"Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - Olivia 2 - Crusader's Torch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yarbro Chelsea Quinn)

CRUSADER'S TOUCH
Atta Olivia Clemens Book 2
By

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

CONTENTS
Part I - Valence Rainaut
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Part II - Atta Olivia Clemens
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Epilogue




Author's Note
 Few military undertakings are as puzzling to modern students as the Crusades.
Coming at the end of the Romanesque period, they provide an historical watershed
that is more easily noticed than understood in twentieth-century terms.
The First Crusade began in 1096, two years after El Cid took Valencia from the
Moors in Spain. Its first exponents were Geoffroi de Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, and
Tancred, nephew of the Norman Robert Discard who conquered Palermo, among
other things. Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade the year before and offered
various inducements to the nobility if they were willing to participate. The First
Crusade lasted roughly three years; the Crusaders defeated the Turks at Doryalaeym,
Nicaea, and Antioch, and in 1099 captured Jerusalem. Geoffroi was appointed
Advocate or Defender of the Holy Sepulcher, and went on to defeat the Egyptians at
Ascalon in the same year. A European presence established itself in the Near East as
a result. In 1104 Acre was taken by Crusaders as part of the general expansion of
their power base at the time, although the First Crusade was officially over. Pope
Paschal II, who reigned until 1118, was more involved with European affairs than
with Near Eastern, and aside from granting a charter for the founding of the Order of
the Knights Hospitalers of Saint John, Jerusalem for the protection, housing, and
medical careтАФsuch as it wasтАФof pilgrims in the Holy Land, did not concern himself
overmuch with Crusading.
The next several Popes (Gelasius II, 1118-9; Calistus II, 1119-24, during whose
reign priests were officially forbidden to marry; Honorius II, 1124-30, who officially
recognized the Order of the Poor Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem, or the Knights
Templar; Innocent II, 1130-43, and the antipope Anacletus II, 1130-38; Celestine II,
1143-44; and Lucius II, 1144-45) were more active in matters of European politics
and Church restructuring; it was not until 1145 that Pope Eugene III proclaimed the
Second Crusade. Two years later, as Queen Mathilda left Britain, the Second Crusade
failed when a significant portion of the Crusaders died, more of disease and thirst
than from fighting, in Asia Minor. But although the Crusade did not succeed, the
European presence in the Near East was not significantly reduced.
Pope Eugene III was succeeded in 1153 by Anastasius IV, and a year later the only
English Pope, Hadrian IV, ascended the Throne of St. Peter; in the following year he
essentially gave Ireland to Henry II of England. On the Continent, Frederick
Barbarossa was the major military/ diplomatic leader. While Henry II was starting to