The Crusader Kingdoms of Outremer
What Was Outremer?
Outremer — “overseas” in French — was the name Western Europeans gave to the crusader states of the Levant. Four major states emerged from the First Crusade and its immediate aftermath. Together they formed a thin strip of Christian-controlled territory along the eastern Mediterranean coast, surrounded on every side by Muslim-ruled lands. Maintaining these states required constant military effort, political skill and a flow of settlers and reinforcements from the West.
The four states were the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Of these, Jerusalem was the most prestigious; Edessa, founded first in 1098 by Baldwin of Boulogne, was the most vulnerable, lacking natural defensive boundaries and surrounded by Muslim-ruled territory.
The four crusader states, roughly in order of founding: County of Edessa (1098), Principality of Antioch (1098), Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099), County of Tripoli (formally established c.1102, though Raymond of Toulouse had controlled the area from 1099). Edessa was the first founded and the first to fall — to Zengi in 1144.
Difficulties Encountered
The crusader states faced structural problems from the moment they were established. The population of Western settlers was tiny compared to the Muslim, Orthodox Christian, Jewish and other communities already living in the region. It has been estimated that the Latin (Western Christian) ruling class in the Kingdom of Jerusalem never exceeded 100,000 to 120,000 people, governing a much larger indigenous population. Military manpower was always scarce.
Supplying the states depended on the sea routes controlled by Italian trading cities — Venice, Genoa and Pisa — who extracted large concessions in return for their naval support. The crusader lords held their lands in a feudal system transplanted from France, but the feudal levy produced relatively small forces, adequate for garrison duty but insufficient for major offensive campaigns without reinforcements from the West. The states also faced the recurring problem of coordination: each state had its own ruler, and disputes between them often prevented unified military action.
The crusader states’ Muslim neighbours were not initially as dangerous as they might have been. The Seljuk empire was fragmenting into competing successor states, and the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt was also weakened. This fragmentation helped the crusaders in their early decades. However, when a stronger Muslim leader emerged — as with Zengi of Mosul in the 1130s and 1140s — the vulnerability of Outremer became starkly apparent.
The crusader states could not maintain the initiative by sheer military force. They compensated with a sophisticated system of stone castles — such as the Krak des Chevaliers, held by the Knights Hospitaller — and by exploiting the divisions among their neighbours. Diplomacy, including alliances with individual Muslim rulers against their rivals, was as important as military strength.
Integration with Muslims and Jews
The image of the crusader states as a purely hostile foreign presence is too simple. Over time, the Western settlers adapted to life in the Levant. The second and third generation of crusader settlers — known as Pullani (singular: Pullanus) — often spoke Arabic, wore Eastern-style clothing, employed Muslim and Jewish physicians, and conducted regular trade with Muslim merchants. They were regarded with some suspicion by new arrivals from Europe, who saw their accommodations as a betrayal of crusading ideals.
The majority of the population under crusader rule remained Muslim. In rural areas in particular, Muslim peasants continued to farm the land much as they had done before the conquest, paying taxes to their new Latin lords. Islamic religious practice was generally permitted in villages, though mosques in the major cities were converted into churches. Jewish communities, severely persecuted at the time of the conquest, gradually re-established themselves, especially in coastal cities. A pragmatic economic relationship emerged: the crusader states needed the agricultural and commercial skills of their non-Christian subjects to function.
The Pullani — locally-born descendants of Western settlers — adapted to Levantine life by learning Arabic, adopting Eastern dress and working alongside Muslim and Jewish neighbours. Newly arrived Europeans criticised this as cultural compromise, creating friction between “old settlers” and “new crusaders”.
The Levant had large communities of Eastern Christians: Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Syrian and Coptic Christians. The crusaders’ arrival was initially welcomed by some of these communities as liberation from Muslim rule. But the Latin Church’s claim to authority over Eastern Christian clergy created tension. In Antioch and Jerusalem, Latin patriarchs replaced Orthodox ones, and Latin priests took control of major churches. Eastern Christians were tolerated but treated as second-class members of the spiritual community.
The Armenian community in the north was a significant exception. Armenian lords often cooperated closely with the crusaders, and there were intermarriages between Armenian and crusader noble families. Roupen I of Little Armenia supported the crusaders diplomatically, and Armenian military forces occasionally fought alongside the Latin states. This relationship demonstrated that inter-communal cooperation in Outremer was possible and sometimes strategically vital.