Religious Crusades

The Crusades is an authoritative, accessible single-volume history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land in the Middle Ages. Thomas Asbridge—a renowned historian who writes with “maximum vividness” (Joan Acocella, The New Yorker)—covers the years 1095 to 1291 in this big, ambitious...

In the summer of 1187, a single catastrophic defeat erased nearly a century of Christian conquest in the Holy Land. The Battle of Hattin destroyed the army of Jerusalem, and within months Saladin had recovered the holy city that crusaders had seized in blood eighty-eight years before. The shockwave that rippled across Europe would summon three kings and the largest military expedition Christendom had ever assembled. What followed was not a simple clash of faiths but a collision of extraordinary personalities pursuing conflicting agendas. Richard the Lionheart and Saladin never met face to ...

In November 1095, Pope Urban II stood before a crowd in central France and issued a call that would send tens of thousands of people on a journey most would never complete. What followed was not merely a military campaign but a mass movement that reshaped the medieval world, dragging peasants and princes alike across thousands of miles of hostile territory toward a city most had only heard of in scripture. The First Crusade remains one of history's most improbable ventures, a collision of religious fervor, political calculation, and raw human endurance that ended in triumph and atrocity in ...

In 1228, the most powerful ruler in Christendom sailed for the Holy Land under a sentence of excommunication, condemned by the very Church whose holiest city he intended to recover. Emperor Frederick II had spent thirteen years postponing his crusade, and when he finally departed, Pope Gregory IX declared him an enemy of the faith. What followed was the strangest crusade ever undertaken, a military expedition that achieved its goal without fighting a single major battle. Frederick recovered Jerusalem through negotiation with Sultan al-Kamil of Egypt, exploiting the divisions within the ...

The crusades most people know—Jerusalem, Richard the Lionheart, Saladin—represent only a fraction of medieval holy war. For every famous expedition to the Holy Land, dozens of crusades were launched within Europe itself, targeting pagans in the Baltic forests, heretics in French villages, and even Catholic kings who defied the pope. These forgotten campaigns reveal what crusading actually became: a flexible weapon of conquest, colonization, and political control that the Church wielded for three centuries across the continent. This book chronicles twenty-five of these neglected crusades...

The work comprises Villehardouin's "Conquest of Constantinople", which recounts the controversial Fourth Crusade, which descended into an attack on the Eastern Christians of Byzantium. In "Life of Saint Louis", Joinville draws on his friendship with King Louis IX of France to describe the campaigns in the Holy Land.

“Crusade” means a war for the sake of the Cross, a war to protect Christian people from persecution and death on account of their faith in Jesus Christ. Everyone has heard of the crusades of the Middle Ages. But few know of the crusade fought for this same purpose in Spain during the early twentieth century. This is the story of that crusade, now honored in no other book in the English language. Most people who know of the Spanish Civil war do not understand why it was fought or how it was really won. This book will tell you. There is no story like it in the history of the twentieth century.

In 1147, the two most powerful monarchs in Europe led the largest military expedition Christendom had ever assembled toward the Holy Land. Within eighteen months, their armies had been annihilated in the mountains of Anatolia, their survivors humiliated before the walls of Damascus, and their grand enterprise reduced to a bitter search for scapegoats. The Second Crusade remains one of history's most dramatic examples of how ambition, miscalculation, and human frailty can transform a sacred mission into catastrophe. This book traces the crusade from its origins in the shocking fall of Edessa...

The Eighth and Ninth Crusades were not glorious campaigns but death throes of a two-century movement built on faith, ambition, and blood. King Louis IX of France, later canonized as a saint, led thousands of soldiers to die of disease in a Tunisian wasteland that had nothing to do with Jerusalem. Prince Edward of England survived an assassin's poisoned blade in Acre, negotiated a meaningless truce, and sailed home knowing the crusader states were already corpses waiting for burial. This book traces the final twenty years of the crusader presence in the Levant, from Louis's catastrophic ...

In 1202, thousands of European crusaders gathered in Venice to sail for Egypt and strike at the heart of Muslim power. Four years later, they had never reached the Holy Land but had instead conquered and savagely plundered Constantinople, the greatest Christian city in the world. The Fourth Crusade stands as one of history's most spectacular betrayals of stated purpose, a holy war that became a crime against the very faith it claimed to serve. The diversion from Egypt to Constantinople did not happen in a single decision but through a cascade of compromises, each seemingly justified by ...

