ABSTRACT
In the second half of the thirteenth century Catholic Christendom remained deeply concerned with the Holy Land though there was undoubtedly some feeling of discouragement. Conditions in the eastern Mediterranean were very difficult for the Latin settlers, especially in the face of the growing strength of Egypt and her empire. But they could count on a network of support which included Christian Cyprus. When Acre fell in 1291, however, it came as a sudden and rude shock to Christendom. The papacy remained as committed as ever before to the recovery of Jerusalem, and made great efforts to support the crusade in the Baltic, although the Spanish wars became more and more self-contained. But the decisive factor in the history of the crusades to the east was the involvement of the papacy in an alliance with the Angevin rulers of Naples which dragged it into a bitter war in Italy. The result was a failure to support the settlements in the Holy Land and the complete wreck of crusading policy in the east. This came just as conditions turned radically against western intervention. In the words of a contemporary:
The Church of Rome doth fall Into the mire, and striving to combine Two powers in one, fouls self and load and all.1
