What does a Crusader Levant look like in the long term?

So I’m not an expert on this time period, but let me sketch out a very rough scenario. Say that for the first century or so after the conclusion of the First Crusade, the Latin rulers of the Crusader states get a series of lucky breaks. The County of Edessa never falls to the Zengids, and further incursions by the Western Christians capture Damascus and Egypt. However, they don’t overextend themselves with efforts to conquer Mesopotamia, Arabia or Persia, instead focusing on consolidating their rule in the Levant and Egypt. After a few centuries pass with no Muslim power ever seriously reversing “Frankish” gains in the Levant (perhaps due to their own troubles facing this timeline’s version of the Mongol conquests), and with Anatolia firmly under the control of the Byzantines and/or Armenians, “Outremer” comes in time to be considered a relatively secure part of the Western Christian world, rather than a frontier region. Sure, there may be bouts of turbulence and upheaval and infighting, but nothing that ever brings Muslim rule back to the area or displaces the new Franco-Norman-Italian ruling class.

My ultimate question is, what is Levantine society liable to look like in such a scenario by this timeline’s 1500s and 1600s? How do relations with the local Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Jews, and others develop? To what degree would they ever become assimilated? I imagine the rulers will try to entice settlers from Western Europe to come in, but would they ever be particularly successful in that regard?
 
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A Latin Catholic elite rules over subsistence Muslim peasant farmers with little interaction. Maybe the ruling class creoles. The catholic religion becomes the majority within four hundred years, so your time frame
 
By the 12th century, the Crusader elites had already started to "go native", so I'd say that in surviving Crusader states, Arabic doesn't get displaced, but instead gets heavily influenced by Romance languages, like in Malta.
 
By the 12th century, the Crusader elites had already started to "go native", so I'd say that in surviving Crusader states, Arabic doesn't get displaced, but instead gets heavily influenced by Romance languages, like in Malta.

Didn’t many of the locals speak Greek at that point as well, though?

What might the religious situation look like?
 
Didn’t many of the locals speak Greek at that point as well, though?

What might the religious situation look like?

Muslims would have been reduced to a small minority by 1600, if not outright have disappeared. Some of the more heterodox Islamic sects like Druze, Alawite, Alevi and Ismailite would likely have gone full Christian, but kept some autonomy both secular and religious. Jews would live as Jews always have. Nestorians would likely have begun being more persecuted, as Muslims became rarer.
 
Muslims would have been reduced to a small minority by 1600, if not outright have disappeared. Some of the more heterodox Islamic sects like Druze, Alawite, Alevi and Ismailite would likely have gone full Christian, but kept some autonomy both secular and religious. Jews would live as Jews always have. Nestorians would likely have begun being more persecuted, as Muslims became rarer.
Its worte mentioning that non sunni minorities were able to survive more then six centuries of sunni rule by being able to hide in the mountains of libano and syria, so why in a smaller time frame would the chiristians be able to convert everyone by the 1600? Also what happens with the catholic orthodox conflict? If the romans are well and alive why would they let the latins keep the levant for themselves?
 
Egypt probably slides back to being Coptic. Wasn't there still a fairly large percentage of Copts living there at the time? Seems like they would be ascendant. Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria would be interesting. They had a ton of Byzantine influence from being Roman for so long and had only been held by non Romans for a couple hundred years while still involved in the Roman trading sphere. I would imagine that Palestine would become more Westernized with more pilgrims visiting while the others would be more influenced by their neighbors.

The Byzantines would probably survive longer with no one sitting on their border looking to take them over. I could see them eventually reacquiring the areas of Syria and Lebanon (marriage, politics, small wars) and holding out like the Ottomans up to the 20th century.

An independent christian crusader Egypt would be extremely interesting to play with, though. The North African states being cut off would have huge ramifications. Places like Tripoli, Tunis, and Cyrenaica would be strategically valuable to European powers and Egypt and wouldn't be as well defended as they were OTL. The Crusades being successful would mean more would be called. In OTL we had a Norman crusader Kingdom of Sicily which held Sicily & the Southern Italian peninsula as well as (for a time) Tunisia and Tripoli. Maybe in this one they succeed at holding those areas and expand to the Egyptian border and west? Maybe this state becomes a precursor to an early united Italian state? Maybe the Spanish or Portuguese retake Mauretania? What effect would it have on West Africa with the Muslim trade routes gone and that trade having to go West to East instead of North to South? Egypt would become a MAJOR trade player in the age of sail with their ability to get out to the Indian Ocean and to trade with the Mediterranean powers. The building of the Suez Canal in the Industrial age would make them an important country to kiss up to in that age which could mean they could gain more colonial power.
 
