Five Crusader stories
Clermont, Acre, the Knights of Malta, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the city that fell in 1453.
5 questions. Pick an answer to see the explanation. Share your result at the end.
Who called the First Crusade, and when?
Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont on 27 November 1095, offering a plenary indulgence to knights who would travel east to recover the Holy Land. The expedition reached Jerusalem and captured it on 15 July 1099. Richard the Lionheart led the Third Crusade (1189–1192); Alexios I Komnenos's request for aid against the Seljuks was the immediate trigger but he did not call the Crusade himself; Francis of Assisi joined the Fifth Crusade as a peace envoy.
When did the Crusader presence in the Holy Land end?
Acre, the last major Crusader stronghold on the Levantine coast, fell to the Mamluk Sultanate on 18 May 1291 after a six-week siege. The remaining Crusader-held coastal forts surrendered or were evacuated over the following months. The two-century Crusader presence in the Holy Land was over. Jerusalem had been lost to Saladin a century earlier in 1187.
Who gave the island of Malta to the Knights Hospitaller in 1530?
After the Hospitallers' expulsion from Rhodes in 1522 by Sultan Suleiman, they spent eight years searching for a new base. Charles V granted them Malta in 1530 as a hereditary fief in exchange for a nominal annual rent of one Maltese falcon. The Order ruled Malta for 268 years, until Napoleon expelled them in 1798. The 'Maltese falcon' is the historical root of the modern phrase.
Who crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the Romans, and when?
Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne *Imperator Romanorum* in St Peter's Basilica in Rome on Christmas Day, 800. The act was politically contested — the existing Roman Empire, ruled from Constantinople, did not recognise it — and established the principle that Western Christian Europe could have its own emperor. The Holy Roman Empire, which dated itself from this coronation, lasted until Napoleon dissolved it in 1806.
In what year did Constantinople fall to the Ottomans, ending the Byzantine Empire?
Constantinople fell on 29 May 1453 to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II after a 53-day siege. The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, died fighting at the walls. 1204 is the Fourth Crusade sack of Constantinople (the city was recovered in 1261); 1517 is Luther's 95 Theses; 1648 is the Peace of Westphalia.