At the end of the XI century. participants in the First Crusade (1096-1099) founded the county of Edessa, the first Latin state in the East. The history of Frankish Edessa is a wonderful example of a successful synthesis of Western European and Eastern institutions, and the long period during which the county managed to withstand constant attacks by Muslims until the middle of the 12th century only proves the strength of the "Edesian model" of feudalism.