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The Crusader States were the territories created by Western Europeans who arrived in the Eastern
Mediterranean during the Crusades in the 12th and 13th centuries.
The first four Crusader states were:
These four were created during and immediately after the First
Crusade. The first Crusader State, the County of Edessa, was founded in 1098. The
Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted until 1291, when the city of Acre fell. There were also a number of vassal states of Jerusalem.
During the Third Crusade, the Crusaders founded:
Richard I of England conquered the island on the way to
the Holy Land, and it came to be ruled by descendants of the displaced kings of
Jerusalem until 1489.
In the Fourth Crusade, the Byzantine Empire was conquered and divided into four states:
The Venetians also created the Duchy of the Archipelago in the Aegean Sea in
the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade.
Thessalonica and the Latin Empire were reconquered by the Byzantines by 1261.
Descendants of Crusaders continued to rule in Athens and the Peloponnesus
or Morea until the mid-15th
century.
Please see the articles on the individual states for more information.
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