I don't think that the Levant would be christian. Conversions weren't happening in OTL so why should there be mass conversions? I mean this isn't a video game the Franks cannot oppress the Arab population since there are not enough Crusaders.

I think there would be a small but powerful latin nobility who would speak a creole french while the majority of the merchants in the cities would speak some kind of Italian as the trade with Europe would go through the Italian city states. And the biggest part of the population would be Muslim Arabs.
 
I don't think that the Levant would be christian. Conversions weren't happening in OTL so why should there be mass conversions? I mean this isn't a video game the Franks cannot oppress the Arab population since there are not enough Crusaders.

I think there would be a small but powerful latin nobility who would speak a creole french while the majority of the merchants in the cities would speak some kind of Italian as the trade with Europe would go through the Italian city states. And the biggest part of the population would be Muslim Arabs.
There's a large Christian population in the Levant in OTL, so I don't see how a Christian controlled Levant would somehow not be majority Christian if it held onto the territory for centuries, given that a significant minority (and in some areas, an absolute majority) of Levantine Arabs were Christians even into the early 20th century.
 
It seems hard to believe that they'd manage that kind of control without some kind of popular support, extreme weakness in the Dar-al-Islam, or an extremely powerful sponsor in Europe/Anatolia. For as long as Jerusalem lasted, they were on a knife's edge.

So...maybe Byzantine resurgence and no 4th crusade creates mutually-reinforcing christian kingdoms? You could end up with an interesting orthodox/catholic syncretism between the two if the interchange was enough.

Edit: In fact, a hilarious moment would be a crusade against the crusaders. Some covetous 15th or 16th century Italian/French nobleman trying to enforce counter reformation Catholicism on Outremer.
 
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The County of Edessa never falls to the Zengids, and further incursions by the Western Christians capture Damascus and Egypt.

My ultimate question is, what is Levantine society liable to look like in such a scenario by this timeline’s 1500s and 1600s? How do relations with the local Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Jews, and others develop? To what degree would they ever become assimilated? I imagine the rulers will try to entice settlers from Western Europe to come in, but would they ever be particularly successful in that regard?

Edessa and Aleppo will be dominated by Byzantine, Jerusalem by Egypt. a lot would be depending on situation in Egypt : did Egypt ruled by Catholic, Orthodox or Coptic ? assuming it still Catholic, it would be very small minority dominating Copts and Muslim, it probably had to make a lot of compromise and tolerance to prevent riot/rebellion. Culturally they would be assimilated outwardly, with fashion, entertainment and coffee-drinking absorbed from Natives. it wouldn't have many non-military settlers. Locals (variety of Eastern Christian, Copts, Muslims, Jews, etc) would be semi-independent in their villages and city wards, But Catholicism would insist on legal priority, tallest/biggest building, and complete domination of landowner/Knight caste. it would be weaker version of Ottoman dhimmi system, since Catholic ruling class small number limit them. Italian would still dominated naval commerce. depending on how strong Byzantine, Orthodox Greek might have secondary privileges, together with Eastern Catholics.
 
did Egypt ruled by Catholic, Orthodox or Coptic ? assuming it still Catholic, it would be very small minority dominating Copts and Muslim, it probably had to make a lot of compromise and tolerance to prevent riot/rebellion. Culturally they would be assimilated outwardly, with fashion, entertainment and coffee-drinking absorbed from Natives. it wouldn't have many non-military settlers. Locals (variety of Eastern Christian, Copts, Muslims, Jews, etc) would be semi-independent in their villages and city wards, But Catholicism would insist on legal priority, tallest/biggest building, and complete domination of landowner/Knight caste. it would be weaker version of Ottoman dhimmi system, since Catholic ruling class small number limit them. Italian would still dominated naval commerce. depending on how strong Byzantine, Orthodox Greek might have secondary privileges, together with Eastern Catholics.

My take is that Egypt would be ruled by a Latin Catholic Nobility, the population would be majoritary Christian, divided between Copts and Catholics of Coptic Rite, with significant minorities of Muslim, Latin Catholic and Jew populations.
 
I don't think that the Levant would be christian. Conversions weren't happening in OTL so why should there be mass conversions? I mean this isn't a video game the Franks cannot oppress the Arab population since there are not enough Crusaders.

I think there would be a small but powerful latin nobility who would speak a creole french while the majority of the merchants in the cities would speak some kind of Italian as the trade with Europe would go through the Italian city states. And the biggest part of the population would be Muslim Arabs.
Wasn't there a large Christian population in the Levant until basically the 19th century and ethnic cleansing though? So depending on other demographic factors (which involve the horizontal dances known and loved by all) you could get a slight Christian majority.

