Beginnings 632-1095 -- The First Crusade 1095-1099 -- Life and politics in a multicultural world -- The Second Crusade: disaster on the road to Damascus -- Turk and Kurd: heroes of Islam -- Women and an alternative feudalism -- Loss of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade 1187-1192 -- The Fourth Crusade: the Latin conquest of Constantinople and the scandal of Christendom -- Heathen, heretics and children -- Triumphs of an excommunicated emperor -- The failures of a saint -- Acre and after -- Chivalry in action and Nicopolis "The last crusade" -- The lingering decline of a flawed ideal -- Epilogue: The aftermath -- Appendix I: The Popes, from Gregory VII to Sixtus V -- Appendix II: Rulers of the kingdom of Jerusalem -- Appendix III: Ayyubid dynasty-rulers of Egypt -- Appendix IV: Byzantine Emperors at the time of the first Crusades -- Appendix V: Ottoman princes and sultans 1300-1566 -- Appendix VI: Western emperors 1056-1555.