The glory of the crusades is valuable not only as history but also as a scholarly debunking of centuries of protestant and enlightenment distortion of the facts about the wests struggles against militant islam. Today i am reviewing the glory of the crusades from catholic answers press the aim of the book is to refute the following seven misconceptions 1 the crusades were wars of unprovok the crusades is still a hotly contested subject worldwide even centuries after it occurred. The crusades a term only coined in the early 1700s were truly religious pilgrimages but this time armed the first armed pilgrimages in the history of catholicism ingredients of the crusade the first ingredient was that the pilgrim had to take the cross. Historian steve weidenkopf challenges this received narrative with the glory of the crusades drawing on the latest and most authentic medieval scholarship he presents a compelling case for understanding the crusades as they were when they happened armed pilgrimages driven by a holy zeal to recover conquered christian lands