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" The map of the medieval world was constantly changing, as various kingdoms, principalities and states fought each other and redrew borders. In Europe and western Asia there were many states that rose to power and then later fell. Some of the most well-known ones include the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Abbasid Caliphate. Here, we take a look at 10 of the lesser known kingdoms that no longer exist."

This study argues that in addition to protecting the kingdom of Jerusalem against perceived enemies from without, these strongholds are evidence of the military orders' involvement in policing nomads roaming within and traversing through the kingdom.

"Monarchy and nobility in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1099-1131: establishment and origins By Alan V. Murray PhD Dissertation, University of St Andrews, 1988 Abstract: The starting-point of this thesis is the question of the origin of the nobility in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem up to 1131. This is discussed in parallel with the question of the origins of the monarchy itself and that of relations between the two institutions."

The crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem was always desperately short of defenders, and constantly in danger of falling to the Muslims. The Templars quickly became important in the defense of the kingdom, as did their sister order, the Knights Hospitaller. They were so respected, and so feared, by Muslim leaders for their dedication and determination, that Muslims commonly murdered them when they captured them, rather than allowing the Templars to be ransomed. This was done, for example, by Saladin after the Battle of Hattin in 1187. The Templars fought very hard to defend the Holy Land and the Kingdom of Jerusalem that ruled it, but it was a losing battle. There were too many Muslims, and the Christians were constantly outnumbered and on the defensive. At last, in 1291, Muslims drove Christians out of the Holy Land for the second time (the first was in the 7th century), and many Templars, including their Grand Master, were killed in the final siege.

"Introduction: A visitor to the Empress Matilda's tomb at Rouen might be mistaken in believing that its occupant had never sought the English throne in her own right. Yet in the long struggle which engulfed the kingdom after her father's death in 1135 this is exactly what she did. Matilda may indeed have been the greatest English heiress of the twelfth century to fail to secure her inheritance. Charles Beem remarks that Matilda's epitaph 'described the summit of earthly achievement to which a twelfth-century aristocratic woman could aspire, according to the dictate of a male-dominated feudal society'. Matilda's rule lasted less than seven months before she was unceremoniously driven out of London in the spring of 1141. Even so, her lordship bore many of the typical characteristics of royal administration, and with King Stephen imprisoned by her supporters Matilda for a time was recognised as the sole source of royal authority in the kingdom."

Frontier Warfare in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: The Campaign of Jacob's Ford, 1178-79

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss King Alfred and the defeat of the Vikings at Battle of Edington. At the end of the 9th century the Vikings controlled almost all of what we now call England. Mercia had fallen and its king had fled, Northumbria had fallen and so had Essex. The only independent kingdom left standing against the rampaging Danes was Wessex, and Alfred the Great; then he was overrun, his treasury, palaces and castles taken whilst he and his most loyal followers were left to wander the moors. Yet he came back.

Though Queen Melisende's Psalter is probably not the earliest manuscript preserved from the Crusader Kingdom, it represents Crusading illumination of the early period at its best. From details within the psalter we know its place of origin to be the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and we can also date it fairly accurately between 1131 and 1143.

The defense of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the blooming of the spirit of chivalry were the determinant causes that induced the "frates" to become "equites et servientes armigeri". By the will of Innocent III, the initial hospitaller tasks were supplemented with military functions. It was an original fusion: military forces defending the Christian dominions, and hospitaller charity defending life.

"A King's Ransom is the follow up to Lionheart and tells the story of King Richard I's imprisonment in Germany at the hands of Duke Leopold of Austria and Emperor Heinrich VI and of his battle to win back his Kingdom from his rapacious brother John."

"One of the questions we're most frequently asked at the British Library is: why is there more than one manuscript of Magna Carta? The simple answer is that, when the Great Charter was first granted by King John in 1215, numerous copies were made so that its terms could be distributed more easily throughout the kingdom of England. Four of those 1215 manuscripts survive to the present day, one of which is owned by Lincoln Cathedral, another by Salisbury Cathedral and the other two being held at the British Library in London."

"Lindisfarne is intimately connected with the history of Christianity in Britain. In 635 the Northumbrian king, Oswald (r.634-42), summoned an Irish monk named Aidan from Iona - the island-monastery off the south-west coast of what is now Scotland - to be bishop of his kingdom. Oswald granted Aidan and his companions the small tidal island of Lindisfarne on which to found a monastery."

"Introduction: Between the mid-11th and late-15th centuries, an historically specific configuration of material and ideational factors gave rise to a constellation of religious wars that have come to be known as "the crusades". This constellation included Church-organized wars in the Holy Land, Iberia and along the Baltic frontier as well as within Latin Christendom itself.[1] The Crusades to the Holy Land were "wars of liberation" initially launched by the Church to restore Jerusalem to Christian rule. Following the First Crusade and the establishment of the crusader principalities (the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem - collectively known as Outremer), these expeditions were conducted primarily to defend the Holy Places against Muslim attempts at reconquest or, following its loss in 1187 and again in 1244, to recover Jerusalem for Latin Christendom. While authorized by, and fought on behalf of, the Church these wars were prosecuted by princes, nobles and knights from every corner of Latin Christendom as well as by so-called "para-crusaders" (milites ad terminum), and members of military orders such as the Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights.[2] They were fought primarily against a range of Muslim powers, although the Fourth Crusade ended up being waged largely against adherents to the Greek Orthodox rite. Although the idea of launching additional expeditions to liberate Jerusalem persisted for a considerable time, the Crusades to the Holy Land effectively came to an end with the fall of the last Christian stronghold in Palestine - Acre - in 1291.[3]"

Crusader Castles in the Holy Land 1097-1192 

The Oxford history of the Crusades

The central convent of Hospitallers and Templars

Archaeology of the military orders: a survey of the urban centres,

The Hospitallers and the Holy Land: financing the Latin East, 1187-1274