The Crusades: An Encylopedia

摘要

It would be otiose to try and draw facile comparisons between events in the Middle East involving Christendom and Islam in the Middle Ages with current affairs: suffice to repeat the old adage that those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. The Crusades have often had, and retain, a certain aura of romanticism in the west, but they were in truth a largely inglorious series of episodes over several centuries from and throughout the Middle Ages into early modern times. Nor were they of simply strategic/religious local concern: whether or not the crusading ideal reached into all levels of western society, certainly the tax demands to help pay for it all and the demands for manpower did reach down to all levels of society. All this and much more are well covered in more than a thousand, for the most part quite detailed, articles on all aspects of the Crusades.