Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem

Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem
Regnum Hierosolimitanum  (Latin) Roiaume de Jherusalem  (Old French) Regno di Gerusalemme  (Italian) Βασίλειον τῶν Ἱεροσολύμων (Ancient Greek)
1099–1291
Flag Coat of arms
The kingdom of Jerusalem and the other Crusader states in the context of the Near East in 1135.
Capital		Jerusalem (1099–1187) Tyre (1187–1191) Acre (1191–1229) Jerusalem (1229–1244) Acre (1244–1291)
Languages		Latin (official/ceremonial) Old French Italian Arabic Greek Western Aramaic
Religion		Roman Catholic Church (official) Eastern Orthodox Church Islam Judaism Samaritanism Druzism
Government		Feudal monarchy
King of Jerusalem
•	1100–1118	Baldwin I
•	1118–1131	Baldwin II
•	1131–1152	Melisende - with Fulk 1131–1143
•	1143-1152-1163	Baldwin III
•	1163–1174	Amalric I
•	1174–1185	Baldwin IV
•	1185–1186	Baldwin V
•	1186–1192	Guy I
•	1192	Conrad I
Legislature		Haute Cour
Historical era		High Middle Ages
•	First Crusade	1095–1099
•	Capture of Jerusalem	15 July 1099
•	First Fall of Jerusalem	1187
•	Third Crusade	1189
•	Sixth Crusade	1229
•	War of the Lombards	1228–1243
•	Final Fall of Jerusalem	1244
•	War of Saint Sabas	1256–70
•	Fall of Acre	18 May 1291
Preceded by Succeeded by Fatimid Caliphate Great Seljuq Empire Ayyubid Dynasty Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)
Today part of		Cyprus  Israel  Jordan  Lebanon

The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was a crusader state established in the Southern Levant by Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, but its history is divided into two distinct periods. The sometimes so-called First Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted from 1099 to 1187, when it was almost entirely overrun by Saladin. After the subsequent Third Crusade, the kingdom was re-established in Acre in 1192, and lasted until that city's destruction in 1291, except for a brief two decades which Frederick II of Hohenstaufen reclaimed Jerusalem back into Christian hands after the Sixth Crusade. This second kingdom is sometimes called the Second Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Kingdom of Acre, after its new capital.

At first the kingdom was little more than a loose collection of towns and cities captured during the crusade, but at its height in the mid-12th century, the kingdom encompassed roughly the territory of modern-day Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the southern parts of Lebanon. From the Mediterranean Sea, the kingdom extended in a thin strip of land from Beirut in the north to the Sinai Desert in the south; into modern Jordan and Syria in the east, and towards Fatimid Egypt in the west. Three other crusader states founded during and after the First Crusade were located further north: the County of Edessa (1097–1144), the Principality of Antioch (1098–1268), and the County of Tripoli (1109–1289). While all three were independent, they were closely tied to Jerusalem. Beyond these to the north and west lay the states of Armenian Cilicia and the Byzantine Empire, with which Jerusalem had a close relationship in the twelfth century. Further east, various Muslim emirates were located which were ultimately allied with the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. The fragmentation of the Muslim east allowed for the initial success of the crusade, but as the 12th century progressed, the kingdom's Muslim neighbours were united by Nur ad-Din Zangi and Saladin, who vigorously began to recapture lost territory. Jerusalem itself fell to Saladin in 1187, and in the 13th century the kingdom was reduced to a few cities along the Mediterranean coast. In this period, the kingdom was ruled by the Lusignan dynasty of the Kingdom of Cyprus, another crusader state founded during the Third Crusade. Dynastic ties also strengthened with Tripoli, Antioch, and Armenia. The kingdom was soon increasingly dominated by the Italian city-states of Venice and Genoa, as well as the imperial ambitions of the Holy Roman Emperors. Emperor Frederick II (reigned 1220-1250) claimed the kingdom by marriage, but his presence sparked a civil war (1228-1243) among the kingdom's nobility. The kingdom became little more than a pawn in the politics and warfare of the Ayyubid and Mamluk dynasties in Egypt, as well as the Khwarezmian and Mongol invaders. As a relatively minor kingdom, it received little financial or military support from Europe; despite numerous small expeditions, Europeans generally proved unwilling to undertake an expensive journey to the east for an apparently losing cause. The Mamluk sultans Baibars (reigned 1260-1277) and al-Ashraf Khalil (reigned 1290-1293) eventually reconquered all the remaining crusader strongholds, culminating in the destruction of Acre in 1291.