Publisher's Synopsis
The crusading movement was to play a dramatic role in the religious, political and economic development of Europe and the Near East over 700 years. In 1095 Pope Urban II called on the knights of Christendom to "liberate" Jerusalem from the Muslims. In response, crusaders from all over Europe were to claim by war, by diplomacy and by settlement, new Catholic Christian territories in the Holy Land.;Over the following centuries, crusades were fought on land and at sea in many different theatres of war: the Eastern Mediterranean, the shores of the Baltic and the Black Sea, Spain, North Africa and even within Western Europe. They fought against Muslims, Mongols, pagans, heretics and non-Catholic Christians - in the eyes of the crusaders, all enemies of the church - as well as the political enemies of the Catholic Popes. This atlas traces the history of the crusades.
