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.
Read the full facts →The Crusades were a series of religious wars sanctioned by the Catholic Church, primarily aimed at recovering the Holy Land from Muslim control, between 1095 and 1291. They reshaped the medieval Mediterranean and produced two centuries of Christian-Muslim military conflict.
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