This thesis is a study of the reasons for the failure of the Third Crusade to achieve its stated objectives, despite the many advantages with which the venture began. It is proposed herein that the Third Crusade—and by extension all of the previous and subsequent Crusades—were destined to fail because of structural disadvantages which plagued the expeditions to the Holy Land. The Christians in the Holy Land were not selfsufficient, and they depended on an extensive amount of aid from Europe for their existence, but the Christians of Europe had their own goals and concerns which did not allow them to focus on building a stable kingdom in the Holy Land. For European Christians, crusading was a religious obligation, and once their vows were fulfilled, they no longer had any desire to remain in the Levant. Although the Crusaders did score some short-term victories over their Muslim adversaries, the Christian presence in the Holy Land was unsustainable, for the Crusades—from the European perspective—were a religious movement without a tangible, long-term political objective, and given those circumstance, any crusade would be unsuccessful.
","abstract_html":"<p>This thesis is a study of the reasons for the failure of the Third Crusade to achieve its stated objectives, despite the many advantages with which the venture began. It is proposed herein that the Third Crusade—and by extension all of the previous and subsequent Crusades—were destined to fail because of structural disadvantages which plagued the expeditions to the Holy Land. The Christians in the Holy Land were not selfsufficient, and they depended on an extensive amount of aid from Europe for their existence, but the Christians of Europe had their own goals and concerns which did not allow them to focus on building a stable kingdom in the Holy Land. For European Christians, crusading was a religious obligation, and once their vows were fulfilled, they no longer had any desire to remain in the Levant. Although the Crusaders did score some short-term victories over their Muslim adversaries, the Christian presence in the Holy Land was unsustainable, for the Crusades—from the European perspective—were a religious movement without a tangible, long-term political objective, and given those circumstance, any crusade would be unsuccessful.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Mathews, Justin Lee"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Arts","degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":"Department of History","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Dr. Richard Keyser (Director), Dr. Elizabeth Plummer, Dr. Eric Reed"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-12-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2011-12-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T06:08:09Z","subjects":["Richard the Lionheart","Philip II Augustus","Frederick Barbarossa","Medieval Europe","Monarchy","European History","Medieval History"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1115","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Dr. Richard Keyser (Director), Dr. Elizabeth Plummer, Dr. Eric Reed"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Mathews, Justin Lee"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Department of History"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Arts"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Richard the Lionheart","Philip II Augustus","Frederick Barbarossa","Medieval Europe","Monarchy","European History","Medieval History"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1115"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This thesis is a study of the reasons for the failure of the Third Crusade to achieve its stated objectives, despite the many advantages with which the venture began. It is proposed herein that the Third Crusade—and by extension all of the previous and subsequent Crusades—were destined to fail because of structural disadvantages which plagued the expeditions to the Holy Land. The Christians in the Holy Land were not selfsufficient, and they depended on an extensive amount of aid from Europe for their existence, but the Christians of Europe had their own goals and concerns which did not allow them to focus on building a stable kingdom in the Holy Land. For European Christians, crusading was a religious obligation, and once their vows were fulfilled, they no longer had any desire to remain in the Levant. Although the Crusaders did score some short-term victories over their Muslim adversaries, the Christian presence in the Holy Land was unsustainable, for the Crusades—from the European perspective—were a religious movement without a tangible, long-term political objective, and given those circumstance, any crusade would be unsuccessful.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The Great Men of Christendom: The Failure of the Third Crusade"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Dr. Richard Keyser (Director), Dr. Elizabeth Plummer, Dr. Eric Reed"],"dc:creator":["Mathews, Justin Lee"],"dc:description.abstract":["This thesis is a study of the reasons for the failure of the Third Crusade to achieve its stated objectives, despite the many advantages with which the venture began. It is proposed herein that the Third Crusade—and by extension all of the previous and subsequent Crusades—were destined to fail because of structural disadvantages which plagued the expeditions to the Holy Land. The Christians in the Holy Land were not selfsufficient, and they depended on an extensive amount of aid from Europe for their existence, but the Christians of Europe had their own goals and concerns which did not allow them to focus on building a stable kingdom in the Holy Land. For European Christians, crusading was a religious obligation, and once their vows were fulfilled, they no longer had any desire to remain in the Levant. Although the Crusaders did score some short-term victories over their Muslim adversaries, the Christian presence in the Holy Land was unsustainable, for the Crusades—from the European perspective—were a religious movement without a tangible, long-term political objective, and given those circumstance, any crusade would be unsuccessful.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1115"],"dc:subject":["Richard the Lionheart","Philip II Augustus","Frederick Barbarossa","Medieval Europe","Monarchy","European History","Medieval History"],"dc:title":["The Great Men of Christendom: The Failure of the Third Crusade"],"dc:type":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Department of History"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Arts"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T06:08:09Z"}