Ebook: The World of the Crusades: an illustrated history

Introduction: What were the Crusades? -- The Mediterranean crisis and the background to the First Crusade -- The First Crusade -- 'The land beyond the sea': Latin Christian lordship in the Levant, 1099-1187 -- Crusades and the defence of Outremer, 1100-1187 -- The Third Crusade and the reinvention of crusading, 1187-1198 -- Reshaping the Eastern Mediterranean: Egypt and the Crusades, 1200-1250 -- Crusades in Spain -- Baltic Crusades -- Crusades against Christians -- The end of the Jerusalem wars, 1250-1370 -- The Ottomans -- New challenges and the end of crusading -- Crusading: our contemporary? -- Postscript: Do the Crusades matter? -- Chronology -- List of rulers.;Throughout the Middle Ages crusading was justified by religious ideology, but the resulting military campaigns were fueled by concrete objectives: land, resources, power, reputation. Crusaders amassed possessions of all sorts, from castles to reliquaries. Campaigns required material funds and equipment, while conquests produced bureaucracies, taxation, economic exploitation, and commercial regulation. Wealth sustained the Crusades while material objects, from weaponry and military technology to carpentry and shipping, conditioned them. This lavishly illustrated volume considers the material trappings of crusading wars and the objects that memorialized them, in architecture, sculpture, jewelry, painting, and manuscripts. Christopher Tyerman's incorporation of the physical and visual remains of crusading enriches our understanding of how the crusaders themselves articulated their mission, how they viewed their place in the world, and how they related to the cultures they derived from and preyed upon.