Defending the Crusader Kingdoms

Saturday, June 27, 2026

The Economy of the Crusader States: Agriculture

When the crusaders first arrived in the Holy Land, they did not find a garden of Eden but rather an underpopulated region with encroaching deserts caused by over-grazing and water mismanagement. In less than a hundred years, the Franks had transformed the landscape to make the Crusader States net-exporters of agricultural produce.

The decline of the region started with the Arab conquests which were characterized by the wholesale slaughter and enslavement of large portions of the rural population. Those natives who could, fled to the walled cities, abandoning their farms and fields, but tens of thousands were not so lucky and were killed or carried off. In the wake of the Muslim armies came Muslim immigrants who expropriated land, dwellings and entire villages from the remaining native inhabitants. The bulk of these new residents from the Arabian Peninsula, however, were herders, not farmers. They did not plant the fields they confiscated. Instead, they let their herds graze on them until they were largely worthless.

While the triumphant Muslim conquerors enjoyed a lavish and luxurious lifestyle in flourishing urban centres, the native rural population was subject to extra taxes and the payment of annual “tribute.” The chronicles of Muslims, Christians and Jews document the disparity between the lifestyle of the urban elites — including ‘dhimmis,’ i.e. Christians and Jews — and that of the rural poor. The result was a further decline in the rural population and an increased loss of agricultural productivity. And then the Seljuks came.

The Seljuks repeated the age-old pattern of conquest, accompanied by wide-scale destruction, slaughter and the enslavement of captives. On the eve of the crusades in the late twelfth century, the Byzantine historian Anna Comnena described the Near East’s once prosperous and fertile regions as a desert inhabited by Turkish nomads. While this was clearly an exaggeration, Arab, Syriac and Armenian sources corroborate the fact that, across the Holy Land, not only churches and synagogues but entire villages and towns had been abandoned. Agricultural productivity had fallen to a minimum, and desertification was on the rise.

The Frankish feudal lords, in contrast to the Arabs and Seljuks elites, had always derived their wealth from agriculture. They were quick to recognize the agricultural potential of the Holy Land. They set about improving the yield of the land by making strategic investments. The large number of ecclesiastical landlords in the crusader states was beneficial because they could draw on substantial capital reserves from their mother institutions. Furthermore, monastic institutions in Western Europe had long been at the cutting edge of agricultural technology and innovation. Yet, it was not church lands alone that benefitted from investment. Crown and baronial lands also enjoyed investment in such features as terracing, aqueducts, the clearing and opening of springs and wells, the filling of water reservoirs and the construction of wind and water-powered mills to pump water into newly laid irrigation canals and ditches. In addition, the Franks built roads for transporting products to market.

Such investment benefited the native rural population, who could increase productivity on the land they held. Furthermore, the Franks increased the amount of land under cultivation by actively recruiting agricultural labor from the West. Roughly 140,000 Latin Christians immigrated to the Holy Land in the first 80 years of the twelfth century; a sizeable portion of those appear to have moved to rural communities. The immigrants were attracted by free status, low rents, an almost complete absence of feudal labor services, modern infrastructure and proximity to the holiest sites in Christendom.

Archaeological surveys conducted at the end of the last century demonstrate that the Franks settled predominantly near existing Christian settlements. Notably, unlike the Arab settlers of the previous four centuries, ‘the Franks did not evict the local villagers from their homes. Most of the Frankish villages were established in places which had been abandoned before the arrival of the Franks or in places which were outside the boundaries of the previous villages.’[i] In other words, the Franks took over land that had been abandoned, allowed to lie fallow or had become semi-desert due to overgrazing and neglect.

Once in the Holy Land, the rural immigrants integrated with the local Christian population, using the same markets, baths, shops, tradesmen and even churches. Intermarriage with native Christians was common. The typical rural village of this period had between 500 and 600 inhabitants, composed of farmers and skilled craftsmen such as carpenters, metal workers, butchers, bakers and the like.

In some regions, however, the depopulation of previous centuries had been so significant that the land could support the creation of new villages inhabited exclusively by immigrants. These purely Frankish villages demonstrated some unique features such as collective ovens, collective oil and wine presses, large granaries and sometimes sugar factories. Communal ovens and mills were often co-located since the lord of the manor generally held both; instances of baths built to exploit the heat of the ovens also have been found. Exclusively Frankish settlements also differed from older native communities by being planned rather than growing haphazardly. Some villages spread out along a road; others were built in concentric circles around a new manor house, church or other central focal point such as a mill, granary or oil and wine press. The focal point of the latter type of village often served several satellite villages as well. The remains of manor houses, both fortified and unfortified, testify to the presence of the feudal elite in these villages.

Initially, the new settlers must have been highly dependent on the native rural population to adjust to a new environment. They would have had to learn about the Near East’s weather patterns, which differed from the soggy, cool climate of France, England and the Holy Roman Empire, whence they had come. They would have been required to adjust their patterns of sowing and harvesting to different growing seasons. They would have needed to become familiar with different breeds of livestock, including goats and camels. They would also have been confronted with unfamiliar crops such as dates, sugar cane, figs, bananas and citrus fruits. Lastly, they would have had to learn to work with old-fashioned, oxen-drawn ploughs rather than the more effective horse-drawn ones long used in Europe. This was because the soil of the Near East was too shallow; a European-type plough would have dried out and killed the crops.

