History of the Crusades.

the Crusades. episodes.

Episode 1, Latin Christendom in 1090.

Welcome to the first episode of History of the Crusades.

As I briefly mentioned in the introduction to this series,

the Crusades were a series of holy wars taking place in the Middle Ages

the first of which, called the First Crusade, commenced in 1096.

While it's tempting to launch straight into the first crusade, I think that would be a mistake.

The Crusades were very much a product of their time, and we really need some background information so you can more fully understand the motivation

and reason behind the Crusades.

So today I will be talking about Latin Christendom in 1090, five years before the first crusade was launched.

By Latin Christendom, I'm referring to the area which was previously the Western part of the Roman Empire, which is now generally known as Western Europe.

Much like today, it comprised people from different territories with their own culture and customs.

Since the Western part of the Roman Empire had fallen in the 400s, there was no unifying

force across Western Europe except perhaps the Catholic Church.

The Church, administered by its head the Pope and based in Rome, was Latin speaking and provided

some level of unity in what was a very fractured society. So that's what I mean by the term Latin Christendom.

Obviously Western Europe in 1090 was vastly different to the Europe of today.

For instance, take the population.

In 1090, London and Paris each had a population of between 20,000 and 30,000 people.

There were some bigger towns.

The trading centers of Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan and Cologne

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