An expedition from the Upper Rhine region to the Holy Land in response to appeals by Pope Clement IV to aid the kingdom of Jerusalem against the threat from the Mamluks under Sultan Baybars I.
In January 1266, Clement commenced a campaign for a new crusade in Germany, ordering the German bishops, Dominicans, and Franciscans to preach the cross, but the response was poor except in those regions bordering France. In the Upper Rhine region, the crusade was preached with considerable success by Achilles, former prior of the Basel Dominicans, with the result that several hundred individuals from Alsace, the Sundgau, and Basel had taken the cross by early 1267. The crusaders departed from Basel during Lent (2 March-10 April) 1267, under the leadership of two ministerial knights of the bishop of Basel, Sigfrid Monch and Hemman (Johannes) Schaler, and traveled by sea from Genoa to Acre (mod. ‘Akko, Israel).
Several of the crusaders were able to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, but little else is known of their activity in the Holy Land; it is probable that the Germans held off from any significant military activity in expectation of the arrival of the expeditions of Louis IX of France and Prince Edward of England. The majority appear to have returned to Germany in the course of 1269-1270. The main source for the history of the expedition is the Bafiler Chron-ick of Christian Wurstisen (Basel, 1580).
-Alan V. Murray
See also: Germany
Bibliography
Bleck, Reinhard, “Ein oberrheinischer Palastina-Kreuzzug 1267,” Basler Zeitschrift fur Geschichte und Altertumskunde 87 (1987), 5-27.
World History
