Seventh Crusade (1248-1254): Louis IX's Campaign in Egypt

The Seventh Crusade (1248–1254) was an expedition led by King Louis IX of France to recover Jerusalem by first conquering Egypt. It began with the easy capture of Damietta in June 1249 but ended in disaster at Mansurah in 1250, when Louis and most of his army were taken prisoner. The crusade also mattered far beyond Europe: the crisis it caused in Cairo helped the Mamluk soldiers seize power and found a state that ruled Egypt and Syria for more than 250 years.

Background: the loss of Jerusalem in 1244

Jerusalem had returned to Christian hands by treaty in 1229 during the Sixth Crusade of Emperor Frederick II, but the city was poorly defended. In the summer of 1244 Khwarazmian horsemen, allies of the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, as-Salih Ayyub, sacked it. In October 1244 a combined army of the crusader states and Syrian Muslim allies was crushed by the Egyptians and Khwarazmians at La Forbie, near Gaza.

In December 1244 Louis IX, then about thirty years old, fell gravely ill and vowed to take the cross if he recovered. Despite the doubts of his mother, Blanche of Castile, he spent more than three years preparing. He built a new port at Aigues-Mortes on the Mediterranean, raised money from the French Church and towns, and stockpiled food and wine in Cyprus.

Why Egypt?

Crusade planners had long argued that Jerusalem could not be held while Egypt, the richest Muslim state in the region, remained strong. The Fifth Crusade had tried the same strategy and had also begun at Damietta, at the mouth of the eastern branch of the Nile. Louis hoped to succeed where it had failed.

What happened: Damietta and the march on Cairo

Louis sailed from Aigues-Mortes in late August 1248 and wintered in Cyprus. His army is usually estimated at about 15,000 to 25,000 men, including some 2,500 to 3,000 knights; exact numbers are unknown. On 5 June 1249 the crusaders landed on the beach near Damietta, fought their way ashore and found the next day that the garrison had abandoned the city. Damietta fell almost without a fight.

The king then waited in Damietta for about five months. The Nile flood made the delta difficult to cross, and he was expecting reinforcements under his brother Alphonse of Poitiers. The army finally marched south towards Cairo on 20 November 1249.

At almost the same moment, on about 22 November, Sultan as-Salih Ayyub died at Mansurah. His widow, Shajar al-Durr, and the commander Fakhr al-Din kept the death secret and sent for the sultan’s son Turanshah, who was in northern Mesopotamia.

The Battle of Mansurah

By late December the crusaders were stopped by the Bahr al-Saghir, a canal in front of the fortified camp and town of Mansurah. Weeks of attempts to build a causeway failed. Then a local man showed the crusaders a ford, and on 8 February 1250 the vanguard crossed at dawn.

The surprise attack overran the Egyptian camp and killed Fakhr al-Din. But Louis’s younger brother, Robert of Artois, ignored orders to wait and charged with the Templars and English knights into the town itself. In the narrow streets they were cut down by the Bahri Mamluks, the slave-soldier regiment of the late sultan; one of their officers was the future sultan Baybars. Robert was killed, along with most of the Templars who followed him.

Louis and the main army held the captured camp in hard fighting that day and again on 11 February, but they could go no further.

Defeat, disease and captivity

The crusaders now sat outside Mansurah for nearly two months. Turanshah arrived at the end of February and the Egyptians had boats carried overland and launched downstream, cutting the supply route from Damietta. Famine set in, and dysentery and scurvy spread through the camp. Joinville describes rotting gums and bodies clogging the canal.

On 5 April 1250 Louis ordered a retreat to Damietta. It quickly turned into a rout. The king, very ill with dysentery, was captured near Fariskur within a day or two, and most of the army surrendered. Many sick and wounded prisoners who could not be ransomed were killed.

The ransom and the Mamluk coup

Negotiations produced a deal: Damietta would be handed back and the prisoners released for a large sum, usually given as 400,000 livres tournois. Before it could be completed, the Bahri Mamluks, angry that Turanshah was replacing them with his own men, murdered him on 2 May 1250.

The Mamluks honoured the agreement. Damietta was surrendered on 6 May, half the ransom was paid, and Louis was freed. In Cairo, power passed first to Shajar al-Durr and then to the Mamluk commander Aybak, the start of the Mamluk Sultanate.

Louis IX in the Holy Land, 1250-1254

Instead of going home, Louis sailed to Acre and stayed four years. He negotiated the release of further prisoners and spent heavily on fortifications at Acre, Caesarea, Jaffa and Sidon. He also exchanged envoys with the Mongols, and in 1253 the Franciscan friar William of Rubruck set out for the Mongol court carrying letters from the king, although no alliance came of it.

News arrived that his mother, who had governed France in his absence, had died in November 1252. Louis left Acre in April 1254 and reached France that summer.

Key people

• Louis IX of France (1214–1270): pious and determined king; later canonised as Saint Louis in 1297. He died in 1270 near Tunis on a second crusade.
• Robert of Artois: the king’s brother, whose reckless charge at Mansurah destroyed the vanguard.
• As-Salih Ayyub: Ayyubid sultan of Egypt who built up the Bahri Mamluk regiment and died during the campaign.
• Turanshah: his son and short-lived successor, murdered by the Mamluks in May 1250.
• Jean de Joinville: a Champagne nobleman who fought in the crusade and, decades later, wrote the vivid eyewitness account that is our main Western source.

Consequences and legacy

The crusade cost France enormous sums and thousands of lives, and it achieved none of its aims. Jerusalem remained in Muslim hands. Yet Louis’s reputation for piety and steadfastness in captivity actually grew, and the story of his suffering became central to his later sanctity.

In Egypt the effects were deeper. The war gave the Bahri Mamluks the prestige and the opportunity to take power. Within a decade they would defeat the Mongols at Ain Jalut and begin the long campaign that ended the crusader states in 1291.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1244, July–August: Jerusalem is sacked by Khwarazmian forces.
• 1248, late August: Louis IX sails from Aigues-Mortes; the army winters in Cyprus.
• 1249, 5–6 June: Crusaders land near Damietta and occupy the city.
• 1249, 20 November: The army marches south; Sultan as-Salih Ayyub dies around this time.
• 1250, 8 February: Battle of Mansurah; Robert of Artois is killed.
• 1250, early April: Retreat collapses and Louis IX is captured.
• 1250, 2 May: Turanshah is murdered by the Bahri Mamluks.
• 1250, 6 May: Damietta is surrendered and Louis is released.
• 1254, April: Louis leaves Acre for France.

Why it matters

The Seventh Crusade was the largest and best-organised French crusade of the 13th century, and its failure showed how hard it was to conquer Egypt. Its unexpected result was the birth of the Mamluk state, the power that would finally drive the crusaders from the Levant.