The Story of the Crusades

A hundred years earlier, the news of the destruction of Jerusalem would have stricken all Europe with horror and roused her to action. It was not so now. That earlier fervour of...

_One who fought his fight has told the deeds Of that gay passage through the midland sea Cyprus and Sicily; And how the Lion-Heart o'er the Moslem host Triumphed in Ascalon Or A...

_A poor shepherd people roaming unnoticed in the deserts of Arabia: a Hero-Prophet sent down to them with a word they could believe: See! the unnoticed becomes world-notable, th...

Richard the Lion-Heart had returned to England in 1194. The next three years of the dying century saw an attempt at an expedition sometimes known as the Fourth, more often as th...

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till earth and sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border n...

Some twenty years after the death of Hakim, the countries round about the Holy Land began to be harassed by a new and terrible foe. From far-off Turkestan had migrated a fierce...

The knights of the Hospital and Temple spent all their time in private quarrels and combats, and the merchants of Genoa and Pisa followed their evil example. The Moguls were con...

The city of Antioch, capital of Syria, towards which the faces of the Crusaders were now set, was one of the most famous and beautiful cities of the East. Behind it lay the rugg...

Although the usurper had fled, the position of the Emperor Isaac, and that of his son Alexios, the virtual ruler, was by no means serene. Money had to be raised in order to pay...

It was with high hearts that the remnant of the crusading host, now much reduced, took the road to the Holy City, the end of all their endeavours. With little difficulty they ma...

The story of the Sixth Crusade may be told in two parts, one dealing with failure, the other with success. It was the tardy fruit of Pope Innocent's urgent appeal for another Ho...

No story of the Crusades can be complete without some account of the last scene in the drama that had been played for so many years between East and West, and which was ended fo...

_The rhythm of their feet, The ineffable low beat Of the vast throngs pacing slowly, Floats on the sea of Time Like a musical low chime From a far Isle, mystic, holy._ L. MORRIS...

The news of the fate of Jerusalem moved Western Europe to such horror and dismay as had never before been known. Everywhere signs of mourning were seen; a general fast was order...

From the first, the Abbot de Vaux, who had to some extent taken the place of the priest Fulk (now gone to his rest), had protested against warring upon the King of Hungary, who...

_A knight there was, and that a worthy man, That fro the tyme that he first began To riden out, he loved chivalrie, Trouthe and honour, freedom and curteisie._ CHAUCER: _The Pro...

_Swift and resistless through the land he passed, Like that bold Greek who did the East subdue, And made to battles such heroic haste As if on wings of victory he flew._ DRYDEN:...

_Nought is more honourable to a knight Nor battle doth become brave chivalry Than to defend the feeble in their right And wrong redress in such as wend awry While those great He...

The year which marked Mohammed's triumphant entry into Medina is known in the Mohammedan world as the _Hegira_, and counts as the Year One in their calendar--the year from which...

Most famous of the Sons of Islam who fought against Christendom is Saladin, the Saracen general who made himself master of Egypt in the days of Amalric, King of Jerusalem, and w...

The smaller Moslem states did not hesitate to attack the Christian towns whenever they saw an opportunity of so doing, and the Templars, who had been from the first entirely aga...

But the old enthusiasm for the Holy War had died down. The chief kingdoms of Europe were too busy quarrelling with one another to have leisure to think of the distant lands of t...