Sixth Crusade
| Sixth Crusade | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Crusades | |||||||||
 Frederick II (left) meets al-Kamil (right) | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
|
Holy Roman Empire Teutonic Knights Kingdom of Sicily |
Ayyubids of Damascus | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
|
Frederick II Hermann von Salza |
An-Nasir Dawud | ||||||||
The Sixth Crusade (1228–1229), also known as the Crusade of Frederick II, was a military expedition to recapture Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land. It began seven years after the failure of the Fifth Crusade and involved very little actual fighting. The diplomatic maneuvering of the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily, Frederick II, resulted in the Kingdom of Jerusalem regaining some control over Jerusalem for much of the ensuing fifteen years as well as over other areas of the Holy Land.
Frederick II and the Papacy[]
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, had involved himself in the Fifth Crusade by sending troops from Germany, but he did not personally accompany the army despite the encouragement of Honorius III and later Gregory IX, as he needed to consolidate his position in Germany and Italy before embarking on a crusade. However, Frederick again promised to go on a crusade after his coronation as emperor in 1220 by Pope Honorius III.
In 1225 Frederick married Isabella II of Jerusalem (also known as Yolande), daughter of John of Brienne (nominal ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem) and Maria of Montferrat. Frederick now had a claim to the truncated kingdom, and reason to attempt to restore it. In 1227, after Gregory IX became pope, Frederick's army set sail from Brindisi for Acre (then the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem), but an epidemic forced Frederick to return to Italy, and Gregory excommunicated Frederick for breaking his crusader vow.
In June 1228 Frederick made his last effort to be reconciled with Gregory, sending Archbishop Albert of Magdeburg and two Sicilian justiciars to speak with the pope. It had no effect and the excommunicated Frederick sailed from Brindisi on 28 June. The fleet was under the command of Admiral Henry of Malta, and the archbishops of Palermo, Reggio, Capua and Bari accompanied him. He had only a small force with him, since the main force had sailed in August 1227 and reinforcements in April 1228.[1]
The Crusade[]
Stopover in Cyprus[]
The route of Frederick's fleet can be traced day-by-day. On 29 June it stopped in Otranto, whence it crossed the Adriatic Sea to the island of Othonoi on 30 June. It was in Corfu on 1 July, Porto Guiscardo in Cephalonia on 2 July, Methoni on 4 July, Portocaglie near Cape Matapan on 5 July, Cerigo on 6 July and it reached Souda Bay on Crete on 7 July. The fleet moved slowly along the Cretan coast, pausing for a whole day at Heraklion before crossing the Aegean Sea to Rhodes during 12–15 July. They sailed along the Anatolian coast to Phenika, where they stayed on 16–17 July replenishing their water supplies. The fleet then crossed the sea to Cyprus, arriving at Limassol on 21 July.[1]
The Kingdom of Cyprus had been an imperial fief since the Emperor Henry VI, Frederick's father, had accepted the homage of Aimery of Lusignan and made him king on the eve of the German Crusade in 1196. The emperor arrived with the clear intent of stamping his authority on the kingdom, but was treated cordially by the native barons until a dispute arose between him and the constable of Cyprus, John of Ibelin. Frederick claimed that his regency was illegitimate and demanded the surrender of John's mainland fief of Beirut to the imperial throne. Here he erred, for John pointed out that the kingdoms of Cyprus and Jerusalem were constitutionally separate and he could not be punished for offences in Cyprus by seizure of Beirut. This would have important consequences for the crusade, as it alienated the powerful Ibelin faction, turning them against the emperor.
In the Kingdom of Jerusalem[]
Acre, as the nominal capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the seat of the Latin Patriarchate, was split in its support for Frederick. Frederick's own army and the Teutonic Knights supported him, but Patriarch Gerald of Lausanne (and the clergy) followed the hostile papal line. Once news of Frederick's excommunication had spread, public support for him waned considerably. The position of the Knights Hospitaller and Knights Templar is more complicated; though they refused to join the emperor's army directly, they supported the crusade once Frederick agreed to have his name removed from official orders. The native barons greeted Frederick enthusiastically at first, but were wary of the emperor's history of centralization and his desire to impose imperial authority. This was largely due to Frederick's treatment of John of Ibelin in Cyprus, and his apparent disdain for the constitutional concerns of the barons.
