Episode 14 – Sideshow Crusades shaped Europe, 1047–1204 AD

In the Levant, called the Holy Land, successive major expeditions were attempted and ultimately failed. Jerusalem was lost. A long festering tension between the Roman Emperors at Constantinople and the mercantile colonies of the Italian city states exploded in a pogrom against the Venetians. They diverted the 4th Crusade and conquered Constantinople, initiating Frankish rule in the eastern Empire. But the religiously motivated expeditions that really mattered in the very long term have long been forgotten, those in Sicily, Portugal, Spain, the Baltics and eastern Europe. These shaped the Europe we know today.