The crusaders and their descendants often learned to speak Greek, Arabic, and other eastern languages, and intermarried with the native Christians ( whether Greek, Syrian, or Armenian ) and sometimes with converted Muslims.

Relations between eastern Christians and the Latin crusaders were " complex and ambiguous ", not simply friendly or hostile.

The eastern Christians, at least, probably felt closer ties to their fellow Christian crusaders than to either Turkic overlords or Muslim Arabs.

The crusaders were neither totally integrated with the native population, nor did they segregate themselves in the cities away from the rural natives, but rather that they settled in both urban and rural areas ; specifically, they settled in areas that had traditionally been inhabited by the eastern Christians.

Rather it more generally refers to aiding the crusaders ' Christian " brothers of the eastern shore ," and to their loss of Asia Minor to the Turks.

In 1107 Sigurd I of Norway sailed for the eastern Mediterranean with a host of Norwegian crusaders to fight for the newly established Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the Danes and Swedes participated energetically in the Baltic Crusades of the 12th and 13th centuries.

A politique, Bohemond was resolved to engineer the enthusiasm of the crusaders to his own ends ; and when his nephew Tancred left the main army at Heraclea Cybistra, and attempted to establish a footing in Cilicia, the movement may have been already intended as a preparation for Bohemond's eastern principality.

The Crusader states were a number of mostly 12th-and 13th-century feudal states created by Western European crusaders in Asia Minor, Greece and the Holy Land, and during the Northern Crusades in the eastern Baltic area.

The Turks fled and Arslan turned to other concerns in his eastern territory, and the crusaders were allowed to march virtually unopposed through Anatolia on their way to Antioch.

Arpad's Magyars settled here in the Great Plain first and then in Transylvania and Moldavian The Romans in Pannonia were eventually forced to build forts to protect themselves but they were not able to extend their empirs into what is now eastern Hungare. The family name Medonich was found to be descended from the founding Magyar race, a strong and proud race of warriors, farmers and horsemen who survived against the continued incursion of the Turks seeking to gain their and proud beautiful homeland. By the 11th century the Magyars had converted to Christianity and saw waves of crusaders and heated battles over the next centuries in 1221 the issuance of the Golden Bull by King Andras II gave rights of self determination to the nobles and gentryat the national council and it is here that the Medonich family on the document of attendance.

Art from the kingdom, such as the Melisende Psalter, often shows a mixture of eastern and western styles, just as the western crusaders had begun to accustom themselves to eastern culture.

There is a legend connected with these ruins that some French navigators, who may have been crusaders, got caught in a storm.

The Hashshashin then took control of the ruins, and they were defeated by the crusaders in 1158, but disputes forced the crusaders to abandon the siege.

Alexios IV Angelos, the son of the deposed Isaac II, had recently escaped from Constantinople and now appealed to the crusaders, promising to end the schism of East and West, to pay for their transport, and to provide military support to the crusaders if they helped him to depose his uncle and sit on his father's throne.

In the ensuing fighting, the crusaders set the city on fire, ultimately leaving 20, 000 people homeless.

The crusaders ' second attack proved too strong to repel, and Alexios V fled into Thrace on the night of 12 April 1204, accompanied by Eudokia Angelina and her mother Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamatera.

The supposed Holy Spear was unearthed from the floor of a Church during the Siege of Antioch ( 1098 ) by crusaders on the First Crusade, found by a poor and otherwise unknown monk named Peter Bartholomew.

This disunity among the Anatolian and Syrian emirs allowed the crusaders to overcome any military opposition they faced on the way to Jerusalem.

The crusaders arrived at Jerusalem in June 1099 ; a few of the neighbouring towns ( Ramla, Lydda, Bethlehem, and others ) were taken first, and Jerusalem itself was captured on July 15.

The new kingdom, and Godfrey's reputation, was secured with the defeat of the Fatimid Egyptian army under al-Afdal Shahanshah at the Battle of Ascalon one month after the conquest, on August 12, but Raymond and Godfrey's continued antagonism prevented the crusaders from taking control of Ascalon itself.

In the winter the crusaders were affected by floods and disease, and the siege dragged on throughout 1219, when Francis of Assisi arrived to attempt to negotiate a truce.

Prawer argued further that the kingdom was an early attempt at colonization, in which the crusaders were a small ruling class, who were dependent on the native population for survival but made no attempt to integrate with them.

In 1206 the crusaders subdued the Livonian stronghold in Turaida on the right bank of Gauja river, the ancient trading route to the Northwestern Rus.

The campaign continued in 1209 with an attack on the Orthodox Principality of Jersika ( known as Lettia ), accused by crusaders of being in alliance with Lithuanian pagans.

The conquest of Semigallian counties started in 1219 when crusaders from Rīga occupied Mežotne, the major port on the Lielupe waterway, and founded the Bishopric of Semigallia.

