The Crusades remain one of the most fascinating and mysterious phenomena of European history. What were the passions that drove tens of thousands of men - eventually even children – to leave home and homeland, cross Europe on horse and foot, to do battle in a ‘Holy Land'? Greed or fervour? Ambition or piety? In November of 1095 pope Urban II launched a holy war against the infidel. In 1464 a demented pontiff led an imaginary band of crusaders as far as an Adriatic port. Between these dates - but mainly during the first 200 years - Europe was infected by a strangely persistent fever of mass idealism. Though outward zeal often cloaked the most cynical of motives, this universal spirit seized upon thousands - noblemen and peasants, warriors and scholars, ascetics and Iechers, vagabonds and kings.
Henry Treece’s book is a concise but vivid attempt not only to recount but also to explain an epoch which has done much to form our European consciousness, yet which requires today a special Ieap of imagination to apprehend. By turns bitter, shocking, macabre and humorous, THE CRUSADES is a rare example of historic lore made human. The author brings to flaunting life the legendary figures Charlemagne, Haroun-al-Raschid, Richard the Lion-heart, Peter the Hermit, Genghis Khan - and at the same time traces the flow of a great confrontation between alien cultures that was in time to transform Europe and herald a new age of exploration and expanding thought.