History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 31, the Second Crusade Roman numeral 3.

Hello again.

Last week we saw things end disastrously for the Latin Christians in the Holy Land. The fearsome

Islamic warrior Zangi had taken one of the main cities in the crusader states,

Edessa. Zangi died not long after the the Crusader

d'I died not long after the conquest, but his death was of little comfort to the

Latin Christians. One of his sons, Nuer Ed Eden, established his base in Aleppo and proceeded to rule over his

father's lands in Syria.

His older brother, Saif Edingazi, set himself up in Moses and ruled over Iraq.

While this meant that Zengi's empire was split in two, this wasn't good news for the crusader states.

Whereas Zange's main goal had been to take Damascus and secure his rule over the Islamic

heartland, Neurad Din with his capital Aleppo so close to the coast, had his

site set on the occupied Christian territories.

His first goal was to take land from the Principality of Antioch, pushing the borders of Christian

territory all the way back to the Orontis River.

By the end of 1147 he had been largely successful with a number of formerly Christian towns including

Aata falling under his control. In summary things were looking bad for the Latin Christians, really

bad. And there wasn't an awful lot they could do about it. Immigration from Europe to the Holy Land had slowed to

a trickle and the only standing armies available were those of the Knights Templar and the

Knights Hospitler, neither of which were large enough to take

on the might of the Islamic forces.

...