Soon, however, rural Franks were doing more than adapting; they were expanding and diversifying agricultural production. Wine and pork production, both of which had been neglected under Muslim rule, were ramped up, while sugar and olive oil production were industrialized to produce surpluses for export. Other cash crops were rice, cotton, indigo and balsam.

Orchards were another ubiquitous feature of the Frankish countryside, surrounding many of the urban centres. In addition to olive orchards and vineyards, the Franks cultivated almonds, pistachios, dates, figs, bananas, lemons, oranges, apples, pears, cherries, peaches, pomegranates, plums and carob. Vegetables represented another important agricultural product of the region, although these were grown primarily for domestic or household consumption. These included beans, lentils, cabbages, onions, garlic, artichokes, cucumbers, melons and mustard.

A wide variety of livestock thrived in the Near East and was cultivated by the Franks. Most essential for food were sheep, goats, pigs and fowl, while horses, mules, camels and donkeys were raised as beasts of burden. Oxen held an ambidextrous position, used for milk, meat and leather, but also for ploughing. Finally, fish formed an vital part of the medieval diet due to fasting rules that limited meat consumption in certain periods. The demand for fresh fish in the booming coastal cities exceeded local capacity to deliver. In addition to Pisan and Genoese fisherman, Jewish fisherman from as far away as Alexandria fished in the waters of the Levant and offloaded cargoes at the Frankish ports.

One form of livestock was particularly valuable: war horses. Despite the development of specialised horse transports, many crusaders and armed pilgrims arrived in the Holy Land without adequate mounts because many horses died of illness or were killed or permanently injured in accidents during the long journey. Even those horses that survived the trip could not always adapt to the Near East’s climate and diet. Last but not least, combat took a heavy toll on horses. The demand for replacement mounts was therefore enormous and could only be met by the local market. The horses bred in the surrounding Muslim states could be of exceptional quality for what they were bred for: speed and agility. As a rule, however, they lacked the stamina and strength required of a knight’s palfrey or destrier, both of which were expected to carry a man in full armor either for extended periods (the palfrey) or in intensive and rapid charges (the destrier). The Franks of Outremer cultivated the breeding of horses to Western standards in numbers exceeding their needs. It was undoubtedly a lucrative business. Knights arriving in the Holy Land without mounts were prepared to pay exorbitant prices to regain their military capabilities and status, both of which were lost without horses.

Despite the retention of the fertile coastal plain with its orchards, gardens and sugar factories, the thirteenth century saw a shift in agricultural production away from the Kingdom of Jerusalem to the Kingdom of Cyprus. Under the Lusignans, Cyprus’ export of surplus production of staples such as wheat, wine, oil, pulses, carob and salt were diverted from Constantinople to the Frankish states on the mainland. The Cypriot agricultural economy was significantly more diverse than that of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In addition to the familiar products of wheat, barley, rye, wine, olive oil and sugar, Cyprus exported salted fish, salt, onions, honey, wax and candlesticks, soap, cotton and silk textiles, pine resin and indigo. It produced cheese, timber, flax, cotton and rice for domestic consumption. The primary agricultural exports were wheat, barley, wine, olive oil, salt, fish, sugar and carob, while the other export products were less substantial in quantity, although not necessarily less in value.

A noteworthy feature of agricultural development in Cyprus under the Lusignans was the employment of highly sophisticated and efficient techniques at the cutting edge of medieval technology. Archaeological excavations show that waterpower was used extensively, including horizontal wheels with vertical millstones (a recent innovation) and water recycling from mills for use in irrigation and fishponds.

[i] Ronnie Ellenblum, Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 96.

The bulk of this entry is derived from Dr. Schrader's comprehensive study of the crusader states.

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Dr. Helena P. Schrader is also the author of six books set in the Holy Land in the Era of the Crusades.

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Saturday, June 20, 2026

The Economy of the Crusader State: Introduction and Overview

The establishment of the crusader kingdoms along the coast of the Levant resulted in an economic revival of the region. What had been an unimportant backwater to the Ayyubid and Fatimid caliphates, whose religious, administrative and economic centres lay in Damascus and Cairo, respectively, suddenly become the spiritual heart of the entire Latin-Christian world.

The crusaders resettled the Christian Holy Land after its depopulation through conquest and the resulting enslavement and deportation of the native population. Investment into infrastructure revitalised the rural economy and enabled the expansion of trading networks. Existing cities grew, and ancient cities such as Caesarea and Ramla, which had gone to ruin, were revived. Indeed, entire new settlements and villages were built. The larger cities, such as Acre, Tyre, Beirut, Tripoli and Antioch, became booming urban centres with larger populations than the capitals of the West. Not until the mid-thirteenth century did Western European cities start to compete in size with the cities of the Latin East.

