The Seventh Crusade, led by King Louis IX of France, was the last major expedition for the recovery of the Holy Land actually to reach the Near East. The failure of his invasion of Egypt (1249-50), followed by his four-year stay in Palestine in order to retrieve the disaster, had a profound impact on the Latin West. In addition, Louis's operations in the Nile delta indirectly precipitated the Mamluk coup d'etat, which ended the rule of the Ayyubids, Saladin's dynasty, in Egypt and began the transfer of power there to a military elite that would prove to be a far more formidable enemy to the...

This is a translation of the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, a contemporary chronicle of the Third Crusade, 1187-1192. Told from the viewpoint of the European crusaders, it recounts the fall of the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187 and the subsequent expeditions to recover it, led by the Emperor Frederick I, King Philip II of France and King Richard I of England, the a Lionheart." This is the most comprehensive account of the crusade. Much of the account is from eyewitness sources and provides vivid and colourful details of the great campaigns. The translator...