Quotes from Thomas Asbridge

when Latin crusading armies arrived in the Near East to wage what essentially were frontier wars, they were not actually invading the heartlands of Islam. Instead, they were fighting for control of a land that, in some respects, was also a Muslim frontier

Concepts such as love, charity, obligation and tradition all helped to shape medieval attitudes to devotion, but perhaps the most powerful conditioning influence was fear;

Islam had, from its earliest days, embraced warfare. Muhammad himself prosecuted a series of military campaigns while subjugating Mecca, and the explosive expansion of the Muslim world during the seventh and eighth centuries was fuelled by an avowed devotional obligation to spread Islamic rule. The union of faith and violence within the Muslim religion, therefore, was more rapid and natural than that which gradually developed in Latin Christianity.

Almost all were assured a degree of renown for their exploits, and it became common for these crusaders to be celebrated with the nickname 'Hierosolymitani', or 'travellers to Jerusalem'.

Eleventh-century Europe was not in a state of fully fledged anarchy, but the ravening violence of feud and vendetta was commonplace, and lawlessness endemic.

The 1216 Magna Carta was distinctive in two further regards. It was not a mere peace treaty, extracted under duress from an embattled monarch, but a freely given assurance of rights. Crucially, the document was also issued with the full and unequivocal support of the papal legate, Guala.

It was this document, validated by Guala and Marshal, which resurrected Magna Carta – the discarded pact of 1215. This development represented a critical step in English history, for without this reissue and those that followed in later years, the Great Charter would have been forgotten.

enemy than to suffer his people to be exposed to rapine

By now the crusaders had christened the most powerful French catapult 'Mal Voisine', or 'Bad Neighbour', while nicknaming the Muslim stone-thrower that targeted it for conter-bombardment 'Mal Cousine', or 'Bad Relation'.

But the concept of knighthood only began to emerge in the second half of the eleventh century and it remained in its infancy even as William Marshal arrived at Tancarville and grew towards manhood. William lived through the precise period in which the ideas, rituals and customs of knighthood coalesced. Indeed, his own celebrated career as one of Europe's greatest knights helped to mould this warrior class.

news of all this reached [John], but he said that he did not care about the child, since he still had the anvils and the hammers to forge even finer ones'.

Learning to ride a mount in battle and to wield weaponry with a measure of proficiency also took hundreds, perhaps even thousands of hours of practice – time not available to all. Not surprisingly, knighthood became the preserve of the privileged few.

For men like William, the need for an audience was a simple fact of knightly life.

The first Latin up a ladder was Aubery Clements, marshal of France, one of Philip's leading knights. It was said later among the Christians' forces that, before climbing the breach, Aubery had called out defiantly: 'Either I shall die today, or God willing, I will enter Acre.

Time and again in the Middle Ages, warrior-kings, seen by their men in the thick of fighting, turned the tide of battle, assuring victory.

Not surprisingly, the crusaders developed an intense hatred of Greek fire. One unfortunate Turkish emir thus paid a heavy price when wounded in a skirmish beside a Frankish siege tower. He had been carrying a container of Greek fire, hoping to destroy the engine, but now a Latin knight 'stretched him out on the ground, emptying the contents of the phial on his private parts, so that his genitals were burned'.

The Lionheart had arrived.

The once fashionable myth that crusaders were self-serving, disinherited, land-hungry younger sons must be discarded. Crusading was instead an activity that could bring spiritual and material rewards, but was in the first instance both an intimidating and extremely costly activity. Devotion inspired Europe to crusade, and in the long years to come the First Crusaders proved time and again that their most powerful weapon was a shared sense of purpose and indestructible spiritual resolution.

on 4 July 1187 and, three months later, Jerusalem fell into Muslim hands. This calamity sent a shockwave through Western Europe and, with the preaching of a massive new crusade to avenge these injuries and reclaim the Holy Land, thousands of knights took up arms. According to the History of William Marshal 'the number of those taking the cross was so great . . . that there was no man convinced of his worth who did not abandon wife and children to become a crusader.

As des Roches moved to intercept one of the duke's knights, William charged forward to confront Richard himself. The great tournament champion was about to meet the Lionheart in single combat.

throng looked on, Richard knelt