In 1096, Pope Urban II called for European armies to join a crusade to return Jerusalem to Christian rule. In the eleventh century, the Pope and other influential Christians in Europe, weary of widespread violence within Europe and goaded by reports of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem being attacked by by Muslims, preached that it was an outrage for the holiest city in Christendom to be ruled by Muslims. 638 when Muslim Arabs conquered it and declared both Jews and Christians free to live and practice their religions alongside Muslims.

Jews were then banned from the city until A.D. Part of the Byzantine Empire for four centuries, it became officially Christian when Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity. Jerusalem was and is considered a holy city by three faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Some series novels extend across several time periods the entire series will appear under the appropriate category for the first novel in the series. Most but not all crusades were officially declared by the pope.

In 1492 the last Moslems in Spain were driven out in a violent attack akin to a crusade. But there was also a crusade against the Cathars, a Christian sect in southern France (the Albigensian Crusade), and crusades against Mongols and Slavs (though I have yet to find any historical novels about these latter). The various crusades against the Muslim rulers of Jerusalem during late eleventh through the thirteenth centuries are usually what spring to mind when people talk of the Crusades. History recognizes nine distinct crusades, religious wars waged by Christian Europe against peoples they considered to be heretics or infidels. The Albigensian Crusade and the Inquisition in France and SpainĬlick on the title for more information from Powell's Books or another online source, or if you're outside the U.S., try The Book Depository. Crusades of the Twelfth Century in the Middle EastĬrusades of the Thirteenth Century and Later in the Middle East

Murder for Christ's Mass by Maureen Ash