Tamar sought to make use of the weakness of the Byzantine Empire and the crusaders ' defeat at the hands of the Ayyubid sultan Saladin in order to gain Georgia's position on the international stage and to assume the traditional role of the Byzantine crown as a protector of the Christians of the Middle East.

* The town of Riga is chartered as a city by Bishop Albert, who landed on the site of the town with 1, 500 crusaders earlier that year.

But on March 15, 1147 Afonso stormed the fortress of Santarém, and about the same time a band of crusaders on their way to Palestine landed at Porto in 16 June 1147, and volunteered for the impending siege of Lisbon.

Despite the efforts of Henry and his English crusaders, two years of attacks on Vilnius proved fruitless.

Although the crusaders were evicted by 1225, the colonists they brought in remained, along with local population, as did three distinct settlements they founded on the site of Brașov:

Because of the crusading appeal made by Pope Eugene III and his representative Nicholas Brakespear ( the future Pope Hadrian IV ), the siege received the aid of crusaders from multiple nationalities ( Genovese, Anglo-Normans, Normans, Southern-French, Germans, Flemish and Dutch ), who were on their way to the Holy Land.

In the 12th century, the crusaders erected beyond the field, on the south side of the valley of Hinnom, a large building now in a ruined condition, measuring seventy-eight feet in length from east to west, fifty-eight feet in width and thirty in height on the north.

Virtually all other crusaders, including the Templars and Hospitallers, condemned this deal as a political ploy on the part of Frederick to regain his kingdom while betraying the cause of the Crusaders.

In August 1209 the crusaders captured the small village of Servian and headed for Béziers, arriving on July 21.

La Jonquera was a site of a conflict involving the retreating French crusaders in 1285 that ended in their defeat.

Image: MuhuStronghold. JPG | Muhu Stronghold, site of the native Estonian surrender to crusaders in 1227.

When the enclosure was controlled by crusaders, access was occasionally possible.

Adhemar negotiated with Alexius I Comnenus at Constantinople, reestablished at Nicaea some discipline among the crusaders, fought a crucial role at the Battle of Dorylaeum and was largely responsible for sustaining morale during the siege of Antioch through various religious rites including fasting and special observances of holy days.

The Béziers army attempted a sortie but was quickly defeated, then pursued by the crusaders back through the gates and into the city.

Jerusalem collected money through tribute payments, first from the coastal cities which had not yet been captured, and later from other neighbouring states such as Damascus and Egypt, which the crusaders could not conquer directly.

At first the French and English crusaders travelled together, but the armies split at Lyon, as Richard decided to go by sea, and Philip took the overland route through the Alps to Genoa.

Nietzsche compares genuine free spirits with the Assassins: " When the Christian crusaders in the Orient came across that invincible order of Assassinsthat order of free spirits par excellence whose lowest order received, through some channel or other, a hint about that symbol and spell reserved for the uppermost echelons alone, as their secret: " nothing is true, everything is permitted ".

In 1096, Bohemond, along with his uncle Roger I of Sicily the great count of Sicily, was attacking Amalfi, which had revolted against Duke Roger, when bands of crusaders began to pass, on their way through Italy to Constantinople.

The crusaders defeated Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard in 1177, and in the early 1180s there was an uneasy truce between the two sides, which was broken by the raids of Raynald on Muslim caravans passing through his fief of Oultrejordain.

On the morning of July 4, the crusaders were blinded by smoke from fires that Saladin's forces had set to add to the Frankish army's misery, through which the Muslim cavalry particularly the divisions commanded by Gokbori pelted them with 400 loads of arrows that had been brought up during the night.

The crusaders crossed the Danube, marched through Vidin, and arrived at Nikopol, where they met the Turks.

Because Stratsimir had permitted the crusaders to pass through Vidin, Bayezid invaded his lands, took him prisoner, and annexed his territories.

The crusaders and Byzantines each blamed the other for the defeat, and neither of them were able to ensure a safe route through Anatolia now that Kilij Arslan had strengthened his position.

However, although Outremer ( Jerusalem's name under the crusaders ) was lost to the Saracens, the claim to the title of King of Jerusalem continued to be passed down through several generations, until almost every monarch in Europe used the title.

Yaghi-Siyan was aware of the approaching crusader army as it marched through Anatolia in 1097 ; the city stood between the crusaders and Palestine.

He then approached the other crusaders and offered to let them in, through Firouz, if they would agree to let him have the city.

The Pope's call was taken up and the heavily armed crusaders set off across Europe, through the Balkans, past the Byzantine Empire and even wandered in sight of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia on their way to Jerusalem.

According to William of Tyre, knights of the Order rushed through the breach without Baldwin's knowledge while Bernard prevented other crusaders from following, as he did not want to share the spoils of the city with the king.

The monks also built a hospice for pilgrams and crusaders, who often passed through Vienna on their way to Jerusalem.

During the First Crusade, the emir assisted the crusaders passing through his land, giving them horses and food and other provisions.