Even with such a clear danger, and even with the crusaders firmly fixed in one spot, the Turks could not quiet their internal rivalries long enough to do the Franks in. Instead, month after month dragged by. Both besiegers and besieged faced starvation, but in June 1098 the city finally fell when the Franks were able to bribe someone on the inside to leave a gate open.
The city was a shambles after the long siege, and there was still no food. The crusaders barely had time to get themselves organized before a new Turkish army showed up, under the command of Kerbogha. Now the crusaders were the besieged.
Their position was immediately desperate. The entire surrounding countryside had long been scoured clean of supplies. They city itself of course was empty of food. The walls stood and the gates held, but the defenders themselves had little hope.
At this point, still in June 1098, something extraordinary, something miraculous occurred. A monk named Peter Bartholomew reported that he had been visited by an angel who had shown him where the Holy Lance was buried. This was the Roman soldier's spear that pierced Jesus's side as he hung on the cross. The lance was actually located in a church right there in Antioch!
The crusaders divided almost immediately between those who believed Peter's claims and those who rejected them. He was questioned carefully by Adhemar and others, and while the bishop was skeptical, Peter was believed by Count Raymond, whose support proved decisive.
The alleged location was at a nearby church. Men went there and, directed by Peter Bartholomew, began digging in the floor of the church. They dug some distance down, but found nothing. Peter himself went down to dig and, not long after, he pulled out of the ground the head of a spear.
News that the Holy Lance had indeed been found raced through the city. Such a miracle surely portended victory, and plans were made on the spot to sally out to meet the Turks.
There were still skeptics, of course, but in the general enthusiasm, they remained silent. The Christians gathered their forces, set a day for the attack, and prepared. The Holy Lance was affixed to a pole. During the actual battle it was carried before the Christians as a sort of banner.
The day came, in early July, and the Christians attacked with a furious cavalry charge, the infantry managing as best it could. The Turks fought briefly, then abandoned the field. In truth, Kerbogha had been able to raise an army only by dangling the prospects of easy victory before the eyes of his emirs. Once it became obvious that there would be serious fighting, the Arab princes faded away and the Turkish princes followed.
To the Christians, of course, this was plain evidence of the miraculous power of the Holy Lance. It was time to move on the Jerusalem.
Yet, it was not until January 1099 that the crusaders finally set out, and even then it was at reduced strength. Antioch had been won from the infidel and someone was needed to rule it. Raymond of Toulouse and Bohemond of Tarentum maneuvered for the prize, but it was Bohemond who won it. Antioch became the second crusader state, and Bohemond remained there with his Normans.
The march southward was difficult and took months more. Several towns fell to the crusaders, some requiring a formal siege to win. Peter Bartholomew began experiencing regular visits from the angel, who advised him on all manner of details regarding the advance. At one siege, Peter even began giving military advice.
This was too much for his skeptics. Peter's visions were far too convenient and too martial, and he was openly accused of lying. Challenged, Peter offered to undergo ordeal by fire to prove that he was divinely guided. Being in Biblical lands, they chose a Biblical ordeal: Peter would pass through a fiery furnace and would be protected by an angel of God.
The crusaders constructed a path between walls of flame; Peter would walk down the path between the flames. He did so, and was horribly burned. He died after suffering in agony for twelve days. There was no more said about the Holy Lance, although one faction continued to hold that Peter was genuine and that this was indeed the true Lance.
The crusaders finally arrived before Jerusalem in the evening of 7 June 1099. Jerusalem is a city on a hill or bluff, in the middle of wide deserts. There are pools and springs around the city, but beyond that both water and good forests are miles distant, making this a difficult city to besiege for long.
Jerusalem was held by Arab, not Turkish, defenders. Inside the city, too, were a large number of Jews and Christians, who were tolerated by their Arab rulers. But Jerusalem was not well defended, and no Arab lord from Damascus or Cairo or Bagdad was willing to come to its rescue.
The crusaders besieged Jerusalem for a month, and were in turn assaulted by wind and heat. They very quickly managed to pollute the best water sources, thereby rendering themselves even more miserable. Siege engines could be built only by dragging great logs from the distant mountains, harassed by Arab marauders all the while.
It was discouraging and more than discouraging: why had God granted them such victories, only to deny them the final prize?
The priests in the army had an answer: God would not allow them to liberate the city because the army was guilty of great sins. There was gambling and prostitution and theft and worse rampant in the ranks of the crusaders, and such men could not liberate the Holy Sepulcher.
