Crusades

This opening episode chronicles the improbable origins of the Crusades, from Pope Urban II's hunger for military power to the success of one of history's greatest mass communication and recruitment campaigns. Terry Jones traces the Crusaders' routes across Europe, and details the massacres and looting that marked their progress. That these first holy warriors were promptly slaughtered upon reaching Asia only fueled the religious conflict. Within months, a massive professional military force dispatched under the Pope's banner had crossed the Bosphorus, ready to battle their way to Jerusalem.

Episode two chronicles the Crusaders' trail of carnage across the Middle East. Two-thirds of them would not even survive the beginning of their journey, as Terry Jones illustrates by attempting to duplicate their march across the harsh, rocky landscape of Anatolia in the heat of summer, wearing chain mail. Jones follows their path to Antioch, site of the famed siege whose strange outcome would encourage the savagery of the Crusaders' campaign. Their barbarous conquest of Jerusalem - where they sacked the city and butchered its inhabitants - was only a prelude to the bloodier campaigns that followed.

Episode three colorfully explores the Muslim recapturing of Jerusalem and the Second Crusade this Arab victory provoked. It's a chronicle of unholy alliances, political intrigue and fabled warriors. This time, however, the Christian soldiers weren't the only ones fighting for a religious cause. By the time the soldiers of the Second Crusade arrived in the Holy Land, Jerusalem's Arab leader, Nur ed-Din, had declared a Jihad, or holy war, against the invaders. A final battle commanded by his successor - the legendary Saladin - would determine the ultimate fate of this Crusade.