Crusades. Zaporov M.A.

Why are European monarchs, knights, poor and children, under the influence of sermons and rumors, went east? In the Middle Ages, the Western European chivalry, inspired by the Catholic Church, went to Palestine to liberate the Holy Land from Muslims, where, according to legend, Jesus Christ suffered. This movement was called the Crusades, which became the most bloody religious wars of the XI -XIII centuries. The fanatical movement of Christians to the east soon transformed into a series of aggressive wars.

The book of the famous domestic medical historian Mikhail Zaborov (1920-1987) fascinatingly talks about all the Crusades to the East. The author describes the fight of European armies with Muslims in Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, considers the reasons for the origin of the crusading movement, the influence of the Catholic Church on it and various forms of Europeans' participation in campaigns, the formation of Christian states and military-monastery orders in the east. Much attention in the book is also paid to conflicts among the crusaders, their confrontation with the Venetians and Byzantines, the capture of Constantinople and the winners of the crusaders-the Turks-seljuki.