First Crusade

The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II to regain control of the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Christian Holy Land from Muslims. What started as a minor call for aid quickly turned into a wholesale migration and conquest of territory outside of Europe. Both knights and peasants from many different nations of western Europe, with little central leadership, travelled over land and by sea towards Jerusalem and captured the city in July 1099, establishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the other Crusader states. Although these gains lasted for fewer than two hundred years, the Crusade was a major turning point in the expansion of Western power, and was the only crusade—in contrast to the many that followed—to achieve its stated goal.

Selected sources and further reading

Primary sources

• Albert of Aix, Historia Hierosolymitana
• Anna Comnena, Alexiad
• Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta per Francos
• Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana
• Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum (anonymous)
• Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere
• Raymond of Aguilers, Historia Francorum qui ceperunt Iherusalem
• Ibn al-Qalanisi, The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades

Primary sources online

• Selected letters by Crusaders:
• Anselme of Ribemont, Anselme of Ribemont, Letter to Manasses II, Archbishop of Reims (1098)
• Stephen, Count of Blois and Chartres, Letter to his wife, Adele (1098)
• Daimbert, Godfrey and Raymond, Letter to the Pope, (1099)
• Online primary sources from the Internet Medieval Sourcebook
• Peter the Hermit and the Popular Crusade: Collected Accounts.
• The Crusaders Journey to Constantinople: Collected Accounts.
• The Crusaders at Constantinople: Collected Accounts.
• The Siege and Capture of Nicea: Collected Accounts.
• The Siege and Capture of Antioch: Collected Accounts.
• The Siege and Capture of Jerusalem: Collected Accounts.
• Fulcher of Chartres: The Capture of Jerusalem, 1099.
• Ekkehard of Aura: On the Opening of the First Crusade.
• Albert of Aix and Ekkehard of Aura: Emico and the Slaughter of the Rhineland Jews.
• Soloman bar Samson: The Crusaders in Mainz, attacks on Rhineland Jewry.
• Ali ibn Tahir Al-Sulami (d. 1106): Kitab al-Jihad (extracts). First known Islamic discussion of the concept of jihad written in the aftermath of the First Crusade.

Secondary sources

• Asbridge, Thomas. The First Crusade: A New History. Oxford: 2004. ISBN 0195178238.
• Bartlett, Robert. The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Exchange, 950–1350. Princeton: 1993.
• Chazan, Robert. In the Year 1096: The First Crusade and the Jews. Jewish Publication Society, 1997. ISBN 0827605757.
• Hillenbrand, Carole. The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. Routledge, 2000. ISBN 0415929148.
• Holt, P.M. The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517. Longman, 1989. ISBN 0582493021.
• Mayer, Hans Eberhard. The Crusades. John Gillingham, translator. Oxford: 1988. ISBN 0198730977.
• Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading. University of Pennsylvania: 1991. ISBN 0812213637.
• Riley-Smith, Jonathan, editor. The Oxford History of the Crusades. Oxford: 2002. ISBN 0192803123.
• Runciman, Steven. The First Crusaders, 1095–1131, Cambridge: 1998. ISBN 0521646030.
• Setton, Kenneth, editor. A History of the Crusades. Madison: 1969–1989 (available online).

Bibliographies

• Bibliography of the First Crusade (1095-1099) compiled by Alan V. Murray, Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds. Extensive and up to date as of 2004.

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