The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II with the dual goals of liberating the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslims and freeing the Eastern Christians from Muslim rule. Read more…

The People's Crusade is part of the First Crusade and lasted roughly six months from April 1096 to October. It is also known as the Popular Crusade, Peasants' Crusade, or the Paupers' Crusade. Read more…

The German Crusade of 1096 was the part of the First Crusade in which peasant crusaders from France and Germany attacked Jewish communities. Although anti-Semitism had existed in Europe for centuries, this is the first record of an organized mass pogrom. Read more…

The Princes' Crusade, also known as the Barons' Crusade, occurred during the First Crusade in the year 1096, but in a more orderly manner, and was led by various nobles with bands of knights from different regions of Europe. Read more…

The Crusade of 1101 was a minor crusade of three separate movements, organized in 1100 and 1101 in the successful aftermath of the First Crusade. It is also called the Crusade of the Faint-Hearted due to the number of participants who joined this crusade after having turned back from the First Crusade. Read more…

The Second Crusade was the second major crusade launched from Europe, called in 1145 in response to and for any the fall of the County of Edessa the previous year. Read more…

The Third Crusade, also known as the Kings' Crusade, was an attempt by European leaders to reconquer the Holy Land from Saladin. Read more…

The Fourth Crusade, also known as the Byzantine Crusade, was originally designed to conquer Muslim Jerusalem through an invasion of Egypt. Read more…

The Albigensian Crusade, also known as the Cathar Crusade, was a 20-year military campaign initiated by the Roman Catholic Church to eliminate the heresy of the Cathars of Languedoc. Read more…

The Children's Crusade is the name given to a variety of fictional and factual events in 1212 that combine some or all of these elements: visions by a French and/or German boy, an intention to peacefully convert Muslims to Christianity, bands of children marching to Italy, and children being sold into slavery. Read more…

The Fifth Crusade was an attempt to take back Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering the powerful Ayyubid state in Egypt. Read more…

The Sixth Crusade started in 1228 as an attempt to reconquer Jerusalem. It began only seven years after the failure of the Fifth Crusade. Read more…

The Seventh Crusade was a crusade led by Louis IX of France in an effort to recapture vast parts of the Holy Land from the Khwarezmians Turks. Read more…

The Eighth Crusade was a crusade launched by Louis IX, King of France, in 1270 in response to the Mamluk sultan Baibars who had been attacking the remnant of the Crusader states. Read more…

The Ninth Crusade is commonly considered to be the last of the medieval Crusades to the Holy Land. The failure of Louis IX to capture Tunis in the Eighth Crusade led Prince Edward of England to sail to Acre. Read more…

The Swedish Crusades resulted in the conquest of Finland in the Middle Ages has traditionally been divided into three crusades: the First Swedish Crusade around 1155 AD, the Second Swedish Crusade about 1249 AD and the Third Swedish Crusade in 1293 AD. Read more…

The Northern Crusades or Baltic Crusades were crusades undertaken by the Catholic kings of Denmark and Sweden, the German Livonian and Teutonic military orders, and their allies against the pagan peoples of Northern Europe around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. Read more…

In 1259 Mongols led by Burundai and Nogai Khan ravaged the principality of Halych-Volynia, Lithuania and Poland. After that Pope Alexander IV tried without success to create a Crusade against the Tartars. Read more…

The Aragonese Crusade, also known as the Crusade of Aragón, a part of the larger War of the Sicilian Vespers, was declared by Pope Martin IV against the King of Aragón, Peter III the Great. Read more…

The brief Alexandrian Crusade occurred in October of 1365 and was led by Peter I of Cyprus against Alexandria. Almost completely devoid of religious impetus, it differs from the more prominent Crusades in that it seems to have been motivated entirely by economic interests. Read more…

The Crusade of Nicopolis took place on September 25, 1396, between the Ottoman Empire versus an allied force from Hungary, the Holy Roman Empire, France, Wallachia, Poland, the Kingdom of England, the Kingdom of Scotland, the Old Swiss Confederacy, the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Genoa and the Knights of St. John near the Danubian fortress of Nicopolis. Read more…

The Hussite Crusades, also known as the Hussite Wars and the Bohemian Wars, involved the military actions against and amongst the followers of Jan Hus in Bohemia. Read more…

The Crusade of Varna was a string of events in 1443–44 between the Kingdom of Hungary, the Serbian Despotate, and the Ottoman Empire. It culminated in a devastating Hungarian loss at the Battle of Varna on November 10, 1444. Read more…

The Crusade of 1456 was organized to lift the Siege of Belgrade, and was led by John Hunyadi and Giovanni da Capistrano. Read more…