Key to this economic boom were strategic investments. Some aided an expansion of arable land and an increase in agricultural productivity. Others entailed the introduction of entirely new agricultural products and enabled industrialization of the production of select commodities resulting in surpluses for export. As a result, the First Kingdom of Jerusalem was a net exporter of agricultural produce. While the Second Kingdom of Jerusalem was not, it retained the fertile coastal plain, critical for producing fruits, vegetables and chief export crops. Collectively, however, the crusader states increased agricultural output and self-sufficiency in foodstuffs in the thirteenth century due to the acquisition of Cyprus.

Yet, the famed wealth of Outremer did not derive from agriculture. The services sector was sizeable, and industry was significant, while trade became the great engine generating economic prosperity. The expansion of trade was made possible by the development and maintenance of infrastructure networks connecting the coastal urban centres with each other and other cities in the region, such as Aleppo, Damascus, Baghdad and Egypt. The roads, of course, had existed under the Romans and Byzantines long before the arrival of the crusaders, but had mostly fallen to ruin. The Franks undertook their reconstruction and built new roads to enable inland cities such as Nazareth, Nablus, Bethlehem and Jerusalem to be readily accessed by pilgrims and supplied with necessities.

Most importantly, the Franks connected the traditional oriental trade routes with the growing, increasingly prosperous and luxury-hungry markets of Western Europe. Trading privileges had been the lure that harnessed Italian maritime power to the crusaders’ cause. As soon as the Italians established a foothold on the coast of the Levant, they transformed the coastal cities into major trading hubs. The value of this trade can be illustrated by Acre, which in the latter half of the thirteenth century alone annually generated crown revenues significantly greater than that of all England.[i] These urban centers not only generated tax revenue, they also created enormous employment opportunities for both skilled and unskilled labour.

Only in the twilight years of the second half of the thirteenth century did geopolitical changes begin to threaten the foundations of the Frankish economy. The Mongols had devastated first Baghdad and then Antioch, leaving the traditional trade routes in shambles. Meanwhile, Mongol domination of the entire Asian continent from China to Constantinople opened a land route for the riches of the Far East. The Black Sea and Constantinople gained in importance at the expense of the Eastern Mediterranean. What might have been a slow decline, however, was turned into a catastrophic implosion by the Mamluk conquest of the mainland crusader states. The Mamluk policy of obliteration and depopulation brought an abrupt end to the age of prosperity.

In contrast, the economy of Cyprus was predominantly agricultural. In the 400 years of Muslim domination of the Levant, it did not suffer in equal measure from the damage of conquest, occupation and depopulation as the mainland. Nor did Frankish conquest cause any meaningful disruption in the island’s agricultural productivity. Cyprus’ population was not decimated, and the system of land tenure was not altered; Frankish landlords simply replaced the absentee Byzantine aristocrats. Imperial lands became royal lands. Feudal obligations were introduced for the large landowners at the pinnacle of the pyramid, but the impact of such customs on the serfs at the bottom was negligible.

Yet, whereas the Byzantine authorities looked to Constantinople as ‘the City’ and showed no interest in developing Cypriot industry and trade, the Lusignans consciously promoted both. Furthermore, because the Lusignans were not beholden to the Italian maritime states for their conquests, they had no need to grant them exclusive concessions. Instead, the Lusignans fostered competition between the various Italian merchant states while keeping markets open to Armenians, Greeks, French, Syrians and other merchants. Furthermore, the Cypriot crown retained for itself the lion’s share of the economic assets: an estimated one-third of rural villages and monopolies on key products such as salt while keeping firm control over tariffs, duties and infrastructure. The quality and purity of commodities such as gold and silver and products such as silk, sugar, wax and honey were carefully supervised. Price controls were introduced as necessary to prevent price-gouging in periods of scarcity. Perhaps most significant, unlike the mainland crusader states in which Byzantine, Syrian, Egyptian and multiple domestic currencies circulated, the Lusignans maintained a monopoly on the minting of coins in Cyprus; foreign coins were melted down and reminted.

In short, without impeding agricultural activities, the Lusignans diversified the Cypriot economy. Besides giving the kingdom a stronger economic base, it increased rural prosperity as the rural population profited from supplying the growing urban centres on the island with food.

Cyprus also avoided the Mamluk juggernaut. Instead, it was flooded with Christian refugees in the last decades of the thirteenth century. These caused short-term economic disruptions such as skyrocketing food prices (until the royal price controls kicked in) and inflation of urban property prices and rents alongside a devaluation of portable valuables such as gold, silver and gemstones. However, the situation soon stabilised, and for nearly 100 years, Famagusta, Limassol and Kyrenia replaced Acre, Tyre and Beirut as the most important trade hubs for the exchange of goods between the Near East and Europe alongside Alexandria and Constantinople. In consequence, the fourteenth century was one of the most prosperous in the history of Cyprus.

In the next week, Dr Schrader will provide a closer look at the various factors that contributed to this economic prosperity on the mainland and in Cyprus.

[i] Christopher Tyreman, The World of the Crusades (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), 260.

The bulk of this entry is an excerpt from Dr. Schrader's comprehensive study of the crusader states.