The Crusades Against Christians

(Massacre against the Albigensians by the crusaders. British Library, Royal. Author: Chroniques de Saint-Denis, date 14th Century (after 1332, before 1350). (The Crusades Against Christians: Albigensian Crusade (1235–1241))

The Northern Crusades

(Courtmaster of the Teutonic Order (left) and Sword Brothers (right), 1870 Unknown Author)

The success of the First Crusade inspired 12th-century popes such as Celestine III, Innocent III, Honorius III and Gregory IX to call for military campaigns with the aim of Christianization of the more remote regions of northern and northeastern Europe. The Northern Crusades or Baltic Crusades were religious wars primarily undertaken by the Christian military orders and kingdoms against the pagan Baltic, Finnic and Slavic peoples around the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. The crusades took place mostly in the 12th and 13th centuries and resulted in the conversion and baptism of indigenous peoples.

The Crusades to the Holy Land

(French Hand Painted Unused Tapestry Cushion Cover Of The Knights Templar. "The Crusades to the Holy Land". )

The Crusades were a series of religious wars sanctioned by the Latin Church between the 11th and 16th centuries, especially the campaigns in the Eastern Mediterranean with the aim of capturing Jerusalem from Islamic rule (War for the Holy Land). They were formally launched by Pope Urban II in the late 11th century to help the Byzantine Empire against the Seljuk Turks.