The Fourth Crusade

Zusatztext

<p>In April 1204, the armies of Western Christendom wrote another bloodstained chapter in the history of holy war. Two years earlier, aflame with religious zeal, the Fourth Crusade set out to free Jerusalem from the grip of Islam. But after a dramatic series of events, the crusaders turned their weapons against the Christian city of Constantinople, the heart of the Byzantine Empire and the greatest metropolis in the known world.</p><p>The crusaders spared no one in their savagery: they murdered and raped old and young - they desecrated churches, plundered treasuries and much of the city was put to the torch. Some contemporaries were delighted: God had approved this punishment of the effeminate, treacherous Greeks; others expressed shock and disgust at this perversion of the crusading ideal. History has judged this as the crusade that went wrong.</p><p>In this remarkable new assessment of the Fourth Crusade, Jonathan Phillips follows the fortunes of the leading players and explores the conflicting motives that drove the expedition to commit the most infamous massacre of the crusading movement.</p>

Autorenportrait

Jonathan Phillips is Professor of Crusading History at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of<i>Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades, The Second Crusade: Extending the Frontiers of Christianity</i>,<i>The Crusades, 1095-1197</i>,<i>Defenders of the Holy Land, 1119-1187</i>and co-editor of three academic essay collections on the Crusades. He is the co-editor of the academic journal<i>Crusades</i>and writes regularly for<i>BBC History</i>and<i>History Today</i>. He has made numerous radio and television appearances, including:<i>Boris Johnson and the Dream of Rome</i>(BBC2);<i>The Crusades</i>(with Rageh Omaar) in the<i>Christianity</i>series on Channel 4, and<i>The Crescent and the Cross</i>(History Channel).<i></i>

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