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There were seven Crusades in all, dating from 1095 to 1291, with the First Crusade being the most successful from a military point of view. The First Crusade was an attempt to re-capture Jerusalem. Christians had paid pilgrimage to the Holy Land since the time of Constantine. After Jerusalem had been captured by the Saljuk Turks in 1076, any Christian who wanted to pay a pilgrimage to the city faced a very hard time with the Moslem soldiers makin...

Battle of Lyndanisse (Reval) 1219 – Scandinavian Wars In 1219, Valdemar II of Denmark continued the Danish conquest of the German Baltic Islands begun by his brother, Canute VI. At the Battle of Lyndanisse, near Reval, the Danes were battling the pagan Estonians. Weary and facing defeat, a critical turning point in the battle came when a red and white banner came in to the possession of Valdemar. Legend says the banner fell from the...

The Flemish, economically allied to England, was discontented with French rule. Burdened with heavy taxes during the reign of Charles VI, the people of Flanders took up arms under the leadership of Philip van Artevelde. During the uprising a large number of peasants and townspeople gathered en masse at Roosebeke in East Flanders. Here they were attacked by a strong force of mounted French knights commanded by the Count of Flanders, Louis II de Ma...