That said, there would be a wider cultural divide between the Arabized peasantry (both Muslim and Christian) and the less Arabized elite (the Crusaders had gone native, but there would still be cultural differences (in spite of whether the Christians are are - as they were OTL for most of the time - inc communion with each other technically, they are still "those funny people with their funny language.")

@kholieken Byzantine Christianity in the Levant (especially in the jurisdictions of Antioch) was actually a lot more complicated, especially as the Near Eastern Patriarchates had significant periods of time with strong links to both Rome and Constantinople. A politically savvy Frank ruler would skillfully play off the Pope and the Phanar against each other in such a situation.

So basically a bigger, less Maronite Lebanon.
 
The Middle East became majority Muslim by the 17th century, IIRC. The Levant Christian population was one of the larger holdouts along with the Assyrian Christian population, but even then the population's size respective to their Muslim neighbours was partially as a result of overall depopulation of the region balancing out in their favor. It easily began reversing in the 19th century as reurbanization took hold, and Christian populations with links to international trade in Canada, Europe and Latin America migrated just as much as their European counterparts did to those regions.
 
A bit like the Norman invasion of England? A couple of 100 years down the line royals and nobles speak X like the rest of the country the rule. By 1600 a mishmash of all Christian styles, Catholic, Orthodox and Coptic?
 

jocay

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I'd imagine it being a cross between Malta and Lebanon, sharing more of the traits of the former in regards to multilingualism. The port cities would most certainly be rife with a mix of Italian dialects, Byzantine Greek and the Meditterranean Lingua Franca. While the ceremonial language would be Latin, I'd feel that a divergent form of Old French would emerge as the language of the Crusader nobility and knightly class. How divergent would depend on the Levant's relationship with Europe.

Any Levantine Arabic dialects spoken by the peasantry would likely diverge and depending on the social dynamics of what occurs after, would be something akin to Maltese. Much like how certain Lebanese nationalists had attempted to label Lebanese Arabic as a separate language, something similar may occur amongst certain circles to differentiate themselves from Arab Muslims.
 
The Middle East became majority Muslim by the 17th century, IIRC.
No, it didn't. Egypt became majority Muslim in the late tenth century, in the twilight of the Fatimids and about three centuries and a half after conquest. Iran was majority Muslim as early as the early ninth century, less than two hundred years after conquest.
 
I'd imagine it being a cross between Malta and Lebanon, sharing more of the traits of the former in regards to multilingualism. The port cities would most certainly be rife with a mix of Italian dialects, Byzantine Greek and the Meditterranean Lingua Franca. While the ceremonial language would be Latin, I'd feel that a divergent form of Old French would emerge as the language of the Crusader nobility and knightly class. How divergent would depend on the Levant's relationship with Europe.

Any Levantine Arabic dialects spoken by the peasantry would likely diverge and depending on the social dynamics of what occurs after, would be something akin to Maltese. Much like how certain Lebanese nationalists had attempted to label Lebanese Arabic as a separate language, something similar may occur amongst certain circles to differentiate themselves from Arab Muslims.
Weren't the majority of the original Crusaders from Southern France, i.e. Languedoc speakers? I wonder whether or not Occitan would become a prestige language spoken by the Latin community.
 
Weren't the majority of the original Crusaders from Southern France, i.e. Languedoc speakers? I wonder whether or not Occitan would become a prestige language spoken by the Latin community.

In this period French already became the lingua france of the noble and elite, and also a lot of the crusader were people speaking the langue d'oïl (north of france, kingdom of Naples, England), OTL french became the Lingua Franca, by example the Assizes of Jerusalem were made in Old French.

Also concerning the surviving crusader state all depend of how he survive, in this scenario they could securize the country by taking Damacus and having acces to natural ressource, to developp so they would see many more people coming here to pilgrimage or install here, and it would still continue during century.

According some sera in Jerusalem they were about 20 % of the population that come from latin country, so i could see Christian population became the majority after few century, the population in the city would start to assimilate themself after few century and concerning the rural area french would developp by sliding in some special arena following some natural grounds. The lingua franca would be the french but their custom and praxis would be heavily influenced by the local population so here we would see a reverse assimilation with few import of european culture. it would be for the Levant.

Concring Egypt it would be look like Levant but in a lesser degree french speaking area would be after few century developped only in the delta and few other area and start to expand in the nile, with few french speaking zone the long of nile and some other european communities that kept to use their language.

Concernin the modern age it would depend of many event so i couldn't tell.
 
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