James A. Brundage

It is impossible to understand how the medieval church functioned - and in turn influenced and controlled the lay world within its care - without understanding the development, character and impact of 'canon law', its own distinctive legal system. Canon law touched the lives of virtually everyone, permeating medieval society at every level, for its prescriptions were binding upon all Christians. Every diocese in Western Christendom accordingly maintained local canonical courts to enforce the church's rules, and to provide a forum for resolving disputes in which the church claimed an interest. Professor Brundage explains the origins of canon law in the early Christian church, and its gradual development through to its full flowering in the age of Gratian and the schools of law in the classical period (1140-1375). In addition, as well as a Select Bibliography, there are two invaluable Appendices: the first explains the Romano-canonical citation system (a challenge that would defeat a lesser pen, but to which Professor Brundage rises superbly), and the second offers biographical notes on the major canonists of the classical period.

Nine hundred years ago Christian Europe was seized by a fever that changed the world. Inspired by a Pope who offered rewards on earth and a certain place in paradise thereafter, tens of thousands of men, women and children - knights and peasants, rich and poor, old and young - set out for the Holy Land to recapture the Holy City, Jerusalem, and save their fellow Christians from persecution by the Infidel. Crusades, and the television series which this book accompanies, tell the dramatic story of these events, and the reality behind the myths. This story of battles and betrayals, drama and intrigue, is told with wit and clarity, and is magnificently illustrated throughout in color. The authors show how the Europeans used the morality of the Crusades to justify the conquest and destruction of any society which stood in their way, sowing the seeds of fear, suspicion and even hatred in the Arab world - a legacy which remains to this day.