So, early in July, the Christian army underwent a three day fast. At the end of it, on 8 July, they marched around the city on a footpath in a complete circuit, bishops and priests in front, with crosses and relics, then princes and knights, then soldiers and pilgrims. All were barefoot, and they sang psalms as they went. And the Muslims jeered from the walls. The penitent crusaders then ascended the Mount of Olives and listened to inspired sermons.
The assault began night of 13-14 July, 1099. The attack came from several quarters, although they really didn't have an army numerous enough for this type of attack. Even so, their eagerness carried the day. Around noon on the 15th, Godfrey of Bouillon carried the wall at one point and the crusaders were inside. Not long after, Raymond of Toulouse likewise broke in.
What ensued was an orgy of slaughter. The crusaders killed all they met, regardless of age, sex or religion. The killing went on all that night and through the next day and into the next night. Order was not restored until the 16th of July. When the killing was over, all Muslims and Jews had either been killed or driven out. The crusaders had liberated Jerusalem, but the streets ran with blood and their prize was very nearly a corpse.
The Muslims would never forget the sack of Jerusalem, a city as sacred to their religion as to the Christians (Jerusalem is where Mohammed ascended to Heaven). This was the crowning event in a string of incidents that convinced the Arabs that these Franks were ferocious barbarians. Any Arab leader seeking to rally his people against the Christians had only to remind them of Jerusalem.
The crusaders were now in possession of Jerusalem plus two other states. What next? The representative of the pope was Bishop Adhemar, but he had died during the siege of Antioch. The crusaders chose Godfrey to be king of Jerusalem, but Godfrey declared that only Christ could be king in that city and chose instead the title of Defender of the Holy Sepulcher.
Many of the crusaders visited the holy sites, including trips as far afield as the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee, then they returned home to Europe. Within a few months, all Godfrey had left was about fifty knights.
News went back to a joyous Europe, but Urban II himself died on 29 July without ever knowing the results of his crusade. There were immediate calls for reinforcements for the Holy Land, and three more armies set out. All three separately met disaster in 1101 in Anatolia; only a handful reached the Holy Land.
The one crusading leader who was without a realm was Raymond of Toulouse. He had been outmaneuvered at Antioch, and was not popular enough to be chosen for Jerusalem. Instead, he turned his attention to the cities along the coast, and in particular upon Tripoli. Raymond died in 1105, but his Provencals took the city in 1109, forming the fourth and final Crusader state.
Godfrey died in 1100. His kinsman, Baldwin, was called down from Edessa. A papal representative crowned Baldwin King of Jerusalem on Christmas Day, 1100. Edessa was already his, but it was a separate state. Antioch and Tripoli in theory recognized Jerusalem as their superior, but in actual practice they went their own way. The Christians were no better than the Muslims at creating stable, central governments.
In sharp contrast to Europe, the nobles in Outremer (literally, beyond the sea) mainly lived in the cities. They soon set to work building castles, but the greater number of "Franks" were city dwellers. The countryside remained Arab Muslim (or, certain areas, Syrian Christian). The Franks were always a tiny minority, but their military prowess was respected and feared.
Still, the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem survived as much through Muslim disunity as through Frankish arms. Time and again the Muslims produced a great leader who united them (or some of them, at least) -- Zengi, Nuradin, Saladin, Baybars, Kulavan -- and every time these leaders were able to push the Christians back. But, every time save the final, rivals within the Muslim world emerged and the great leaders had to turn their attentions elsewhere, and Outremer was preserved for another generation.
Moreover, Europe produced more crusader armies, which sometimes served to recover lost ground, to bolster positions, and to dismay or at least distress the Muslims. The formally numbered crusades set out in these years: Second Crusade, 1147; Third Crusade, 1189; Fourth Crusade, 1204; Fifth Crusade, 1217; Sixth Crusade, 1228; Seventh Crusade, 1249; Eighth Crusade, 1270. The last outpost of Outremer, the city of Acre, fell in 1291.
Even after the final collapse of Outremer, crusades continued to be preached. Among the more notable were an expedition against Egypt in 1334, and crusades that ended in terrible defeats at Nicopolis in 1391 and at Varna in 1444.
And these are only the more notable. All through the 12th and 13th centuries, smaller efforts were undertaken by individuals or groups. Crusades were preached against other enemies as well, including the pagan Slavs in northeastern Europe, the Muslims in Spain, heretics in southern France and in Bohemia, and even against political enemies of the popes in Italy.
But crusading had long since ceased to have the power to move all Europe to action. Crusades, even by the mid-13th century, were undertaken largely at the instigation of one or two princes. The crusades of 1249 and 1270, for example, were essentialy the crusades of King Louis IX of France. A king or great prince did most of the financing and raising of arms, and the Church merely gave its approval and support.