By 1100 most of the tired veteran crusaders had returned to their home countries in Europe. Some crusaders remained in the Holy Lands settling into the states created by the conquest of Jerusalem and its environs. The crusader states, known as the Outremer, included the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, Principality of Antioch, and the County of Edessa, to name a few. Installing themselves into these newly acquired territories the crusader conquerors established laws, taxation, and armies to govern the new realms. As time passed, their Arab adversaries became neighbors and a hybrid European-Levantine culture evolved mixing Christian rule with Arab lifestyles.

When Pope Urban II called Christendom to the First Crusade in 1095, his warriors looked scarcely different from the combatants at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Most knights from Northern Europe wore a mail shirt or hauberk. European artisans produced excellent mail consisting of thousands of metal rings, each one linked to four others. Hauberks were mid-thigh in length and were usually worn over thick undershirts of leather or felt or padded garments stuffed with cotton. The mail hauberk's sleeves were loose, ending just befog the elbow. Richer barons and the wealthy military orders would wear a mail sleeve under the hauberk to protect their forearms.