NICK HOLMES

The First Crusade got off to a terrible start. The initial expeditions that set out for the east comprised little more than bands of brigands and discontented peasants and minor nobility. This was despite the fact Pope Urban II had set a timetable for the great lords of western Europe to depart on the 15 August, 1096. But before then, two groups of crusaders set out which historians have referred to as the People’s Crusade and closely associated with it, the German Crusad

Writing in around 1120, the medieval monk and historian called William of Malmesbury surprised later historians with his flowing descriptions of a buoyant English wine industry. Travelling through the Vale of Gloucester in south-western England, he wrote: “No county in England has so many or so good vineyards as this, either for fertility or for sweetness of grape. The wine has no unpleasant tartness or eagerness; and is little inferior to the French in sweetness.” It is no

The Crusades present us with one of the greatest paradoxes in history. Why would Christianity, a peace-loving religion, condone aggression in the name of God? The reason cannot be ascribed to the teachings in the Bible. Jesus rejected violence on any grounds, instructing his followers to love their enemies and to renounce aggression in favour of turning the other cheek. When Rome was sacked by Gothic barbarians in AD 410, Saint Augustine of Hippo, perhaps the most influenti