How did the Crusader States survive and grow in the decades following the First Crusade?

Crusades – Essay Questions on the Second Crusade, 1147-49

In this course, Dr Nicholas Morton (Nottingham Trent University) considers four questions related the Second Crusade, 1147-49: (i) How did the Crusader States survive and grow in the decades following the First Crusade?; (ii) Why did the Second Crusade fail?; (iii) Why did the Turkish resistance to the Crusaders intensify during the Twelfth Century?; (iv) How committed was Saladin to Jihad against the Franks during the years 1169-1187? In each module, we outline some potential approaches to the question, as well as considering the sources that are available that might help us answer the question.

How did the Crusader States survive and grow in the decades following the First Crusade?

In this module, we think about how the Crusader States managed to thrive and grow following the First Crusade, focusing in particular on: (i) the main secondary studies on this period, including Thomas Asbridge's The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land (2010) and Malcolm Barber's The Crusader States (2012); (ii) the importance of the coastal cities that were conquered shortly after the First Crusade, including: their importance in the delivery of supplies and resources from Western Europe; the power and wealth of these cities in their own right; the very high fertility of the Levantine coast; (iii) the willingness of many local groups to ally with the crusaders, including the Armenians in the north and various Bedouin groups in the south; (iv) the lack of resistance offered by the Turks, particularly following the death of Malik-Shah I (1092) and the in-fighting amongst the Turks that followed; (v) the extent to which the Byzantine Empire supported the Crusader States; (vi) the effectiveness of the crusaders' battle tactics even when they were massively outnumbered; and (vii) the various primary sources that can help us answer this question, including the accounts of Fulcher of Chartres, Albert of Aachen, William of Tyre, Anna Komnene, Matthew of Edessa, Ibn al-Qalanisi, Ibn al-Athir, and the various accounts of pilgrims who travelled to Jerusalem after the conquest of the city in 1099.

Suggested reading:
– Thomas Asbridge, The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land (2010)
– Malcolm Barber, The Crusader States (2012)
– Nicholas Morton, The Field of Blood: The Battle for Aleppo and the Remaking of the Medieval Middle East (2018)
– Jonathan Harris, Byzantium and the Crusades (2nd Ed.) (2003)
– Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate, Letters from the East: Crusaders, Pilgrims and Settlers in the 12th–13th Centuries (2013)