The Crusader Period 1099-1187
After a forty-day siege, the Crusaders conquered the Saracens, slaughtered the Moslems and Jews and destroyed the synagogues and mosques. The city ramparts followed roughly the courses of today's Old City walls. The city itself was occupied by troops, ecclesiastics and pilgrims, failing to become a permanent Christian settlement. The Crusaders lost Jerusalem in 1189 to the troops of the famous military leader Saladin, who returned to Damascus, because to him Jerusalem was, for all its sanctity, no more than a provincial centre.
