An Excommunicated Emperor Who Won Jerusalem Without a Battle

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

The Sixth Crusade is an unusual case among the numbered crusades in that its own leader spent the entire campaign under papal excommunication, having repeatedly delayed the crusading vow he had taken years earlier before finally setting out for the Holy Land in person. That standing drew sharp criticism from Pope Gregory IX and from the military orders already established in the Holy Land itself, who regarded an excommunicate emperor as an improper figure to lead any holy war at all, whatever he ultimately achieved by negotiation.

Yet Frederick achieved by negotiation what armed campaigns before him had failed to win outright across more than a century of fighting: the return of Jerusalem to Christian rule, secured through a personal relationship with the Ayyubid sultan al-Kamil rather than through the siege warfare earlier crusades had relied on so heavily. The contrast between an excommunicated leader and a bloodless recovery of the holy city remains one of the more striking features historians note about the crusading movement's numbered campaigns as a whole sequence. Frederick's own excommunication was never lifted during the crusade itself, and Pope Gregory IX's hostility toward him continued even after Jerusalem had changed hands, a reminder that recovering the holy city did not by itself settle Frederick's own standing within the church he had defied.