Everything about The Sixth Crusade totally explained
The
Sixth Crusade started in 1228 as an attempt to reconquer
Jerusalem. It began only seven years after the failure of the
Fifth Crusade.
Frederick II and the Papacy
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, had involved himself broadly in the
Fifth Crusade, sending troops from Germany, but he failed to accompany the army directly, despite the encouragement of Honorius III and later Gregory IX, as he needed to consolidate his position in Germany and Italy before embarking on a
crusade. However, Frederick again promised to go on a crusade after his coronation as emperor in 1220 by
Pope Honorius III.
In 1225 Frederick married
Yolande of Jerusalem (also known as Isabella), daughter of
John of Brienne, nominal ruler of the
kingdom of Jerusalem, and
Maria of Montferrat. Frederick now had a claim to the truncated kingdom, and reason to attempt to restore it. In 1227, after
Gregory IX became
pope, Frederick and his army set sail from
Brindisi for
Acre, but an epidemic forced Frederick to return to
Italy. Gregory took this opportunity to
excommunicate Frederick for breaking his crusader vow, though this was just an excuse, as Frederick had for years been trying to consolidate imperial power in Italy at the expense of the
papacy.
Gregory stated that the reason for the excommunication was Frederick's reluctance to go on crusade, dating back to the Fifth Crusade. For Gregory, the crusade was just a useful excuse to excommunicate the emperor, whose Italian ambitions he feared. Frederick attempted to negotiate with the pope, but eventually decided to ignore him, and sailed to
Syria in 1228 despite the excommunication, arriving at Acre in September.
The crusade
Instead of heading straight for the
Holy Land, Frederick first sailed to
Cyprus, which had been an imperial fiefdom since its capture by
Richard the Lionheart on his way to
Acre during the
Third Crusade. The emperor arrived with the clear intent of stamping his authority on the kingdom, but was treated cordially by the native barons until a dispute arose between him and the bailli of Cyprus,
John of Ibelin. Frederick claimed that his regency was illegitimate and demanded the surrender of John's mainland fief of
Beirut to the imperial throne. However, here he erred, for John pointed out that the kingdoms of Cyprus and Jerusalem were constitutionally separate and he couldn't be punished for offences in Cyprus by seizure of Beirut. This would have important consequences for the crusade, as it alienated the powerful
Ibelin faction, turning them against the emperor.
Acre, as the nominal capital of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem and the seat of the
Latin Patriarchate, was split in its support for Frederick. Frederick's own army and the
Teutonic Knights supported him, but Patriarch
Gerald of Lausanne (and the clergy) followed the hostile papal line. Once news of Frederick's excommunication had spread, public support for him waned considerably. The position of the
Knights Hospitaller and
Knights Templar is more complicated; though they refused to join the emperor's army directly, they supported the crusade once Frederick agreed to have his name removed from official orders. The native barons greeted Frederick enthusiastically at first, but were wary of the emperor's history of centralization and his desire to impose imperial authority. This was largely due to Frederick's treatment of John of Ibelin in Cyprus, and his apparent disdain for the constitutional concerns of the barons.
Even with the military orders on board, Frederick's force was a mere shadow of the army that had amassed when the crusade had originally been called. He realised that his only hope of success in the Holy Land was to negotiate for the surrender of Jerusalem as he lacked the manpower to engage the
Ayyubid empire in battle. Frederick hoped that a token show of force, a threatening march down the coast, would be enough to convince
al-Kamil, the
sultan of
Egypt, to honor a proposed agreement that had been negotiated some years earlier, prior to the death of
al-Muazzam, the governor of
Damascus. The Egyptian sultan, occupied with the suppression of rebellious forces in Syria, agreed to cede Jerusalem to the
Franks, along with a narrow corridor to the coast.
In addition, Frederick received
Nazareth,
Sidon,
Jaffa and
Bethlehem. Other lordships may have been returned to
Christian control, but sources disagree. It was, however, a treaty of compromise. The
Muslims retained control over the
Temple Mount area of Jerusalem, the
al-Aqsa mosque and
Dome of the Rock. The
Transjordan castles stayed in Ayyubid hands, and Arab sources suggest that Frederick wasn't permitted to restore Jerusalem's fortifications. The treaty, completed on
February 18,
1229, safeguarded a truce of ten years.
Frederick entered Jerusalem on
17 March,
1229, and attended a crown-wearing ceremony the following day. It is unknown whether he intended this to be interpreted as his official coronation as King of Jerusalem; in any case the absence of the patriarch, Gerald, rendered it illegitimate. There is evidence to suggest that the crown Frederick wore was actually the imperial one, but in any case proclaiming his lordship over Jerusalem was a provocative act. Legally, he was actually only regent for his son
Conrad II of Jerusalem, only child of Yolande and the grandson of Maria of Montferrat and John of Brienne, who had been born shortly before Frederick left in 1228.
Legacy and precedent
As Frederick had matters to attend to at home, he left Jerusalem in May. It took a defeat in battle later in 1229 for the Pope to lift the excommunication, but by now Frederick had demonstrated that a crusade could be successful even without military superiority or papal support. The truce, hugely unpopular from its inception, expired in 1239; and Jerusalem was taken by the
Khwarezmian Turks in 1244.
Frederick had set a precedent, in having achieved success on crusade without papal involvement. Further crusades would be launched by individual kings, such as
Louis IX of France (the
Seventh and
Eighth Crusades) and
Edward I of England (the
Ninth Crusade), effectively demonstrating an erosion of papal authority.
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