2
" Then, however, he launched into a rallying cry that would echo down the centuries, speaking of “an urgent task which belongs to both you and God.” He continued: You must hasten to carry aid to your brethren dwelling in the East, who need your help for which they have often entreated. For the Turks, a Persian people, have attacked them . . . and have advanced as far into Roman territory as that part of the Mediterranean which is called the Arm of St. George [i.e., Constantinople]. They have seized more and more lands of the Christians, have already defeated them in seven times as many battles, killed or captured many people, have destroyed churches, and have devastated the kingdom of God. Wherefore with earnest prayer . . . God exhorts you as heralds of Christ to repeatedly urge men of all ranks whatsoever, knights as well as footsoldiers, rich and poor, to hasten to exterminate this vile race from our lands and to aid the Christian inhabitants in time . . . For all those going thither there will be remission of sins if they come to the end of this fettered life while either marching by land or crossing by sea, or in fighting the pagans. This I grant to all who go, through the power vested in me by God. "
― Dan Jones , Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands
18
" Needless to say, Columbus’s journey in 1492 changed the world. His announcement of new territories full of things to trade or steal, and teeming with people to subjugate, convert or kill, helped to usher in a new phase of global history. After Columbus, the future for Europe lay to the west, not the east. And gradually, all the energy, excitement and terrible, merciless, zealotry that had inspired previous generations to make perilous journeys to the Holy Land flooded back, as Christian adventurers fell over themselves to strike out in the opposite direction. It had taken a long time, but at last the realms of Western Christendom had found their new Jerusalem. They swarmed across the sea there in their thousands, as though God himself had willed "
― Dan Jones , Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands
19
" Even as the flames raged, Baybars sent a triumphant letter to Bohemond, who had not been present at the siege. He mocked him for having lost his right to call himself “Prince,” then described the atrocious punishment that had befallen his city. Had Bohemond been present to defend his people, said Baybars, “you would have seen your knights prostrate beneath the horses’ hooves, your houses stormed by pillagers and ransacked by looters . . . your women sold four at a time and bought for a dinar of your own money! You would have seen the crosses in your churches smashed, the pages of the false Testaments scattered, the Patriarchs’ tombs overturned. You would have seen the Muslim enemy trampling on the place where you celebrate the Mass, cutting the throats of monks, priests and deacons upon the altars . . . you would have seen fire running through your palaces, your dead burned in this world before going down to the fires of the next . . . Then you would have said ‘Would that I were dust, and that no letter had ever brought me such tidings!’”20 This was more than mere rhetoric. Antioch’s days as a leading city of the Syrian northwest were over. "
― Dan Jones , Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands
