The History of the Church through 100 Masterpieces

The Last Crusades

The History of the Church 116 The Last Crusades While the various crusading expeditions that followed the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 were never able to regain the city, they maintained a Christian presence in the Middle East. The crusaders would not leave the Holy Land completely until Saint John of Acre was taken by the Muslims in 1291. Nevertheless, the Knights Templars and Hospitallers continued exerting a strong influence in the region, stationed at two islands turned into fortifications: Cyprus and Rhodes. These strongholds would only fall much later, in the sixteenth century, unable to resist the Ottoman Empire partly because of the indifference then prevalent in Catholic Christianity. This indifference also explains an omission in Western history whereby only eight crusades are accounted for, to the neglect of four expeditions conducted by the Christians of Central Europe in an attempt to contain the rising Ottoman tide. Nonetheless, in 1396, the knights of the West joined forces with the Orthodox in Nicopolis, but in vain. On this occasion, the Turks gained their first great victory over the Christian coalition. Seven hundred French knights died to the cry of “Vive Saint Denis!” Another coalition was formed in 1444, when the pope, the Byzantines, Burgundians, Venetians, Poles, and Hungarians united under the banner of Vladislaus of Poland seeking to lift the yoke that weighed upon Constantinople. All was in vain, yet again. Two other attempts, in 1389 and in 1448, have been frequently referred to in more recent years. These were the defeats suffered in Kosovopolje, Serbian for “the field of blackbirds.” Karl Friedrich Lessing (1808–1880) The Return of the Crusader Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn ...