Frederick II's Negotiated Return of Jerusalem

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

The Sixth Crusade was led by the excommunicate Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, who had repeatedly delayed his own crusading vow across several years before finally undertaking it in person. Rather than winning Jerusalem by force of arms, Frederick, fluent in Arabic and on cordial personal terms with the Ayyubid sultan al-Kamil, whose own attention was divided by his rivalry with his brother al-Mu'azzam over control of Damascus, recovered the holy city almost entirely through personal negotiation rather than battle.

The result was the 1229 Treaty of Jaffa, a ten year truce that returned Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth to Christian rule for the first time since 1187 while leaving the Temple Mount's own Muslim shrines under continued Islamic administration, an arrangement achieved without a single major battle fought over the holy city itself. The truce held for fifteen years before Jerusalem was retaken by the invading Khwarazmian Turks in 1244, an event that directly prompted the further crusades that followed in its wake. Frederick's own personal fluency in Arabic and his ease in Ayyubid company were themselves unusual among crusader leaders of any generation, and contemporaries noted the contrast with predecessors who had negotiated only through interpreters and intermediaries.