The Fourth Crusade

Calls for a new campaign to the East had gone around ever since Richard the Lionheart sailed home to England in 1192. But real impetus came with the election of Pope Innocent III in 1198. At a tournament held in Champagne, a group of French nobles agreed to take the cross. They quickly agreed that they would sail for the Holy Land rather than trek through Byzantium and that their real target must be Egypt. With papal legates calling the shots, Innocent could keep the venture on the right side of the divine and ensure its success.