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The Crusades: Causes & Goals
The Crusades were a series of military campaigns organised by Christian powers in order to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control. There would be eight officially sanctioned crusades between 1095 CE and 1270 CE and many...
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Krak Des Chevaliers
Krak des Chevaliers (also spelt Cracs des Chevaliers, and known in Arabic as Hisn al-Akrad) is a castle in Syria originally built for the Emir of Aleppo in 1031 CE but acquired and extensively rebuilt by the Knights Hospitaller in 1144 CE...
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Crusades
The Crusades were a series of military campaigns organised by popes and Christian western powers to take Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control and then defend those gains. There were eight major official crusades between 1095...
Definition
Battle of Hattin - Saladin's Greatest Victory
The Battle of Hattin in July 1187 CE in present-day Israel was one of the great victories of Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt and Syria (r. 1174-1193 CE). The army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and its Latin allies were totally defeated and, shortly...
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Medieval Heraldry
Heraldry, which is the use of inherited coats of arms and other symbols to show personal identity and family lineage, began on the mid-12th century CE battlefield as an easy means to identify medieval royalty and princes who were otherwise...
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Fifth Crusade
The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221 CE) was called by Pope Innocent III (r. 1198-1216 CE) with the objective, like previous crusades, of recapturing Jerusalem from Muslim control; only this time the strategy was to weaken the enemy by first attacking...
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Thomas Malory
Sir Thomas Malory (c. 1415-1471 CE) was an English knight during the War of the Roses (1455-1487 CE) best known for his highly influential work of medieval literature, Le Morte D'Arthur regarded as the first novel in English, the first in...
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Sir William Marshal - England's Greatest Knight
The Englishman Sir William Marshal (c. 1146-1219 CE, aka William the Marshal), Earl of Pembroke, is one of the most celebrated knights of the Middle Ages. Renowned for his fighting skills, he remained undefeated in tournaments, spared the...
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Richard I of England
Richard I of England, also known as Richard the Lionheart (Cœur de Lion), reigned as king of England from 1189 to 1199. The son of Henry II of England (r. 1154-1189) and Eleanor of Aquitaine (c. 1122-1204), Richard was known for his courage...
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Guinevere
Guinevere is the Queen of Britain, wife of King Arthur, and lover of Sir Lancelot in the Arthurian Legends best known in their standardized form from Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur (1469 CE). She first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's...