السويدية 1447

The medieval Crusades were a series of religiously inspired European military campaigns undertaken by Western Christendom. They were wars authorized by the Church and directed against peoples perceived as enemies of the Western Catholic Church. The Crusades were seen both as pilgrimages and as holy wars ordered by God through the Pope, with the aim of conquering Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the Muslims.

Literary figures such as Robin Hood helped shape a romanticized image of the Crusaders, particularly Richard the Lionheart. The reality, however, was quite different. According to Voltaire, these campaigns were closer to outright brigandage, in which the Pope’s cry “Deus lo vult!”—“God wills it!”—seemed to grant a dispensation from the Fifth Commandment: “Thou shalt not kill.”