Led by King Louis IX of France, the Seventh and Eighth Crusades were complete failures. In the Seventh Crusade Louis sailed to Egypt in 1248 and recaptured Damietta, but after he and his army were routed he had to return it as well as a massive ransom just to get free. In 1270 he set off on the Eighth Crusade, landing in North Africa in the hope of converting the sultan of Tunis to Christianity but died before he got far.
Led by King Edward I of England in 1271 who tried to join Louis in Tunis, the Ninth Crusade would fail in the end. Edward arrived after Louis had died and moved against the Mamluk sultan Baibers. He didn't achieve much, though, and returned home to England after he learned that his father Henry III had died.
There are several different types of color-coded dates in this timeline of the Crusades, explained in a color key at the bottom of the timeline.
| Timeline of the Crusades: Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Crusades 1245 - 1300 |
| July 11, 1244 | Khorezmian Turkish horsemen launch an attack on Jerusalem. Khwarezmia is at this time a state located around the Aral Salt Flats near the Caspian Sea. |
| August 23, 1244 | http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/christian/blxtn_jerusalem.htm falls to the Khorzmian horsemen who had begun attacking the city the previous month. Large numbers of the city's inhabitants are slaughtered. |
| October 17, 1244 | Battle of LaForbie: A large army of Crusaders is utterly destroyed by Muslims near Gaza. Egyptian forces are commanded by Baibars, a Mamluk soldier who would later lead a revolt against the Egyptian Sultan and take control of the region. |
| 1245 | King Louis IX of France (Saint Louis) declares his intent to launch a Crusade against the Muslims in the Middle East. By this point the Crusade against the Cathars in southern France is basically over and his relative Alphonse was in charge in Toulouse. |
| 1247 | Traditional date for the death of Robin Hood. |
| 1247 | Egypt captures Jerusalem from the Khorezmians. |
| 1248 | Muslim control of Spain is reduced to the Kingdom of Granada which survives for over two more centuries. |
| 1248 - 1254 | The Seventh Crusade is led by King Louis IX of France (Saint Louis). The Great Khan even sends representatives to Louis to let him know that he is willing to help in the conquest of the Holy Land and the restoration of Jerusalem to Christian control - in reality, though, the Mongols were negotiating with both sides and had no intention of helping anyone. In this, his first of two Crusades, Louis would end up capturing the Egyptian city of Damietta, but it was given up as ransom when he himself was captured during the battle for Cairo. |
| November 23, 1248 | Ferdinand III of Castile captures Seville, Spain. Muslim control of Spain is reduced to the Kingdom of Granada which would survive for over two more centuries. |
| June 06, 1249 | King Louis IX of France reaches and occupies the Egyptian city of Damietta. Louis focuses first and foremost on Egypt rather than sites in Syria because he hopes that this will provide a solid base from which to attack the rest of the Holy Land. |
| November 1249 | King Louis IX of France begins to march his troops from Damietta to Cairo. |
| February 08, 1250 | Battle of al-Mansurah: Crusaders led by King Louis IX of France move from Damietta to Cairo along the Nile River until they meet Emir Fakr-ed-din at the head of a army of 70,000 at Ashmoun Canal by the town of al-Mansurah. This is the same spot where the Fifth Crusade had met defeat. After a standoff of six weeks, a local Coptic Christian shows the Crusaders a way to cross the canal and in a surprise attack they route the Egyptians still in their encampment. Unfortunately, the French choose to follow the fleeing Egyptians to al-Mansurah despite the lack of reinforcements and they suffer heavy casualties in the process. Robert of Artois (brother of Louis IX) and William of Salisbury (leading an English force) are both killed along with most of the Knights Templar who had followed them. |
| April 06, 1250 | Battle of Fariskur: King Louis IX is captured along with his army and ransomed in exchange for the surrender of Damietta - the only real achievement of the Crusade. Louis is lucky to be released at all because the difficulty with caring for the large numbers of prisoners led to the Egyptians executing many of them. This is the final battle in the Seventh Crusade. |
