First Crusade

The First Crusade (1096-1099) was the first of a series of religious wars initiated and supported by the Latin Church with the goal of returning the Holy Land, held by Muslim rulers since the 7th century, to Christian control. It grew out of an appeal from the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos for military help against the Seljuk Turks, followed by Pope Urban II's call at the Council of Clermont in 1095 urging Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. An initial wave of poorer crusaders known as the People's Crusade was destroyed by Turkish forces in 1096, but a larger force of nobility known as the Princes' Crusade captured Nicaea in 1097, won at Dorylaeum, and took Jerusalem by storm on 15 July 1099 before repelling a Fatimid counterattack at Ascalon, leaving four Crusader states established in the Holy Land.