THREE TYPES OF KNIGHTS
Templar knights
- The Templar knights were founded around 1118, by a French knight named Hugues de Payens. He created a military order along with eight relatives and acquaintances, calling it the Poor Knights of the Temple of King Solomon (later known as the Knights Templar). in 1129 the knights received the formal endorsement of the Catholic Church and support from Bernard of Clairvaux, a prominent abbot. New recruits and lavish donations began pouring in from across Europe. It was also around this time that the knights adopted an austere code of conduct and their signature style of dress: white habits emblazoned with a red cross.
Hospitaler Knights
- The Hospitaler Knights were born during the 11th-century hospital founded in Jerusalem by Italian merchants from Amalfi to care for sick and poor pilgrims. After the Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade the monk Gerad had his work intensified his work in Jerusalem and founded hotels all around Italy. The order was formally named and recognized on February 15, 1113. Their main task was tending to the sick with defending the Crusader kingdom. Along with the Templars, the Hospitallers became the most formidable military order in the Holy Land.
Teutonic knights
The Teutonic knights was confirmed by a German Crusader Leader on November 9th, 1190. Just like the other two groups of knights the Teutonic knights had also developed as a Religious Military institution comparable to the Hospitallers and Templars. These knights were divided into two groups; they were the knights and priests. The priests had the duty to celebrate the Mass and other religious offices, to administer the sacraments to the knights and the sick in their hospitals and follow them as almoners into war. The knights were required to fight the battles and do all the "dirty work". The knights lived communally, sleeping in dormitories on simple beds, eating together in a refectory, the fare modest and no more than was sufficient. Their clothes and armor were likewise simple but practical and their daily duties included training for battle, maintaining their equipment and working with their horses.
The Crusades
The second crusades
After the first crusade many of the knights decided to go back home but when they lost the city again that led to the start of the second crusade. The second crusade took place during 1147-1149. The crusade was led by two great rulers, King Louis VII of France and King Conrad III of Germany. Conrad took a defeat by the turks but him and Louis rallied up their troops and decided to attack the Syrian stronghold of Damascus with an army of some 50,000 in Jerusalem. The muslim troops suffered a humiliating loss which led to the end of the second crusade.
The third crusade
The third crusade (1189-1192) was led by rulers such as the aging Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, King Philip II of France and King Richard I of England. Richard’s forces defeated those of Saladin, who fought against the crusaders, in the battle of Arsuf; it would be the only true battle of the Third Crusade. Richard reestablished Christian control over some of the region and approached Jerusalem, though he refused to lay siege to the city. In September 1192, Richard and Saladin signed a peace treaty that reestablished the Kingdom of Jerusalem and ended the Third Crusade.
Saladin
Saladin was a Muslim military and political leader who as sultan led Islamic forces during the Crusades. Saladin’s greatest triumph over the European Crusaders came at the Battle of Hattin in 1187, which paved the way for Islamic re-conquest of Jerusalem and other Holy Land cities in the Near East. Although during the third crusade Saladin lost much of his territory to Richard, he was still able to negotiate a way to keep control over Jerusalem.
Saladin would use the wealth of his previous conquest to obtain the next city on his list. For example, Saladin used the wealth of Egypt for the conquest of Syria, that of Syria for the conquest of northern Mesopotamia, and that of northern Mesopotamia for the conquest of the crusader states along the Levant coast.
Saladin had embarked on a holy war to eliminate Latin political and military control in the Middle East, particularly Christian control over Jerusalem. After the Battle of Hattin, Saladin, following the predominant military theory of the time, moved rapidly against as many of the weak Christian centers as possible, offering generous terms if they would surrender, while at the same time avoiding long sieges. This policy had the benefit of leading to the rapid conquest of almost every crusader site, including the peaceful Muslim liberation of Jerusalem in October 1187. The negative was that his policy permitted the crusaders time to regroup and refortify two cities south of Tripoli—Tyre and Ashkelon.
Reasons why muslim crusades fought
Just as Christians, the reason why muslims fought for Jerusalem is because they too thought as Jerusalem as their Holy Land as well.
other facts
Guarded by formidable castles, the Crusader states retained the upper hand in the region until around 1130, when Muslim forces began gaining ground in their own holy war (or jihad) against the Christians, whom they called “Franks.”
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The Muslim crusaders helped with the spread of cultural diffusion. The Christian crusaders found that they changed with being exposed to the Islamic culture when they returned home. They were amazed with the quality of their products and the material culture so they brought it back home with them. For example, spices like pepper and salt, soaps, etc. This led to the europeans opening up their minds to all of the different cultures around them and new intellectual thoughts. Ideas began to circulate and western thoughts would be forever changed. A muslim philosophers work somehow made its way to Europe and helped with the arrangement of the Renaissance.