ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book contextualizes and brings to life the motives, endeavours and contradictions underlying this compelling and important episode in history. The crusades to the Holy Land and the settlement of the Latin East are a central part of medieval history. With the call to the First Crusade in 1095 all of Western Europe found a common cause that crossed geographical and political boundaries and brought out one of the few characteristics shared across the region, namely the Catholic faith. The second and Third Crusades saw western European rulers absent from their lands for years at a time, and in the case of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, the death of one of these men. The Venetian commitment to transport the army of the Fourth Crusade was the most dramatic example. The Fifth Crusade, foundered on the banks of the River Nile.
