Barons' Crusade
| Barons' Crusade | |||||||||
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| Part of the Crusades | |||||||||
 Map depicting gains made by the crusade Red: Crusader states in 1239; Pink: territory acquired in 1239–41 |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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Kingdom of France |
Ayyubids of Egypt |
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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As-Salih Ayyub |
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Kingdom of France
Kingdom of England
The Barons' Crusade, also called the Crusade of 1239, was in territorial terms the most successful crusade since the First. Called by Pope Gregory IX, the Barons' Crusade broadly spanned from 1234-1241 and embodied the highest point of papal endeavor "to make crusading a universal Christian undertaking." The Barons' Crusade consisted of two separate crusades: one that took place in Constantinople and the other one in the Holy Land. Pope Gregory IX called for a crusade in France, England, and Hungary with different degrees of success. Although the crusaders did not achieve any glorious military victories, they used diplomacy to successfully play the two warring factions of the Muslim Ayyubid dynasty (As-Salih Ismail in Damascus and As-Salih Ayyub in Egypt) against one another for even more concessions than Frederick II gained during the more well-known Sixth Crusade. For a few years, the Barons' Crusade returned the Kingdom of Jerusalem to its largest size since 1187.
The crusade is sometimes discussed as two separate crusades: that of King Theobald I of Navarre which began in 1239, and the separate host of crusaders under the leadership of Richard of Cornwall, which arrived after Theobald departed in 1240. Despite relatively plentiful primary sources, scholarship until recently has been limited, due at least in part to the lack of major military engagements.
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