The Crusades  From New World Encyclopedia Jump to: navigation,
search  Depiction of Richard I of England overlooking Jerusalem,
in Punch Magazine, December 1917. The caption read: "At last my
dream come true."  The Crusades were a series of military
campaigns first inaugurated and sanctioned by the papacy that
were undertaken between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.
Originally, the Crusades were Christian Holy Wars to recapture
Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the Muslims, then to defend
Christian-held Jerusalem, but some were directed against other
targets, such as the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars of
southern France, the Fourth Crusade which conquered Orthodox
Christian Constantinople, and Crusades targeting Jews, non-
conformist Christians, and un-Christianized populations living
in Europe. Initially, the Crusades had the blessing of both the
Western (Catholic) Church under the Pope and of the Eastern
Orthodox Church under the Byzantine Emperor. However, the
Emperors withdrew their support a