The Pope who began the Crusades

A blood curdling sermon triggered two centuries of religious wars

The year was 1095.  In the east, the Greek speaking Byzantine empire - inheritors of what had been left of the eastern Roman empire - had experienced a huge loss of territory to the Seljuk Turks.

These nomads had swept down from central Asia, first taking Islamic domains including the city of Baghdad and then seizing most of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) fr…