II
~Meanwhile 1n Europe
689-1008AH
1291-1600 CET
HE LAST CRUSADERS fled the Islamic world in 1291, driven OUt by
Egypt's mamluks, but in Europe residues of the Crusades persisted for
years to come. Some of the blowback came from those military religious or-
ders spawned by the Church of Rome. The Templars, for example, became
influential international bankers. The Knights Hospitaller took over the is-
land of Rhodes, then moved their headquarters to Malta, from which place
they operated more or less as pirates, looting Muslim shipping in the
Mediterranean. The Teutonic Knights actually conquered enough of Prus-
sia to establish a state that lasted into the fifteenth century.
Meanwhile, Europeans kept trying to launch new campaigns into the
Muslim world too, but these were ever more feeble, and some dissipated
along the way, while others veered off on tangents. The so-called Northern
Crusade ended up targeting the pagan Slavs of the Baltic region. Many lit-
tle wars against "heretical" sects within Europe, whipped up by the pope
and conducted by this or that monarch, were also labeled "crusades." In
France, for example, there was a long "crusade" against a Christian sect
called the Albigensians. Then there was Iberia, where Christians kept on
crusading until 1492, when they overran Granada finally and drove the
last of the Muslims out of the peninsula.
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