End of the Crusades

Through the end of the 13th century, groups of Crusaders sought to gain ground in the Holy Land through short-lived raids that proved little more than an annoyance to Muslim rulers in the region. The Seventh Crusade (1239-41), led by Thibault IV of Champagne, briefly recaptured Jerusalem, though it was lost again in 1244 to Khwarazmian forces enlisted by the sultan of Egypt. In 1249, King Louis IX of France led the Eighth Crusade against Egypt, which ended in defeat at Mansura (site of a similar defeat in the Fifth Crusade) the following year. As the Crusaders struggled, a new dynasty known as the Mamluks–descended from former slaves of the sultan–took power in Egypt. In 1260, Mamluk forces in Palestine managed to halt the advance of the Mongols, an invading force led by Genghis Khan and his descendants that had emerged as a potential ally for the Christians in the region. Under the ruthless Sultan Baybars, the Mamluks demolished Antioch in 1268, prompting Louis IX to set out on another Crusade, which ended in his death in North Africa (he was later canonized).

A new Mamluk sultan, Qalawan, had defeated the Mongols by the end of 1281 and turned his attention back to the Crusaders, capturing Tripoli in 1289. In what was considered the last Crusade, a fleet of warships from Venice and Aragon arrived to defend what remained of the Crusader states in 1290. The following year, Qalawan’s son and successor, al-Ashraf Khalil, marched with a huge army against the coastal port of Acre, the effective capital of the Crusaders in the region since the end of the Third Crusade. After only seven weeks under siege, Acre fell, effectively ending the Crusades in the Holy Land after nearly two centuries. Though the Church organized minor Crusades with limited goals after 1291–mainly military campaigns aimed at pushing Muslims from conquered territory or conquering pagan regions–support for such efforts disappeared in the 16th century, with the rise of the Reformation and the corresponding decline of papal authority.