| May 1250 | Turanshah, the last Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt in a dynasty founded by Saladin, is murdered and replaced by his Mamluk slave-general Aibek, founder the Mamluk Dynasty. King Louis IX would actually form an alliance with the Mamluks shortly after this. The word "Mamluk" literally means "one who is owned," or "slave," a reference to the fact that the Mamluks started out as slaves. |
| 1251 | The last of the Egyptian-based dynasties, the Mamluk dynasty, took over the caliphate until 1517 when Egypt fell under the control of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. |
| 1251 | The "Crusade of the Shepherds" is launched. |
| 1251 | The last of the Egyptian-based dynasties, the Mamluk dynasty, takes over the caliphate until 1517 when Egypt falls under the control of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. |
| 1252 | The Teutonic Knights capture the Lithuanian city of Klaipeda from local pagans. Lithuania would be access to the Baltic Sea until the 20th century. |
| 1253 | Pagan leader Mindaugas of Lithuania agrees to convert to Christianity. |
| 1253 | Friar William of Rubruck visits the court of the Great Mongol Khan Mongke, creating a detailed description of Mongol customs and beliefs before their conversion to Islam. |
| November 03, 1254 | Death of John III Ducas Vatatzes, Byzantine emperor (Empire of Nicaea). He is succeeded by Theodore II Lascaris. |
| 1255 | The Teutonic Knights build their stronghold of Königsberg. |
| May 1255 | The last Cathar stronghold - an isolated fort at Quéribus - is captured. |
| January 1256 | Hulagu, son of the Great Khan, wipes out the Assassins of Persia. |
| 1258 | Birth of Osman, founder of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. His father was Etrogrul, commander of a tribe of Oghuz Turks near the Sea of Marmara. |
| February 10, 1258 | The Abbasid period ends with the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols. The Mongols had tried and failed to take Baghdad in 1245. Now, after a series of devastating floods, the city's defenses had been weakened, and Hülegü, grandson of Genghis Khan, leads the victorious invasion - one which kills an estimated 800,000 citizens of the city. Thus begins a long period of economic, political, and cultural decline in Iraq that is only overcome in the sixteenth century. |
| August 1258 | Death of Theodore II Lascaris, Byzantine emperor (Empire of Nicaea). He is succeeded by John IV Lascaris, just eight years old. Michael Palaeologus is made regent and later he makes himself co-emperor as Michael VIII. |
| 1259 | The Great Khan dies. |
| 1259 | Battle of Pelagonia: Greek forces defeat the Latins of Achaea. |
| 1260 | Battle of Durbe: Lithuanians defeat the Livonian Teutonic Knights |
| September 03, 1260 | Battle of Ain Jalut: The Mamluks of Egypt defeat the invading Mongols, thus preventing any further Mongol advance into Egypt and North Africa. |
| October 23, 1260 | Baibars, a Mamluk leader, is named Sultan of Egypt. |
| July 25, 1261 | Michael VIII Palaeologus (1224 - 1282) finally drives the Latin rulers out of Constantinople and reestablishes Eastern Orthodox rule after 50 years. To solidify his own position he has John IV Lascaris, last of the Lascaris line and his co-emperor, blinded and thus rendered ineligible to become emperor. |
| 1263 | Mindaugas, first and only Christian king of Lithuania, is assassinated by his pagan cousin Treniota. |
| 1265 | Dante Dante Alighieri is born. |
| 1265 | Baibars, Mamluk Sultan of Egypt, captures Caesarea and Haifa. |
| February 26, 1266 | The Battle of Benevento takes place. |
| 1267 | Kublai Kahn establishes the city of Beijing. |
| 1267 | King Louis IX of France, disturbed by the many gains of the Mamluks in Egypt, calls for a new Crusade. |
| 1268 | Baibars, Sultan of Egypt, captures the city of Jaffa. |
| May 18, 1268 | The Mamluks of Egypt under the command of Sultan Baibars take the city of Antioch and kill most of its inhabitants. The physical destruction of the city is so extensive that it would never again play an important strategic or commercial role in the region, eventually being overtaken by the port city of Alexandretta (Iskenderun). |
| August 23, 1268 | The Battle of Tagliacozzo occurs. |
| 1269 | The Almohad (al-Muwahhidun) Dynasty falls. Taking the name "the Unitarians," this was a group of Berber Muslims which had supplanted the Almoravid (al-Murabitun) Dynasty in 1147 and was inspired by the teachings of reformist Berber scholar Ibn Tumart. |