Diplomatic agreement with Sultan al-Kamil[]
Even with the military orders on board, Frederick's force was a mere shadow of the army that had amassed when the crusade had originally been called. He realised that his only hope of success in the Holy Land was to negotiate for the surrender of Jerusalem as he lacked the manpower to engage the Ayyubid sultanate in battle. Frederick hoped that a token show of force, a threatening march down the coast, would be enough to convince al-Kamil, the sultan of Egypt, to honor a proposed agreement that had been negotiated some years earlier, prior to the death of al-Muazzam, the governor of Damascus. The Egyptian sultan, occupied with a siege in Damascus, Syria against his nephew An-Nasir Dawud, agreed to cede Jerusalem to the Franks, along with a narrow corridor to the coast.
In addition, Frederick received Nazareth, Sidon, Jaffa, and Bethlehem. Other lordships may have been returned to Christian control, but sources disagree. It was, however, a treaty of compromise. The Muslims retained control over the Temple Mount area of Jerusalem, the al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Dome of the Rock. The Transjordan castles stayed in Ayyubid hands, and Arab sources suggest that Frederick was not permitted to restore Jerusalem's fortifications, although the Crusaders did in fact restore Jerusalem's defensive walls. The treaty was concluded on 18 February 1229, and also involved a 10-year truce.[2]
One of the results of the treaty was that Jews were once more prohibited from living in Jerusalem.[3][4]
The agreement is known sometimes as the Treaty of Jaffa and Tell Ajul,[5] to also include the agreement signed by the different Ayyubid rulers at Tell Ajul near Gaza, of which, from al-Kamil's perspective, the treaty with Frederick was just an extension.
In Jerusalem[]
Frederick entered Jerusalem on 17 March 1229, and attended a crown-wearing ceremony the following day. It is unknown whether he intended this to be interpreted as his official coronation as King of Jerusalem; in any case the absence of the patriarch, Gerald, rendered it questionable. There is evidence to suggest that the crown Frederick wore was actually the imperial one,[6] but in any case proclaiming his lordship over Jerusalem was a provocative act. Legally, he was actually only regent for his son with Isabella, Conrad II of Jerusalem, who had been born shortly before Frederick left in 1228. Conrad's maternal grandparents were Maria of Montferrat and John of Brienne.
Legacy[]
As Frederick had matters to attend to at home, he left Jerusalem in May. In 1229 the Pope lifted the excommunication.
The ten-year expiration of Frederick's treaty with al-Kamil caused Pope Gregory IX to call for a new crusade to secure the Holy Lands for Christendom beyond 1239.[7] This initiated the Barons' Crusade, a disorganized affair which wound up with relatively limited support from both Frederick and the pope, but which nevertheless regained more land than even the Sixth Crusade.
Frederick had set a precedent, in having achieved success on crusade without papal involvement. He achieved success without fighting since he lacked manpower to engage Ayyubids. This was due to the engagement of Ayyubids with the rebellion in Syria. Further crusades would be launched by individual kings, such as Theobald I of Navarre (the Barons' Crusade), Louis IX of France (the Seventh and Eighth Crusades), and Edward I of England (the Ninth Crusade), effectively demonstrating an erosion of papal authority.
In the Ayyubid camp the treaty let al-Kamil and his brother Al-Ashraf Musa focus his energy into defeating their nephew An-Nasir Dawud (ruler of Damascus), capturing his capital city in June 1229, after a siege (1228-1229). An-Nasir Dawud, was left subordinate to Al-Kamil and in possession of Kerak.
Participants[]
A partial list of those that participated in the Sixth Crusade can be found in the category collections of Christians of the Sixth Crusade and Muslims of the Sixth Crusade.
Primary Sources[]
The historiography of the Sixth Crusade is concerned with the "history of the histories" of the military campaigns discussed herein as well as biographies of the important figures of the period. The primary sources include works written in the medieval period, generally by participants in the Crusade or written contemporaneously with the event. The primary Western sources of the Sixth Crusade include several eyewitness accounts, and are as follows.
- Estoire d’Eracles émperor (History of Heraclius) is an anonymous history of Jerusalem down to 1277, a continuation of William of Tyre's work and drawing from both Ernoul and the Rothelin Continuation.[8]
- Historia Orientalis (Historia Hierosolymitana) and Epistolae, by theologian and historian Jacques de Vitry.[9]
- Flores Historiarum, by English chronicler Roger of Wendover,[10] covering the period from 1188 up to 1235.[11]
- Grand chronique,[12] by English chronicler Matthew Paris.
- Gestes des Chiprois (Deeds of the Cypriots),[13] by several authors including Philip of Novara. Includes The wars of Frederick II against the Ibelins in Syria and Cyprus.[14]
- Historia diplomatica Frederici secundi,[15] a history of the diplomacy of Frederick II, by French archivist and historian Jean L. Huillard-Bréholles.[16]
- Ryccardi di Sancto Germano Notarii Chronicon, by Richard of San Germano.[17]
The Arabic sources of the Crusade include the following.