In 1248, King Louis IX of France launched the most carefully planned crusade in medieval history, commanding an army of fifteen thousand soldiers, a fleet of hundreds of ships, and resources accumulated over four years of meticulous preparation. What followed was one of the most dramatic reversals of fortune the medieval world had ever witnessed: a stunning initial victory, a catastrophic defeat in the Egyptian Delta, the capture and ransom of a king, and the destruction of an entire generation of French military leadership. The Seventh Crusade would reshape the political landscape of the ...

In 1219, a crusading army captured Damietta, one of the most important ports in the Muslim world, after a siege that showcased remarkable military innovation and unshakeable determination. The Sultan of Egypt, desperate to save his realm, offered to return Jerusalem itself—the very prize for which generations of crusaders had fought and died—in exchange for the invaders' withdrawal. The crusaders refused. What followed was one of the most catastrophic reversals in military history. Within two years, the same army that had seemed poised to conquer Egypt found itself trapped in the Nile ...

Unlock the secrets of a forgotten faith with Catharism: A Beginner's Guide. This compelling book takes you on a journey through the mysterious world of the Cathars, a medieval Christian sect that challenged the powerful Catholic Church with their unique beliefs and austere lifestyle. Imagine discovering a hidden history, rich with intrigue and drama. Picture yourself delving into a world where spirituality meets rebellion, where ordinary people stood up against immense power. This book is not just about history; it’s about understanding a profound spiritual movement that has influenced ...

Islamophobia has spiraled into a global menace, and democratic and authoritarian regimes alike have deployed it as a strategy to persecute their Muslim populations. With this book, Khaled A. Beydoun details how the American War on Terror has facilitated and intensified the network of anti-Muslim campaigns unfolding across the world. The New Crusades is the first book of its kind, offering a critical and intimate examination of global Islamophobia and its manifestations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and regions beyond and in between.

The story of the wars and conquests initiated by the first Crusade and its successors is itself so compelling that most accounts move quickly from describing the Pope's calls to arms to the battlefield. In this highly original and enjoyable new book, Christopher Tyerman focuses on something obvious but overlooked: the massive, all-encompassing, and hugely costly business of actually preparing a crusade.

Drawing from both Christian and Islamic sources, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain demonstrates that the clash of arms between Christians and Muslims in the Iberian peninsula that began in the early eighth century was transformed into a crusade by the papacy during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Successive popes accorded to Christian warriors willing to participate in the peninsular wars against Islam the same crusading benefits offered to those going to the Holy Land.

In the late fall of 1095, Pope Urban II gave a speech in Clermont, France, and set all of Europe into motion. As many as 150,000 people eventually responded to the call, leaving everything they knew behind to undertake what appeared to be a fool's mission: marching several thousand miles into enemy territory to reconquer Jerusalem for Christendom.

Arguably one of the most provocative, puzzling, and misunderstood organizations of medieval times, the legendary Knights Templar have always been shrouded in a veil of mystery, while inspiring popular culture from Indiana Jones to Dan Brown. In The Templars, author Michael Haag offers a definitive history of these loyal Christian soldiers of the Crusades - sworn to defend the Holy Land and Jerusalem, but ultimately damned and destroyed by the Pope and his church.

"Life is like leaping flames. Its circumstances change shape so quickly—one moment dancing, the next dwindling into embers. . . " Andreva de Beringer leaves the abbey in Toulouse to care for her grandmother, but she arrives in Lavelanet to find a village gripped by the terror of the Inquisition. While Andreva strives to hold on to her family, her faith, (and the man she loves,) all around her Good Men must fight for the same—as well as for life itself. In the right place, but at a dreadfully wrong time, and under the wrath of the Inquisition, might this faith-filled but naïve girl be ...

The quest for the old scrolls is on. The stakes are high. No one is safe. France, 1798. Cavalry Captain Pascal de Charney is summoned by his father, Roland, before leaving to Egypt with Napoleon’s army. Roland wishes Pascal to perform a task for him. Israel, 2010. Yossi Luria is an ex-cop turned private investigator, who still hurts over his dismissal from the police force. Jeanne de Charney, an enchanting Frenchwoman from Normandy, steps in to hire his services. She presents him with a batch of intriguing old letters from Pascal, which she has uncovered while searching in her family’s ...