Pope Innocent III pressed for a Fourth Crusade (1198-1204), calling on the nobility of France, Germany and northern Italy to liberate Jerusalem.

In 1204, during the Fourth Crusade, Crusaders diverted from their mission to the Holy Land and instead sacked Constantinople, the heart of the Byzantine Empire. Driven by a mix of financial debts, ...

The Crusades are often painted with a broad and simplistic brush—but how accurate are the popular narratives? In this video, we explore and challenge a few persistent myths surrounding the ...

A lot has been written on medieval Christian holy war (often called "the Crusades") - some of it good and some bad. Here's a short reading list to start your exploration of the topic.

The Crusades have been stereotyped, creating a narrative that supports both Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments in the West, as well as “Westophobia” and paranoia in the Muslim world.

PostEverything Islamophobes want to recreate the Crusades. But they don’t understand them at all. They weren't a clash of civilizations, or a war of Christianity against Islam.

–Neil King Jr. CORRECTION: Bernard Lewis called the Crusades “a late, limited and unsuccessful imitation of the jihad,” not a successful imitation as incorrectly described in the original post.

The history of Western involvement in the Middle East began with the Crusades some 900 years ago. NPR's Mike Shuster begins a special six-part series on the troubled history.

So successful was this process that in 1204, rather than reclaiming Jerusalem, members of the Fourth Crusade ended up sacking Constantinople, capital of the Orthodox Byzantine empire.

Christopher Tyerman offers a massive 'new' history of the crusades, which, in spite of his protestations, is surely an attempt to ease Runciman's book into retirement.