- Complete Work of History, particularly The Years 589–629/1193–1231, by Ali ibn al-Athir, an Arab or Kurdish historian.[18]
- Kitāb al-rawḍatayn (The Book of the Two Gardens) and its sequel al-Dhayl ʿalā l-rawḍatayn, by Arab historian Abū Shāma.[19]
- Tarikh al-Mukhtasar fi Akhbar al-Bashar (History of Abu al-Fida), by Kurdish historian Abu’l-Fida.[20]
- History of Egypt, by Egyptian historian Al-Makrizi.[21]
- The Necklace of Pearls (Perles d’Historie), by Arab Islamic scholar Badr al-Din al-Ayni.[22]
- History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, begun in the 10th century, and continued into the 13th century.
Many of these primary sources can be found in Crusade Texts in Translation. German historian Reinhold Röhricht also compiled two collections of works concerning the Sixth Crusade: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kreuzzüg (1888),[23] Geschichte der Kreuzzüge im Umriss (1898),[24] and Die Kreuzfahrt Kaiser Friedrich des Zweiten (1228–1229) (1872) He also collaborated on the work Annales de Terre Sainte that provides a chronology of the Crusade correlated with the original sources.[25]
References[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b Van Cleve 1972, pp. 206–213, Frederick II as Crusader.
- ^ Wolff, Robert L. and Hazard, H. W., A History of the Crusades: Volume Two, The Later Crusades 1187–1311, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1977, pp. 455–457
- ^ "Jewish History 1220 - 1229".
- ^ My Jerusalem: Essays, Reminiscences, and Poems. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Zafar Ishaq Ansari. Page 332, note 42, quoting Joshua Prawer, "Minorities in the Crusader states" in A History of the Crusades (New York, 1964), 97; Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades (London, 1965), 467; Karen Armstrong, A History of Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths, HarperPerennial 2005, 198–299.
- ^ Boas 2001, p. 40, The Medieval City.
- ^ Crusading and the Crusader States, Jotischky, (Edinburgh, 2004), 225.
- ^ Runciman 1954, pp. 211–212, Civil Wars among the Ayubiites (1239).
- ^ Mylod 2017, pp. 163–174, Ernoul, Eracles and the Fifth Crusade.
- ^ Bird, Jessalynn. "James of Vitry (died 1240)". The Crusades - An Encyclopedia. pp. 653–654.
- ^ Ruch, Lisa M. (2016). "Roger of Wendover". Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle.
- ^ Giles, J. A. (John Allen) (1849). Roger of Wendover's Flowers of history. London: H. G. Bohn.
- ^ Paris, M., Huillard-Bréholles, J. Louis Alphonse. (1840-1844). Grande chronique de Matthieu Paris. Paris.
- ^ Minervini, Laura (2004). "Les Gestes des Chiprois et la tradition historiographique de l'Orient latin". CAIRN.
- ^ Philippus, d. Rotingo., La Monte, J. L., Hubert, M. Jerome. (1936). The wars of Frederick II against the Ibelins in Syria and Cyprus. New York: Columbia university press.
- ^ Huillard-Bréholles, J. Louis Alphonse., Luynes, H. Théodoric Paul Joseph dA̕lbert. (185261). Historia diplomatica Friderici Secundi. Parisiis.
- ^ Deutsche Biographie (1974). "Huillard-Bréholles, Jean Louis Alphonse". In Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). 10. Berlin.
- ^ Donnadieu, Jean. "Narratio patriarcae. The origin and destiny of a story about the Muslim Middle East circa 1200", Le Moyen Age, Vol. CXXIV, No. 2, 2018, pp. 283-–305.
- ^ Kennedy, Hugh. "Ibn al-Athir (1160–1233)". The Crusades - An Encyclopedia. p. 625.
- ^ Antrim, Zayde, “Abū Shāma Shihāb al-Dīn al-Maqdisī”. In: Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd Edition. Kate Fleet, et al. (ed.)
- ^ Kreckel, Manuel (2016). "Abū al-Fidā". Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle.
- ^ al-Maqrīzī, A. ibn ʻAlī. (1845). Histoire des Sultans Mamlouks de l'Égypte. Paris.
- ^ Marmon, Shaun E. "al-'Ayni, Badr al-Din". Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.).
- ^ Röhricht, R. (1874-1878). Beiträge zur geschichte der kreuzzüge. Berlin.
- ^ Röhricht, R. (1898). Geschichte der kreuzzüge im umriss. Innsbruck.
- ^ Röhricht 1884, pp. 12–14, Annales de Terre Sainte.
Bibliography[]
- Abulafia, David (1992). Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor. Oxford University Press. ISBN 019508040-8.
