Hello,
I have a few questions about the city of Jerusalem and the crusades
So what I often get confused on is who held Jerusalem in the first crusade?
I heard a few of my friends debate who held it first and who started the crusades and I honestly have absolutely no clue on anything they been saying.
So I know the Roman empire held the city for a bit but obviously the crusades are long after that.
My friend was making a point that the christians held the city first before the Romans became Catholic and they where holding the city and by technicality they had it before the muslims did.
So I’m curious on who exactly started the crusades? and who held the city first?
I don’t really want to ask my friends as I’d get different answers depending on who I ask
It was part of the Roman Empire, and then the eastern half of the empire when it was split into western/eastern halves. We typically call the medieval eastern Roman Empire the Byzantine Empire (although they called it, simply, the Roman Empire, since that's what it was). The Roman/Byzantine Empire included Jerusalem until all of Syria/Palestine was conquered by the Muslims in 638.
The First Crusade started for an unrelated reason - the Byzantine Empire asked for help against the Seljuk Turks, who had invaded Anatolia in the 1070s. But then the crusaders figured, since they're already taking a big army toward the east...why not continue all the way to Jerusalem?
(Of course Jerusalem also has several thousand years of history before the Romans. Maybe it should be given back to the Canaanites, or whoever first built it...)
We have some other answers in the FAQ that may help:
Who started the Crusades? (Each one) by /u/Ambarenya
What kind of specific examples/evidence exists to support the idea that the Crusades were motivated more by the prospect of collateral wealth rather than religious goals in the Holy Land? by /u/Medievalismist
I saw this article about the Crusades posted on Facebook. How accurate are the bullet points? by /u/Valkine and /u/labarge3
Were the crusades an inevitable event, or were they purely the brainchild of Pope Urban? by /u/thejukeboxhero
Were the Crusades a defensive move? by /u/thejukeboxhero
And also a previous answer from me: