Between the Crescent and the Cross Episode 3 - The King and All of His Men

<p>“Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”  – Isaiah 41:10 </p> <p>When the crusader army stood victorious in Jerusalem in 1099, I don’t think a single one of them knew what they were going to do with the kingdoms they had just conquered. Though, the reality of the situation must have set in quickly for the handful of men who stayed behind to build these new Christian states from the ground up. Meanwhile, Islam, still much more focused on the east, had an interesting relationship with the Crusader States, a land the French called Outremer, Muslim rulers were either stalwart allies or bitter enemies of the Christians. Sometimes they were both at once. It was an age of religious devotion that would give rise to the Knights Templar and the Order of Assassins, an age of warfare that would see great leaders rise to pull the forces of Christendom and Islam to great victories and shattering defeats, and paradoxically, it was an age of learning. Latin Christians and Muslims, for centuries they were distant heathens but now they were neighbors. Curiosity spurred an exchange of knowledge and the cultures of east and west mixed to form the one-of-a-kind but unfortunately short-lived land of Outremer.</p> <p>Image: Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, Sunrise – Edward Lear, 1859</p> <p>Link Mentioned in the episode: <a href='https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/christ-muslim-debate.asp'>https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/christ-muslim-debate.asp</a> </p>