| June 30, 1270 | King Louis IX of France (Saint Louis) leads the Eighth Crusade (his second Crusade) as an attack against Tunisia. |
| August 25, 1270 | King Louis IX of France dies in Tunisia while on the Eighth Crusade, his second Crusade. He is reluctantly replaced by his brother Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily. |
| 1271 | Marco Polo sets off to visit the court of Kublai Khan (grandson of Genghis Khan). |
| 1271 - 1272 |  King Edward I of England launches the Ninth Crusade against Mamluk sultan Baibers. Edward had travelled to Tunis to join Louis IX but arrived too late, so continued into the Holy Land on his own. |
| 1271 | Thomas Agni of Cosenza becomes the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. |
| April 08, 1271 | Mamluk sultan Baibars conquers the Krak des Chevaliers, headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller in Syria. |
| November 21, 1272 | Edward returns home to England when he hears that his father Henry III has died. |
| October 1273 | Death of Baldwin II, the last emperor of the Latin Empire of Constantinople. Baldwin's reign had effectively ended when Michael VIII Palaeologus recaptured Constantinople in 1261, but European leaders continued to recognize his claim. Once he dies, however, the Latin Empire of Constantinople also ceases to exist. |
| 1274 | Mongols, led by Kublai Khan, attempted to invade Japan. |
| May 07, 1274 | In France the Second Council of Lyons opens. |
| May 18, 1274 | The Second Council of Lyon issues its Crusade decree, Constitutiones Pro Zelo Fidei. At this same Council Michael VIII Palaeologus, Byzantine Emperor, agreed to a unification of the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Churches. |
| July 01, 1277 | Baibars, Sultan of Egypt, dies. |
| September 1277 | With the arrival of the Vicar of Charles of Anjou in Acre, the Kingdom of Jerusalem is split. |
| 1279 | Syrian leader Qalawun succeeds Baibars as Sultan of Egypt. |
| 1280 | Eyeglasses are invented and later improved upon in the late medieval period. |
| 1281 | Qalawun, Sultan of Egypt, defeats a Mongol army near Homs. |
| 1283 - 1302 | A Crusade against Sicilians and Aragonese is launched. |
| 1284 | The Teutonic Knights complete their conquest of Prussia, eliminating the local Prussian population as an independent ethnic group. The Prussians would be assimilated by the Germans, Poles, and Lithuanians while the Prussian name would be adopted by the Germans for themselves. |
| 1285 | French forces launch a Crusade against Aragon. |
| June 04, 1286 | The Kingdom of Jerusalem is reunited under the rule of King Henry II of Cyprus. |
| April 26, 1289 | Mamluks from Egypt capture the city of Tripoli. |
| 1290 | Margaret, Maid of Norway, dies and leaves a struggle for the throne of Scotland - 13 people claim title of King. |
| 1290 | Qalawun, Sultan of Egypt, dies and is succeeded by his son, Al-Ashraf Khalil. |
| May 18, 1291 | Acre, the last territory in Palestine taken by the first Crusaders, falls to invading Muslim forces. Around 60,000 Christians are believed to have perished. This is the end of a Christian military presence in the Near East and the task of spreading Christianity is left to friars who preach among the people. |
| July 1291 | The Mamluks capture Beirut and Sidon. |
| August 1291 | Crusaders are forced to evacuate their fortresses at Tortosa and Chateau Pelerin. |
| 1292 | Birth of John VI Cantacuzene, Byzantine Emperor who would allow Turkish military forces to first cross into Europe in order to get their aid against a rival for the Byzantine throne. |
| 1295 | Mongol leader Ghazan Khan converts to Islam, ending the line of Tantric Buddhist rulers. |
| 1296 | Edward I of England deposes John Balliol from the Scottish throne, taking control of Scotland. |
| 1297 | At the Battle of Cambuskenneth, Scottish patriot William Wallace defeats an English army. |
| 1298 | The longbow revolutionizes warfare at the Battle of Falkirk. |
| 1299 | The city of Venice signs a peace treaty with the Turks. |
| 1299 - 1326 | Reign of Othman, founder of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. He defeats the Seljuks. |
| 1300 | The last Muslims in Sicily are forcibly converted to Christianity. Although Sicily had been reconquered by the Normans in 1098, Muslims had been allowed to continue to practice their faith and even formed important elements of various Sicilian military forces. |
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