WThe First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic rule. While Jerusalem had been under Muslim rule for hundreds of years, by the 11th century the Seljuk takeover of the region threatened local Christian populations, pilgrimages from the West, and the Byzantine Empire itself. The earliest initiative for the First Crusade began in 1095 when Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos requested military support from the Council of Piacenza in the empire's conflict with the Seljuk-led Turks. This was followed later in the year by the Council of Clermont, during which Pope Urban II supported the Byzantine request for military assistance and also urged faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
WThe Alexiad is a medieval historical and biographical text written around the year 1148, by the Byzantine princess Anna Komnene, daughter of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. It was written in a form of artificial Attic Greek. Anna described the political and military history of the Byzantine Empire during the reign of her father, thus providing a significant account on the Byzantium of the High Middle Ages. Among other topics, the Alexiad documents the Byzantine Empire's interaction with the Crusades and highlights the conflicting perceptions of the East and West in the early 12th century. It remains one of the few primary sources recording Byzantine reactions to both the Great Schism of 1054 and the First Crusade, as well as documenting firsthand the decline of Byzantine cultural influence in both eastern and western Europe. According to Peter Frankopan, the content of the Alexiad falls into five main categories.
WThe Battle of Antioch (1098) was a military engagement fought between the Frankish forces of the First Crusade and a Muslim coalition led by Kerbogha, atabeg of Mosul. Kerbogha's goal was to reclaim Antioch from the Crusaders and affirm his position as a regional power.
WThe Council of Clermont was a mixed synod of ecclesiastics and laymen of the Catholic Church, called by Pope Urban II and held from 17 to 27 November 1095 at Clermont, Auvergne, at the time part of the Duchy of Aquitaine.
WDeus vult is a Latin Catholic motto associated with the Crusades. It was first chanted during the First Crusade in 1096 as a rallying cry, most likely under the form Deus le volt or Deus lo vult, as reported by the Gesta Francorum and the Historia Belli Sacri.
WThe Gesta Francorum Iherusalem peregrinantium is a Latin chronicle of the First Crusade written on 1101, 1106, 1124 until 1127 by Fulcher of Chartres. He was a priest who participated in the First Crusade. He served Baldwin I of Jerusalem for many years, and wrote a chronicle of the Crusade, writing in Latin.
WHistoria Hierosolymitana is a chronicle of the First Crusade by written between c. 1107–1120 by Robert the Monk , a French prior.
WThe Letter of the Karaite elders of Ascalon was a communication written by six elders of the Karaite Jewish community of Ascalon and sent to their coreligionists in Alexandria nine months after the fall of Jerusalem during the First Crusade. The contents describe how the Ascalon elders pooled money to pay the initial ransom for pockets of Jews and holy relics being held captive in Jerusalem by the Crusaders, the fate of some of these refugees after their release, and the need for additional funds for the rescuing of further captives. It was written in Judeo-Arabic, Arabic using the Hebrew alphabet.
WThe First Crusade march down the Mediterranean coast, from recently taken Antioch to Jerusalem, started on 13 January 1099. During the march the Crusaders encountered little resistance, as local rulers preferred to make peace with them and furnish them with supplies rather than fight, with a notable exception of the aborted siege of Arqa. On 7 June, the Crusaders reached Jerusalem, which had been recaptured from the Seljuks by the Fatimids only the year before.
WThe People's Crusade was the beginning phase of the First Crusade whose objective was to retake the Holy Land, and Jerusalem in particular, from Islamic occupation. The crusade lasted roughly six months from April to October 1096 and was the first, largest, and best documented of the popular crusades. It is to be distinguished from the "Princes' Crusade" which was much better organized, better armed, and better funded. It is also known as the Peasants' Crusade, Paupers' Crusade or the Popular Crusade as it was not part of the official church-organized expeditions that came later. Led primarily by Peter the Hermit with forces of Walter Sans Avoir, the untrained peasant army was destroyed by the forces of the Seljuk Turks under Kilij Arslan at the Battle of Civetot in northwestern Anatolia.
WSt Symeon or Port St Symeon was the medieval port for the Frankish Principality of Antioch, located on the mouth of the Orontes River. It may be named after Saint Simeon Stylites the Younger, who dwelt on a mountain only six miles from St Symeon, or the original Saint Simeon Stylites, who was buried in Antioch. Seleucia Pieria had been the Roman port of Antioch, but silting and an earthquake had rendered it unusable. Control of St Symeon was important to the capture of Antioch by the Crusaders at the end of the eleventh century.
WThe Rhineland massacres, also known as the German Crusade of 1096 or Gzerot Tatnó, were a series of mass murders of Jews perpetrated by mobs of German Christians of the People's Crusade in the year 1096, or 4856 according to the Jewish calendar. These massacres are often seen as the first in a sequence of antisemitic events in Europe which culminated in the Holocaust.
WThe Seljuk dynasty, or Seljuks, also known as Seljuk Turks, or Seljuk Turkomans, was an Oghuz Turkic Sunni Muslim dynasty that gradually became Persianate and contributed to the Turco-Persian tradition in the medieval Middle East and Central Asia. The Seljuks established both the Seljuk Empire and the Sultanate of Rum, which at their heights stretched from Iran to Anatolia, and were targets of the First Crusade.