It also features some of the most extraordinary characters in the whole history of crusading: the pious but unlucky Louis VII of France, the suicidally proud Templar Master Gerard of Ridefort who helped lead the armies of God into an apocalyptic battle at Hattin in 1187, the miserably afflicted leper king of Jerusalem Baldwin IV and the most famous Muslim sultan who ever lived, Saladin, who made it his personal mission to wipe the crusaders off the map, and personally oversaw the execution of hundreds of Templar knights in a single day.
