THE CRUSADES IN THE WEST

[1Sidenote: [1230-1309 A.D.]]

2Having completed the survey of the vain efforts for the Holy Land, it will be well to glance at the contests springing up elsewhere on the same fanatic belief that orthodoxy was a matter of life and death.[a]

3Though the Crusades met with failure in the East, in the West they achieved their purpose; that is, certain expeditions were highly successful; for example that of the Teutonic knights and sword-bearers into Prussia and the neighbouring regions, where they founded a new state; also Simon de Montfort’s war against the Albigenses which destroyed an ancient civilisation; and the struggle between the Spaniards and the Moors, as a result of which the latter were forced to surrender the peninsula over to Christianity and the civilisation of Europe.

4It will be observed that the scene of action of the European Crusades was the two extremities of the continent; around the mouths of the Niemen the pagans of the Baltic were to be converted, and in the country washed by the Tagus, the Moslems of Spain.