CRISTO '
CHAPTER XX.
THE NORMAN KINGDOM OF SICILY
By
Hellene Wieruszowski
There was much in the geography, resources, and traditions of the Norman kingdom of Sicily in the twelfth century to recommend it as a valuable bulwark of the crusades. Armies bound for Constantinople could use its Adriatic ports for the passage to Durazzo (Dyrrachium) or Avlona, whence they could take the Via Egnatia to Thessalonica and Constantinople. From the ports of the east coast of Sicily crusaders could reach Syria and Palestine by the shortest route. And since the northern tip of Tunisia was less than a hundred miles distant from its southwestern corner, the kingdom might even take up the fight against Islam in Africa. Furthermore, Sicily was rich in resources: the soil was fruitful, and the proceeds of commerce and industry large. Its kings, should they care to do so, could place at the disposal of crusaders a large navy and merchant marine, and could provide markets, equip expeditions with money and grain, and keep the armies and colonies in the east supplied with materials and men. The cosmopolitan population of Sicily, with its Greek and oriental elements, had
Map Of The 4 Catholic Crusader States In
The map above shows the 4 Catholic Crusader states as they existed in just before the start of the Second Crusade in
The states were:
More about each of them below:
The Crusader states emerged in the wake of the First Crusade, which was launched in in response to a call by Pope Urban II. At the time, the Byzantine Empire was under increasing pressure from the advancing Seljuk Turks, and many in Western Europe saw an opportunity to reclaim lands they considered sacred.
Motivated by promises of spiritual rewards and the allure of new territories, crusaders set off for the Holy Land.
Their campaigns resulted in the capture of key cities, and soon, several feudal states were established in the region.
These states—created as military outposts and bases for further crusading efforts—became known as the Crusader states, each with its own origin story and eventual downfall.
County of Edessa (–)
- Why It Was Created:
Edessa was the first of the Crusader states, seized in by crusader forces led by figures like Baldwin of Boulogne. Its capture was partly opportunistic, as it lay on the fringes of the LevantLater Crusades took European expeditions of knights to Tunisia and Turkey, and a series of sea battles against pirates and the Ottoman Turks during the sixteenth century are sometimes referred to as "crusades."
So were the Reconquista wars against the Muslims in Spain. The infamous Albigensian Crusade (of ) sought to reform or eliminate the heretical Cathars in southern France and the wars of the Teutonic Order against the Slavic and Baltic peoples are sometimes called the "Northern Crusades."
Over time, any military campaign called by a Pope came to be defined as a crusade, so in , when Pope Martin IV declared "holy war" against Peter of Aragon (who became King of Sicily with the War of the Vespers in ), the subsequent debacle became known as the "Aragonese Crusade."
For our purposes, the word Crusade refers to organised Christian expeditions against Muslims before To glance at the map, one might expect the Kingdom of Sicily, poised along a kind of Christian frontier, to have lent particularly great support to the Crusading Movement. Such a supposition would be mistaken.
While its geography inevitably linked Sicily to the Cr
Chapter 9: Conquests, Crusades, and Persecutions, c.
ONLINE RESOURCES:
Cathars
Medieval Crusades, from the History Channel
People with a History: Medieval Worlds (on homosexuality)
De Re Militari: Medieval Military History
TEST YOURSELF: Have you read Chapter 9 adequately? Test yourself here.
MAPS: Want to download a map from chapter 9? Click here.
TIMELINES: Want to download a timeline from chapter 9? Click here.
CITATIONS: Want to find the source of a quote used in chapter 9? Click here.
HISTORICAL STUDIES:
David Abulafia, The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms – The Struggle for Dominion (). For the centuries it covers, this is the place to start for the history of Spain, Sicily, and the southern Italian peninsula. See also Bernard F. Reilly, The Medieval Spains (), and Donald Matthew, The Norman Kingdom of Sicily ().
Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, – (). An essential new analysis; see pages – for the “Europeanization of Europe.” See also J. R. S. Phillips, The Medieval Expansion of Europe (second edition, ).
Robert Chazan, In the Year The First Crusade and the Jews (). Brief and reada
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