Category:The Crusades

The Crusades were a series of conflicts between European knights, Holy Orders, and others against the Islamic kingdoms in Arabia, the Levant, and North Africa as both a reaction to Islamic expansion in the centuries prior and as an attempt to unify the Eastern Roman Empire and Western Europe against a common enemy. The conquest of Jerusalem was the primary goal of the Crusades, but many violent campaigns across Anatolia and the Levant took place. Only the first 3 Crusades made much progress, the 4th weakening the Eastern Roman Empire so badly that they would never recover, and every subsequent one being weaker and weaker.