The Idea Turned Loose

CHAPTER 9 · CRUSADING EVERYWHERE · The Crusades, 1095–1291

Once “crusade” meant a holy war carrying an indulgence, it could be pointed at any enemy of the Church — and it was. Look west. In Iberia the long Reconquista (arrows: Toledo 1085, then the great victory) is folded into the crusade movement, with papal indulgences for those who fight the Muslims of al-Andalus. At Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 a combined Christian army shatters the Almohads; watch al-Andalus shrink from half the peninsula to the rump of Granada, and the frontier line jump south. The western crusade is winning exactly as the eastern one fails.

The turn: Las Navas de Tolosa, 16 July 1212.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.