Ninth Crusade
From Freepedia
medieval Crusades against the Muslims in the Holy Land.Prince Edward of England had arrived in Tunis too late to contribute to Louis IX of France's Eighth Crusade, but along with Louis' brother Charles of Anjou he continued on to Acre, capital of the remnant of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. They arrived in 1269, just as the Mamluk sultan Baibars was unsuccessfully besieging Tripoli, the last remaining territory of the County of Tripoli. Earlier, in 1268, Baibars had also captured Antioch, the last remnant of the Principality of Antioch.
Baibars also built the first Mamluk navy and attempted to land on Cyprus in 1271, drawing Hugh III of Cyprus (the nominal king of Jerusalem) out of Acre, but the fleet was destroyed. Edward did little except mediate between Hugh and his unenthusiastic knights from the Ibelin family of Cyprus, and negotiate an eleven-year truce with Baibars, although Baibars first attempted to assassinate him by sending men pretending to seek baptism as Christians. Edward returned home (to be crowned King of England) in 1272 when his father Henry III died.
Edward had been accompanied by Theobald Visconti, who became Pope Gregory X in 1271. Gregory called for a new crusade, especially at the Council of Lyons in 1274, but nothing came of this. Charles, however, took advantage of a dispute between Hugh III, the Knights Templar, and the Venetians in order to bring Acre states under his control. He bought Mary of Antioch's claims to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and attacked Hugh III, who actually then held the rump kingdom. In 1277 Hugh of San Severino captured Acre for Charles.
Venice then suggested a crusade be called against Constantinople, where Michael VIII had recently re-established the Byzantine Empire. In 1281 Pope Martin IV gave permission for this; the French took the land route over Durazzo, while the Venetians took the sea route. However, after the Sicilian Vespers on March 31, 1282, instigated by Michael VIII, Charles was forced to return home.
This was the last expedition undertaken against the Byzantines or the Muslims in the east.
The end came in 1291, after some Christians attacked a Syrian caravan and killed 19 Moslem merchants. The Mameluk Sultan Khalil demanded that they pay for the devastation. When no reply came, the enraged Sultan besieged Acre, now the last Crusader stronghold in Palestine, and took it in forty-three days. 60,000 prisoners were slaughtered, Khalil continued to stomp out the Holy Land, and by the end of the year, the Crusader States ceased to exist. The series of Crusades to the Holy Land were over almost two hundred years afer Pope Urban II had called for the first of these holy wars.
