The highlight of the eleventh and twelfth centuries is the crusades, in which thousands of armed citizens of Western Europe marched down to the "holy lands" in hopes to gain spheres of influence for Christianity. The crusades were a series of armed "pilgrimages" to the Holy Land in order to liberate it from the "infidel". An infidel was considered to be an unbeliever- thus any person who was not a Christian was thus an infidel and became a target for the wrath of Christendom. The crusades, or the "Holy Wars", were a series of attacks upon the infidels led by Christians in the hopes of spreading Christianity to the holy lands. One can see the events that led to the deployment of the crusades, the actual course of action during the crusades, and the effects of the crusades upon the world both immediately following the crusades and for...