also influenced by pre-existing Muslim institutions. It was, however, a relatively minor kingdom in comparison, and often lacked financial and military support from Europe. ![]() Many customs and institutions were imported from the crusaders' original homelands in Western Europe, and there were close familial and political connections with the West throughout the kingdom's existence. Its kings also held a certain amount of authority over the other crusader states, Tripoli, Antioch, and Edessa. There were also attempts to expand the kingdom into Fatimid Egypt. It extended from Lebanon in the north to the Sinai Desert in the south, and into modern Jordan and Syria in the east. Later kings expanded its size so that at its height in the mid-twelfth century, the kingdom roughly encompassed the territory of modern-day Israel, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. It lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks.Īt first the kingdom was little more than a loose collection of towns and cities captured during the crusade. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Christian kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. For the history of the city, see History of Jerusalem This article is about the Christian kingdom. Roman Catholicism (official), Greek Orthodoxy, Syrian Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism Latin, Old French, Italian (also Arabic and Greek) ![]() The kingdom of Jerusalem and the other Crusader states (in shades of green) in the context of the Near East in 1135. ![]()
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