British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume II - Page 894

CHAPTER XXII.

Christians of the East. His appeal was enthusiastically received, and the organization of the first Crusade began.

35. It is not possible to enter upon the details of the Crusades (eight in all) which covered the period from 1095 to 1291. •They failed in their object on account of the dissensions of the Crusaders themselves, and above all of the tragic quarrels between the Eastern and Western Empires, still a prey to mutual jealousy and distrust, which finally led to open war and the diversion of the fourth Crusade, despite the express orders of Pope Innocent III, to the conquest of Constantinople which was sacked by the Crusading army on the 4th April, 1204.

36. To return to the first Crusade. After a victorious campaign in the course of which they captured Nicaea, Edessa and Antioch, the Crusaders arrived on the 7th June, 1099, before the walls of Jerusalem, which they captured on the 15th July. The capture of the Holy City was followed by the establishment of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, which was one of the four Latin States established by the Crusaders, the others being the Principality of Antioch and the Counties of Edessa and Tripoli. Godfrey de Bouillon (who himself refused the title of King) was elected by the barons as the first ruler of the Kingdom : he died in August, 1100, and was succeeded by his brother, Baldwin I, who assumed the title which Godfrey had declined, and was crowned in the Basilica of the Nativity at Bethlehem on Christmas Day, 1100. The Latin Kingdom lasted in name until 1291, when the last towns on the coast of Palestine still held by the Christians fell into Moslem hands; but it came effectively to an end in 1187 with the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin.

37. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, Simeon II, had withdrawn to Cyprus" before the arrival of the Crusaders in Palestine; he died in Cyprus shortly after the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders in 1099 : in his place was appointed a Patriarch of the Latin (Western) Rite. The Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem was re-established in 1142, when, by virtue of an accord made in that year between the Byzantine .Emperor Manuel Comnenus and the Latin King of Jerusalem (Fulk of Anjou), it was agreed that a Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem should be nominated in Constantinople: it was not, however, until the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187, that the Greek Patriarchs returned to reside in the Holy City : during the centuries which followed a number of their successors found it convenient again to reside in Constantinople so as to facilitate their dealings with the civil
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* Le Quien: Oriens Christianu.s: Book III, page 131.

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