The Crusades (Essential Histories)

Description

"The Crusades, as Zoe Oldenbourg describes them, were not simply a religious phenomenon, nor were they motivated by pure aggression. They were the result of an emotional climate which led people from all walks of life - rich and poor, saints and sinners - to leave their homes and follow the unattainable ideal of a heavenly Jerusalem here on earth.". "Zoe Oldenbourg evokes the whole structure of feudal society and reveals the remarkable vitality and ingenuity of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, one of the more sophisticated achievements of the Middle Ages." "Peopled with the great personalities behind the Crusades - Bohemond, Tancred, Peter the Hermit, Godfrey of Bouillon, Richard the Lionheart and Saladin."--BOOK JACKET.

First Sentence

The Crusades were an unusual series of conflicts because they involved three or more distinct groups of people: the Western European Christians, generally known as 'Latins' or 'Franks'; the Muslims of the Middle East and North Africa; the Byzantine and other Orthodox Christians of what are now Turkey and the Balkans, generally known as 'Greeks' to Western Europeans and as 'Rumi' or 'Romans' to their Muslim neighbours.

Subjects