The history of Jerusalem is very obscure. No city in the world has enjoyed so much veneration as well as attention as Jerusalem, and yet no city has been subjected to more violence. Almost held in as much reverence by the Mahometans as the Christians, the possession of the Holy City was equally a devotional object as a territorial one, with the followers of both creeds. Jerusalem has been besieged more than twelve times, and, as in such contests, religion only seems to embitter enmities and enhance cruelties, the state of this otherwise favoured city can have been no object of envy. This book deals with the history of the great sieges of Jerusalem.