Crusades

The Crusades expertly takes the reader into the mindset of crusading knights, exploring, on the one hand, the role played by pilgrimage, penance and piety in Christian life and, on the other, the politics of Western Europe, the Papacy, Byzantium and the Sunni and Shi¿a groups in the Middle East. Encompassing both the crusades to the Holy Land, Iberia and the Baltic as well as popular crusading, the bookazine explores how crusades were financed, how the crusader principalities functioned and how they were lost by the end of the 13th century. Looking more broadly at the era, the bookazine reveals how the crusades were reflected in art and the influence they had in reviving Mediterranean trade and in the development of banking. Illustrated with 160 photographs, paintings, artworks and maps, The Crusades is a fascinating and accessible history.