Byzantium And The Crusades

In 1260, the Mamluk victory over the Mongols at the battle of Ain Jalut saved Islam. Under the leadership of their new Sultan, Baibars, they now turned their attention to destroying the Crusaders.

With the Ottoman Turks closing in on Constantinople, the Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologus made a last desperate appeal to the West for help. But would it be too little and too late?

In this episode we reach a turning point in the history of the later Crusades, as the Crusaders face a devastating battle against Ayub, Sultan of Egypt. This marks not just the beginning of the end for the Crusaders but the start of the rise to power of the Mongols and the Mamluks, both of which will come to dominate the thirteenth century.

The German Emperor Frederick II was an unusual medieval monarch. He shocked contemporaries by keeping a harem in his court at Palermo, and was excommunicated three times by the Pope. Yet he was the only monarch to succeed in recovering Jerusalem.

Constantinople is surrounded. For seven weeks, it has endured Turkish attacks by land and sea. Its defenders have fought heroically but now they are exhausted. But so too are the Turks. Their losses have been huge and the Turkish Sultan, Mehmet II, starts to wonder whether he should call the siege off.