The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades

A beautifully illustrated and accessible account of the medieval crusades. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades provides an accessible introduction to the medieval crusades and to the changes and developments that have taken place in their study over the last twenty-five years. Written by fifteen experts in the field, it opens with the nature of western European society in the eleventh century that gave rise to the holy war ethos, where the Church promoted violence against the perceived enemies of the faith not as a distasteful necessity in a fallen world but as a meritorious act which attracted a spiritual reward. The launch of the First Crusade in 1095 and its capture of Jerusalem four year later is described, along with the subsequent expeditions to the Holy Land up to 1271. Later chapters focus on some of the less well-known aspects.