- Abu-Munshar, Maher Y. (2013). Sultan al-Kamil, Emperor Frederick II and the Submission of Jerusalem. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity 3:5 pp. 443–447.
- Archer, Thomas Andrew (1904). The Crusades: The Story of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Putnam.
- Arnold, Benjamin (2000). Emperor Frederick II (1194–1250) and the political particularism of the German princes. Journal of Medieval History, Volume 26, Issue 3, pp. 239–252.
- Asbridge, Thomas (2012). The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-84983-688-3.
- Barker, Ernest (1923). The Crusades. Oxford University Press, London.
- Boas, Adrian J. (2001). Jerusalem in the Time of the Crusades. Routledge. ISBN 9780415230001.
- Cahen, Claude (1968). Pre-Ottoman Turkey. Taplinger Publishing Company. ISBN 978-1597404563.
- Cahen, Claude (1969). Mongols and the Near East (PDF). A History of the Crusades (Setton), Volume II.
- Cahen, Claude (2012). Ayyūbids. Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. ISBN 9789004161214.
- Cox, George William (1891). The Crusades. Longmans, London.
- Donovan, Joseph P. (1950). Pelagius and the Fifth Crusade. University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Fuller, Thomas (1639). The Historie of the Holy Warre. W. Pickering, London.
- Fulton, Michael S. (2018). Artillery in the Era of the Crusades. Brill Publications. ISBN 9789004349452.
- Gibb, H. A. R. (1969). The Aiyūbids (PDF). A History of the Crusades (Setton), Volume II.
- Giles, Keith R. (1987). The Emperor Frederick II's Crusade, 1215 – c. 1231 (PDF). Ph.D Dissertation, Keele University.
- Hardwicke, Mary Nickerson (1969). The Crusader States, 1192–1243 (PDF). A History of the Crusades (Setton), Volume II.
- Humphreys, R. Stephen (1977). From Saladin to the Mongols: The Ayyubids of Damascus, 1193-1260. State University of New York. ISBN 978-0873952637.
- Humphreys, R. Stephen (1987). Ayyubids. Encyclopedia Iranica, Vol. III, Fasc. 2, pp. 164-167.
- Jackson, Peter (2002). Mongols. Encyclopedia Iranica.
- Lane-Poole, Stanley (1894). The Mohammedan dynasties: chronological and genealogical tables with historical introductions. A. Constable & Co., Westminster.
- Lane-Poole, Stanley (1901). History of Egypt in the Middle Ages. Methuen, London.
- Lock, Peter (2006). The Routledge Companion to the Crusades. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-39312-4.
- Longnon, Jean (1978). Les compagnons de Villehardouin: Recherches sur les croisés de la quatrième croisade. Librairie Droz.
- Maalouf, Amin (2006). The Crusades through Arab Eyes. Saqi Books. ISBN 9780863560231.
- Madden, Thomas F. (2013). The Concise History of the Crusades. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-442-21576-4.
- Miller, Duane A. (2017). Sixth Crusade. War and Religion, Volume 3, pp. 754–755.
- Munro, Dana Carleton (1902). Letters of the Crusaders. University of Pennsylvania.
- Murray, Alan V. (2006). The Crusades—An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-57607-862-4.
- Richard, Jean C. (1999). The Crusades, c.1071 – c.1291. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-62566-1.
- Röhricht, Reinhold (1884). Annales de Terre Sainte, 1095-1291. E. Leroux, Paris.
- Runciman, Steven (1954). A History of the Crusades, Volume Three: The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521347723.
- Setton, Kenneth M. (1969). A History of the Crusades. Six Volumes. University of Wisconsin Press.
- Tyerman, Christopher (2006). God's War: A New History of the Crusades. Belknap Press. ISBN 978-0-674-02387-1.
- Van Cleve, Thomas C. (1969). The Crusade of Frederick II (PDF). A History of the Crusades (Setton), Volume II.
- Van Cleve, Thomas C. (1972). The Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, Immutator Mundi. Clarendon Press, London. ISBN 019822513X.
- Weiler, Björn K. U. (2006a). Frederick II of Germany. The Crusades––An Encyclopedia, pp. 475–477.
- Weiler, Björn K. U. (2006b). Crusade of Emperor Frederick II (1227–1229). The Crusades––An Encyclopedia, pp. 313–315.
- Wolff, Robert Lee (1969). The Latin Empire of Constantinople, 1204-1312 (PDF). A History of the Crusades (Setton), Volume II.
| show Authority control  |
|---|
- Sixth Crusade
- 13th century in the Crusader states
- 13th-century crusades
- Wars involving the Ayyubid Sultanate
- Wars involving the Holy Roman Empire
- Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor