Stories From The Crusades

Once upon a time there was an ugly little boy called Peter, who lived in his father's castle in France. He was a restless boy, and liked always to do or to hear something new. His home was very quiet, for his father was a great fighter, and was often away at the wars for months at a time.

In the book "The Story of the Crusades," E. M. Wilmot-Buxton retells and describes the most famous events from the crusades. This book revolves around the rise of Islam to the adventures of Bohemond and Richard the Lionheart to the ultimate fall of Constantinople. It is centered around faith, belief, righteousness, and other virtues to embrace.

Once upon a time there was an ugly little boy called Peter, who lived in his father's castle in France. He was a restless boy, and liked always to do or to hear something new. His home was very quiet, for his father was a great fighter, and was often away at the wars for months at a time. But though one day was very like another in Peter's life when he was young, he used to hear tales of pilgrimage and of battle that made him long to be free to go out into the world himself.

Brings the Crusades to life through stories of its most famous participants. Relates how Peter the Hermit, with the Pope's blessing, gathers men to his side and leads the first crusade, resulting in the capture of Jerusalem and installation of Godfrey as defender of the holy sepulchre. After the Muslims recapture Jerusalem, three great kings of Europe vow to regain the Holy City: King Richard the Lionhearted of England, King Philip of France, and the Emperor Frederick of Germany. Despite winning many battles in this third crusade and capturing the city of Acre, they fail to win back the city of Jerusalem. King Louis of France launches the last crusade, but dies before achieving his objective. Throughout the narrative we meet all sorts of men. Some, like Bohemond and Baldwin, fight for selfish ends; others, such as Tancred and Louis, do battle like the great knights they are; while a few, Francis among them, carry goodwill wherever they go.

From the bestselling author of The Templars. 'Voyages, battles, sieges and slaughter: Dan Jones's tumultuous and thrilling history of the crusades is one of the best' SUNDAY TIMES. 'A powerful story brilliantly told. Dan Jones writes with pace, wit and insight' HELEN CASTOR. 'A fresh and vibrant account of a conflict that raged across medieval centuries' JONATHAN PHILLIPS. Dan Jones, best-selling chronicler of the Middle Ages, turns his attention to the history of the Crusades – the sequence of religious wars fought between the late eleventh century and late medieval periods, in which armies from European Christian states attempted to wrest the Holy Land from Islamic rule, and which have left an enduring imprint on relations between the Muslim world and the West. From the preaching of the First Crusade by Pope Urban II in 1095 to the loss of the last crusader outpost in the Levant in 1302-03, and from the taking of Jerusalem from the Fatimids in 1099 to the fall of Acre to the Mamluks in 1291, Crusaders tells a tale soaked in Islamic, Christian and Jewish blood, peopled by extraordinary characters, and characterised by both low ambition and high principle. Dan Jones is a master of popular narrative history, with the priceless ability to write page-turning narrative history underpinned by authoritative scholarship. Never before has the era of the Crusades been depicted in such bright and striking colours, or their story told with such gusto. PRAISE FOR THE TEMPLARS: 'A fresh, muscular and compelling history of the ultimate military-religious crusading order, combining sensible scholarship with narrative swagger' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE. 'Dan Jones has created a gripping page-turner out of the dramatic history of the Templars' PHILIPPA GREGORY. 'The story of the Templars, the ultimate holy warriors, is an extraordinary saga of fanaticism, bravery, treachery and betrayal, and in Dan Jones they have a worthy chronicler. The Templars is a wonderful book!' BERNARD CORNWELL. 'Told with all Jones's usual verve and panache, this is a dramatic and gripping tale of courage and stupidity, faith and betrayal' MAIL ON SUNDAY. 'This is another triumphant tale from a historian who writes as addictively as any page-turning novelist' OBSERVER. 'The Templars is exhilarating, epic, sword-swinging history' TLS. 'Jones carries the Templars through the crusades with clarity and verve. This is unabashed narrative history, fast-paced and full of incident... Jones tells their story extremely well' SUNDAY TIMES.