Siege of Jerusalem

The siege of Jerusalem marked the successful end of the First Crusade, whose objective was the recovery of the city of Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from Islamic control.^¹ The five-week siege began on 7 June 1099 and was carried out by the Christian forces of Western Europe mobilized by Pope Urban II after the Council of Clermont in 1095.^¹ The city had been out of Christian control since the Muslim conquest of the Levant in 637 and had been held for a century first by the Seljuk Turks and later by the Egyptian Fatimids.^¹ One of the chief motivations for the Crusades had been the recent hindering of Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land, impeding a tradition which had taken place since the fourth century.^¹ A number of eyewitness accounts of the battle are recorded, including the anonymous chronicle Gesta Francorum.^¹