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Europe was feeling the effects of population growth.
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Forest lands were being cleared, frontiers pushed forward, and markets organized. Italian shipping was beginning to challenge the Muslim predominance in the Mediterranean.
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Europeans were able to to launch a major military undertaking at the very time the Seljuq Turks, one of several tribes on the northeastern frontier of the Muslim world who had embraced Islam in the 11th century, were beginning to move south and west into Iran and beyond with all the enthusiasm of a new convert.
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Pope Urban II called for Western Christians at the Council of Clermont to retake the Holy Land from Muslim control.
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Crusaders successfully reclaimed Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim control. -
The second major crusade launched from Europe after Edessa's fall, motivated by piety and politics, led by Kings Louis VII of France Conrad III of Germany -
An attempt known as the kings Crusade led by King Philip II of France, King Richard I of England, and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to reconquer the Holy Land following the capture of Jerusalem by the Ayyubid sultan Saladin