The Siege of Jerusalem 1099: The Climax of the First Crusade

The siege of Jerusalem in 1099 was the climactic event of the First Crusade, and it was one of the most dramatic and controversial episodes in the history of the Crusades. The siege was conducted by the Crusaders in June and July 1099, and it culminated in the capture of the city on July 15, 1099. The capture of Jerusalem was followed by a massacre of the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants that has been a source of controversy and debate ever since. The siege is a defining moment in the history of Christendom and the Islamic world, and it has been a subject of extensive historical and literary treatment.

The standard English-language treatment is Thomas Asbridge, “The First Crusade: A New History” (2004). The contemporary accounts (Raymond of Aguilers, Fulcher of Chartres, the Gesta Francorum) are the primary sources, with the modern editions in the Recueil des historiens des croisades.

The Approach to Jerusalem

The approach to Jerusalem was the final stage of the First Crusade, and it was marked by great hardship and suffering. The Crusaders had marched from Constantinople across Asia Minor, had besieged and captured Nicaea in 1097, had won a decisive victory at the Battle of Dorylaeum in 1097, had besieged and captured Antioch after a long siege in 1097–1098, and had defeated a large Muslim relief army at the Battle of Antioch in 1098. The Crusaders were exhausted, depleted in numbers, and uncertain about their future, and the march to Jerusalem was a test of their endurance and their faith.

The march of the Crusaders to Jerusalem began in early 1099, with the Crusaders leaving Antioch and moving south along the Mediterranean coast. The Crusaders captured the cities of Ma’arrat al-Numan, Kafartab, and Arqa on their march, but they lost contact with the Byzantine fleet that had been supporting their march, and they were forced to march inland to avoid the Muslim cavalry. The march was slow and painful, and the Crusaders suffered from hunger, thirst, and disease. The Crusaders arrived at Jerusalem in early June 1099, tired, hungry, and depleted in numbers, but determined to capture the city and to fulfill their vow.

The Siege of the City

The siege of Jerusalem began on June 7, 1099, when the Crusaders encircled the city and began to attack the walls. The city was defended by a garrison of Muslim soldiers under the command of Iftikhar ad-Daula, the governor of Jerusalem appointed by the Fatimid caliphate of Egypt. The garrison was relatively small, and the defenders relied on the walls of the city to hold off the attackers. The Crusaders lacked the siege engines and the supplies for a prolonged siege, and they knew that they would have to take the city by storm or abandon the siege.

The Crusaders initially attempted to scale the walls with ladders, but the attack was repulsed with heavy losses. The Crusaders then constructed two siege towers and a battering ram, and they brought the siege engines up to the walls in a dramatic operation that required the labor of hundreds of men. The siege towers were protected by covered ways and by archers who fired on the defenders of the walls, and they allowed the Crusaders to fire down on the defenders from a superior position.

The final assault began on July 14, 1099, with a procession of the Crusaders around the walls of the city in a ritual act of supplication to God. The Crusaders prayed, sang psalms, and called on God to deliver the city into their hands. The procession was led by the clergy of the army, who carried the relics of the army and the crosses of the churches. The procession was a dramatic expression of the Crusaders’ faith, and it inspired the Crusaders to renewed effort in the assault.

The Capture of the City

The final assault on Jerusalem began on July 15, 1099, with a massive attack on the northern and eastern walls of the city. The Crusaders managed to breach the walls in several places, and they poured into the city in a flood of fighting men. The defenders of the city were overwhelmed, and the garrison collapsed within hours. The Crusaders broke into the Temple Mount and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and they fought their way through the streets of the city to secure their conquest.

The capture of Jerusalem was followed by a massacre of the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants of the city. The Crusaders killed the men of military age and the civilians who were unable to flee, and they looted the city of its treasures and its goods. The chroniclers of the crusade — Raymond of Aguilers, Fulcher of Chartres, the anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum — describe the massacre in detail, and they justify it as the punishment of infidels and the revelation of the will of God. The Muslim chroniclers describe the massacre as a catastrophe, and they blame the Crusaders for the massacre of the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants of the city.

The Massacre and Its Controversy

The massacre of Jerusalem has been a source of controversy and debate for centuries. The medieval Christian chroniclers of the crusade justified the massacre as the punishment of infidels who had desecrated the holy places and the persecution of the faithful. The medieval Muslim chroniclers described the massacre as a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions, and they blamed the Crusaders for the massacre of the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants of the city. The modern scholars of the crusade have debated the scale of the massacre and the responsibility of the Crusaders, and the massacre remains a subject of controversy and debate.

The massacre of Jerusalem is a major subject of modern historical and theological debate. Some historians have argued that the massacre was a necessary consequence of the siege, and that the Crusaders were responding to the brutality of the Muslim resistance and the religious fervor of the Crusading movement. Other historians have argued that the massacre was a brutal and unnecessary act that should be condemned, and that the Crusaders were responsible for the massacre of the civilians of the city. The debate is a major subject of modern historical and theological inquiry, and it is a subject of ongoing debate in the modern era.

The Aftermath of the Siege

The aftermath of the siege of Jerusalem was the establishment of the Crusader States in the Levant. The Crusaders established the Kingdom of Jerusalem as the most important of the four Crusader States, with Godfrey of Bouillon as the first ruler (with the title of Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre, not king). The other Crusader States — the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Tripoli — were established in the following years, and the Crusader States formed a chain of Latin Christian territories in the Levant that lasted for nearly two centuries.

The Crusader States were multi-ethnic and multi-religious. The Latin Christian settlers — Franks, Normans, Provençals, Italians, and Germans — were a small minority ruling over a population that was overwhelmingly native, including Greek Orthodox Christians, Syrian Christians, Jews, and Muslims. The Franks developed a sophisticated legal system — the Assizes of Jerusalem — that combined Frankish, Byzantine, and Islamic elements, and that became one of the most important legal compilations of the medieval period. The Franks developed a distinctive culture that combined Western and Eastern elements, and the Crusader States were laboratories of cross-cultural exchange and conflict.

The fall of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187 was a major event in the history of the medieval period, and it stimulated the launch of the Third Crusade (1189–1192). The Crusader States survived in diminished form for another century, but the fall of Acre in 1291 marked the end of the Crusader presence in the Holy Land and the end of the Crusading movement in the East. The memory of the siege of Jerusalem in 1099 and the capture of the city remained a major symbol of the Crusading movement, and it continues to shape the relations between Christendom and the Islamic world in the modern era.

Sources

Principal sources used in this article:

Thomas Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History (Oxford, 2004).

Further reading:

Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (Athlone, 1986).

For a recent single-volume synthesis with full scholarly apparatus, see the relevant chapter of Barbara H. Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press, 2014).