Crusades

mass military expeditions and wars initiated by the Catholic Church in the High Middle Ages

13 dated entries naming Crusades, drawn from 13 separate years between 1064 CE and 1736 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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11th century

1064European warriors go to Spain, to participate in the siege of Barbastro. This expedition is sanctioned by Pope Alexander II – and is now regarded as an early form of Crusade.source

12th century

1101February 3 – Ranulf Flambard, bishop of Durham, escapes from the Tower of London and flees to Normandy. There he joins Robert Curthose, duke of Normandy, who has just returned from the Crusades.source
1119March – Olegarius Bonestruga, archbishop of Tarragona, preaches successfully a Crusade against the Moors in Catalonia.source
1137March 25 – Bazwāj, a mamluk (slave) commander of Damascus, launches a military campaign against Tripoli, reaching Pilgrims' Mount. He defeats a Crusader army under Count Pons (protector of Tripoli). Pons is forced to flee into the mountains where native Christians capture him. Later, he is handed over and instantly put to death by Bazwāj.source
1182May 11 – Saladin leads an Egyptian expeditionary force from Cairo to Syria. In June, he arrives in Damascus and learns that his nephew Farrukh Shah has raided Galilee, and sacked the villages near Mount Tabor. On his way back, Farrukh Shah attacks the fortress of Habis Jaldak, carved out of the rock above the River Yarmuk. The garrison, Christian Syrians with no great wish to die for the Crusaders, promptly surrenders.source
1183The Siege of Kerak is waged between the Ayyubids and the Crusaders, in which regent Guy of Lusignan refuses to fight.source

13th century

1204April 12 – Sack of Constantinople: Crusaders enter Constantinople by storm and start pillaging the city as part of the Fourth Crusade. Forces of the Republic of Venice seize the antique statues that will become the horses of Saint Mark.source
1219Twenty-four Lithuanian dukes and nobles purportedly sign a peace treaty with Halych-Volhynia, stating a common cause against invading Christian Crusaders.source
1239November – Pope Gregory IX grants the status of Crusade to King Ferdinand III of Castile ("the Saint"), who leads a successful campaign against the Almohads in Murcia.source
1240Pope Gregory IX authorizes a Crusade against Novgorod, hoping that the Kievan Rus' will be too preoccupied dealing with the raiding Mongols to the east to defend.source
1281October 18 – Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos is excommunicated by Pope Martin IV without any warning or provocation. Martin authorizes Charles I, king of Sicily, to make a Crusade against Michael, who has re-established his rule in Constantinople. Charles prepares an expedition in Sicily and assembles a fleet of 100 ships, and 300 more in Naples, Provence, and the Greek territories, which carry some 8,000 cavalrymen.source

15th century

1464June 18 – Pope Pius II himself shoulders the cross of the Crusades, and departs for Ancona to participate in person. He names Skanderbeg general captain of the Holy See, under the title Athleta Christi. This plan forces Skanderbeg to break his ten-year peace treaty with the Ottomans signed in 1463, by attacking their forces near Ohrid.source

18th century

1736December 26 – Andrew Michael Ramsay gives an oration, in which he relates the heritage and internationalism of Freemasonry to that of the Crusades.source