The Crusades

At the end of the night of the Dark Ages a multitude of our ancestors left their homes. They started out on what they called the voyage of God..They were marching out of the familiar, known world into Asia to set free with their own hands the Sepulcher of Christ. They wanted to live there, in the promised land, ruled by no king but by the will of God. On the shoulders of their jackets they wore a cross, sewn out of cloth, and because of this they were called the cruciati, or cross-bearers..In this volume is told the story of the first crusaders. It begins with their setting out, and it ends with the death of the last survivor. Eight hundred and thirty-five years have passed since then, and the lives of these men are known to us only the chronicles of their day..Several of these chronicles were written by men who marched with the crusaders, by two chaplains and an unknown soldier. Two other narratives ere finished in Beyond the Sea after the march, and we have the accounts of others who saw the crusaders pass..It is the story of a dozen men, most of them leaders, who started out on that long journey- what they saw on the road, and what they did, and what befell them at the Sepulcher of Christ.