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It had come to the attention of Pope
Urban II that there was a
certain hermit wandering about Europe
boasting of a letter from the angels
themselves that urged a holy war to
recapture Jerusalem from the infidel and
to restore to the Christians the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre, the site of
Jesus's death, burial and resurrection.
The Pope was also apprised of reports
that Christian pilgrims were being
robbed, raped and murdered on the way to
Jerusalem. And Emperor Alexius I
Comnenus in far-off Constantinople
was begging Pope Urban to send him
western knights to fight against the
Grand Seljuk. All the while the Pope's
own Christian warriors were busy
slaughtering one another in war-torn
Europe. Urban thought there was only one
possible endeavor that could rescue the
Emperor, protect the pilgrims, divert
Europe's militaristic energies, and save
Jerusalem, and that was a crusade, a
Christian holy war, that would roll back
the Islamic conquests of the past four
centuries and recapture the Holy Land
for the Cross. And so began centuries of
vicious warfare that would further
poison the already toxic relationship
between Christians and Muslims. But even
before the fall of the last of the
Crusader States in the Middle East in
1291 the idea of the crusade had already
morphed into something other than a holy
war to wrest back the Holy Land from
Islam. A crusade had been launched
against Greek Orthodox Constantinople, a
crusading army had marched against
Cather heretics in southern France.
Popes regularly called for Crusades
against troublesome Holy Roman emperors
and the soldier monks of the Hospital of
St. John had defied the Ottoman Turks at
Rhodes and Malta. This series was created
and narrated by Dr. William J.
Neidinger, an archaeologist and historian
with the Texas Foundation for
Archaeological and Historical Research.
The series is richly illustrated with
images, maps, charts and diagrams. It is
designed to provide essential background
as to why the Crusades were launched, to
introduce major as well as minor
historical figures and the roles they
played in the Crusades,
and to immerse the viewer in the
scenes and landscapes where the events
of the Crusades took place.
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