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Y203: The Crusades and the Crusader States 1095–1192

  • 8 subtopics
  • 19 things to know
  • Unit group 2
  • Non-British period study, one unit of twenty-four

What Y203: The Crusades and the Crusader States 1095–1192 covers

The Crusades and the Crusader States 1095–1192 is unit Y203 of OCR History A, one of the twenty-four options in unit group 2, the non-British period study; a student sits one of them. Its four key topics are the First Crusade, the Crusader States in the 12th Century, the Second Crusade and the Third Crusade. 279 recall questions across 8 subtopics.

Where it is assessed

Unit group 2

Non-British period study, one unit of twenty-four.

Check the OCR specification ↗

The 8 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

Why did the death of Baldwin II in 1131 create a succession problem?

Numbers

What weakened the crusader states in the 1130s and 1140s?

Key term

Compare the fighting methods of the crusaders and their Turkish opponents.

Evaluation

Why was manpower the fundamental weakness of the crusader states?

Key term

What gave Saladin his pretext for war in 1187?

Key term

Why must the accounts of Urban's sermon be treated with caution?

Key term

How was the crusade spread beyond Clermont?

Key term

Give three motives that drew crusaders to take the cross.

Who and when

How did Melisende's joint rule with Baldwin III end?

Key term

Why were so many castles handed over to the military orders?

Key term

What was decided at the council of Acre in 1148?

Key term

What was the effect of the failure on Outremer?

Who and when

How did Jerusalem come into Saladin's hands in 1187, and what did the Franks retain?

Who and when

How did the siege of Acre end?

Who and when

Why, after his victory at Arsuf had opened the coast, did Richard twice turn back from Jerusalem?

Who and when

Why is it difficult to argue that crusaders went mainly for land and wealth?

Key term

What were the main sources of royal revenue in the Kingdom of Jerusalem?

Who and when

Which campaigns connected with the Second Crusade did succeed?

Key term

What happened at Jaffa in 1192?

Take Y203: The Crusades and the Crusader States 1095–1192 further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

  • Second Crusade vs Third Crusade

    Second Crusade: the expedition preached after the fall of a crusader county, which broke up before Damascus. Third Crusade: the expedition that followed the loss of Jerusalem and recovered the coast but not the city.

  • County of Edessa vs Principality of Antioch

    County of Edessa: the first crusader state to be established, and the first to fall, in 1144. Principality of Antioch: the crusader state founded by Bohemond on the Orontes after the siege of 1098.

  • Zengi vs Nur ad-Din

    Zengi: the atabeg of Mosul and Aleppo whose capture of a crusader capital in 1144 provoked a new expedition. Nur ad-Din: the ruler who united Aleppo and Damascus and made the recovery of Jerusalem a declared aim.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Describe the condition of Western Europe on the eve of the First Crusade.

    Model answer

    Its population and wealth were growing, its knightly class fought constantly among themselves, the Church was asserting its independence and leadership under the reforming papacy, and pilgrimage and the cult of relics dominated popular devotion.

  2. 2

    What had happened to Byzantium in the decades before 1095?

    Model answer

    Defeat by the Seljuk Turks in 1071 had cost it most of Anatolia, its richest recruiting ground, and although Alexius I had steadied the empire he lacked the manpower to recover the lost provinces.

  3. 3

    Explain the political and religious divisions in the Islamic Near East in 1095.

    Model answer

    The Seljuk empire had fragmented after the deaths of its sultan and vizier in 1092 into rival princes and atabegs, notably the feuding brothers at Aleppo and Damascus, while the Sunni Seljuks were also the enemies of the Shi'a Fatimid caliphate in Egypt.

  4. 4

    How did Christian thinking come to permit a holy war?

    Model answer

    The idea of a just war fought at God's command was combined with the papacy's readiness to bless armies fighting for the Church, so warfare could be presented not merely as permissible but as an act of penance earning spiritual reward.

  5. 5

    What did Alexius I ask of the West in 1095, and what did he get?

    Model answer

    He appealed for a force of western troops to help him recover Anatolia, and instead received several independent armies of tens of thousands under their own princes, whose aims and destination were not his.

  6. 6

    What appeal did Urban II make at Clermont in November 1095?

    Model answer

    He called on the knights of the West to stop fighting one another and go to the aid of the eastern Christians and to liberate Jerusalem, promising that the expedition would count as full penance for their sins.

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Y203: The Crusades and the Crusader States 1095–1192 revision questions

What does Y203: The Crusades and the Crusader States 1095–1192 cover in OCR A-Level History A?
8 subtopics: the first crusade: situation in western europe, urban ii’s aims and appeal at clermont, the first crusade: motives of crusaders, capture of edessa, antioch and jerusalem, the crusader states in the 12th century: establishment, problems of succession and internal rivalries, the crusader states in the 12th century: manpower, castles, the military orders and finance, the second crusade: zengi, the fall of edessa and the call to crusade, the second crusade: events in anatolia, antioch, acre and impact of the failure of the second crusade, the third crusade: development of the idea of jihad, zengi, nur ad din and saladin, problems in outremer and the third crusade: reasons for the failure and consequences of the third crusade for the west. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.
How is Y203: The Crusades and the Crusader States 1095–1192 organised?
By the OCR H505 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.

Every question in Y203: The Crusades and the Crusader States 1095–1192, on a schedule.

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