Hello everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History It. We're going to special collaboration

we're announcing today we're talking all about the Crusades. And we're talking about

the Crusades with our buddies at Ubisoft, the mastermind behind the Assassin's Creed franchise.

This is the launch of an eight-part series that touches on the real history of the secret

orders of the Assassins and the Templars. We're going to talk about the Crusades. We're

going to get to the bottom of the Holy Grail myth. We're going to be looking at the people

who inspired the key characters in the games and a whole bunch more. You can find it on

the echoes of history feed. Here's a little taster of the first episode of our series. We're

talking to Jonathan Phillips. He's been on the podcast before. He's a friend of the pod.

He's written a brilliant biography of Saladin, the great Islamic counter crusader, a man

who apparently narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of the Assassins. He is the professor

of crusading history at Rawl Holloway University of London. And we're going to chat,

setting the scene about the Crusades. Why did they happen? What was so special about them that

compared to all the other wars that rage throughout medieval Europe and the Middle East,

we give these ones a particular title. Remember them in a different way. And just who were the

Templars? Enjoy. He might have been here. The Tommy Stomp, Dropped Up, You know, sheep,

God gave the king. No black, quite unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war

with one another in a game. And look off and the subtle has cleared the power.

Jonathan, good to have you in the podcast. Thank you. Hi. What is it about a crusade?

Why do you get the interest? Why do they choose to set the blockbuster gaming franchise

Assassin's Creed in the crusading period and not to any other war? Like what makes a crusade a crusade?

Crusades are a particular species of war, a holy war. And that is what I think divides them off

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