The Crusades were a series of wars by Western European Christians to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims. The Crusades first started in 1096 and ended in the late 13th century. The term Crusade was originally used to describe the European efforts to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims. Europeans later used crusade to designate any military effort against non-Christians.
The origins of the Crusades probably began with the death of Charlemagne, king of the Franks, in 814 and the collapse of his empire. Christian Europe was under attack and on the defensive. Magyars, who were nomadic peop…
