Siege of Jerusalem (1099)

Siege of Jerusalem (1099)
Part of the First Crusade
Taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders (1847) by Émile Signol
Date 7 June 1099 – 15 July 1099 Location Jerusalem 31°46′44″N 35°13′32″E / 31.77889°N 35.22556°E / 31.77889; 35.22556 Result Crusader victory Territorial changes Founding of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
Belligerents
Crusaders	Fatimid Caliphate
Commanders and leaders
Godfrey of Bouillon Raymond IV of Toulouse Robert II of Normandy Robert II of Flanders Eustace III of Boulogne Tancred of Galilee Gaston IV of Béarn Berenguer Ramon II Guglielmo Embriaco	Iftikhar ad-Dawla
Strength
12,200–13,300 soldiers[1][2] 11,000–12,000 infantry 1,200–1,300 knights 2 siege towers, 1 battering ram, and several catapults[3]	Total unknown[4] Sizeable garrison of infantry and archers[5] 400 cavalry[4] 14 catapults[6]
Casualties and losses
~3,000 killed and wounded[7]	Entire garrison killed 3,000–70,000 Muslims and Jews massacred[8]
Jerusalem class=notpageimage| Site of the siege relative to the Mediterranean

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Jerusalem
History Timeline City of David Second Temple Period Aelia Capitolina Middle Ages Early Muslim period Kingdom of Jerusalem Mutasarrifate British Mandate Israeli takeover of West Jerusalem Jordanian annexation of East Jerusalem Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem
Sieges Before Common Era 701 BCE 597 BCE 587 BCE 63 BCE 37 BCE Common Era 70 614 637 1099 1187 1244 1834 1917 1948
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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. 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. 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. One of the root causes of the Crusades was the hindering of Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land which began in the 4th century. A number of eyewitness accounts of the battle were recorded, including in the anonymous chronicle Gesta Francorum.

After Jerusalem was captured on 15 July 1099, thousands of Muslims and Jews were massacred by Crusader soldiers. As the Crusaders secured control over the Temple Mount, revered as the site of the two destroyed Jewish Temples, they also seized Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock and repurposed them as Christian shrines. Godfrey of Bouillon, prominent among the Crusader leadership, was elected as the first ruler of Jerusalem.