The year is 1095. The most prominent leaders of the Christian world have assembled in a meadow in France near Clermont. Pope Urban appeals for the liberation of Jerusalem and cries out Deus lo volt!, God Wills It! The cry is taken up, echoes forth and is carried on.Wave upon wave of Christian pilgrims rush to assault the growing power of Muslims in the Holy Land and will do so for the next two hundred years. Most able men become soldiers of the Cross, and when a man is prevented by old age or ill health, he sends his son. Women, too, go to fight alongside the men. It is a time of great adventure, of great exploration and cultural change. Uniting Christian Europe in a common cause, the crusades defined forever the spirit of the West.A magisterial recounting of this great and terrible campaign, Deus lo Volt! tells with stunning immediacy one soldier's first-hand experience of the defining war of Christendom.