Military history of the Crusader states
The Seljuk–Crusader War began when the First Crusade wrested territory from the Seljuk Turks during the Siege of Nicaea in 1097 and lasted until 1128 when Zengi became atabeg of Aleppo. At the latter date, the chief threat to the Crusaders from the east and north became the Zengids. The conflict was generally fought between European Crusaders and the Seljuk Turks and their vassals. The Muslim Syrian emirates occasionally allied themselves with the Christians against rival states.
Lǫgmaðr Guðrøðarson
Late in 1095, Pope Urban II (died 1099) first proclaimed an armed pilgrimage, or penitential holy war, that led to the First Crusade of 1096–1102. Before the end of the year, tens of thousands of men, women, and children answered his call to re-establish Christian control of Jerusalem. The particular terminology employed by the "Chronicle of Mann"—that Lǫgmaðr departed the kingdom "marked with the sign of the Lord's cross"—suggests that he participated in a crusade. On the other hand, since the chronicle was compiled in the thirteenth century, during a period when the idea of a cross-bearing pilgrim was well established, it is possible that this depiction of Lǫgmaðr has been contaminated by anachronistic conceptions.