I'm fascinated by our continual need to express ourselves artistically, whether it be on the side of a subway train now or a wall on the other side of the world a thousand years ago, give or take a few hundred years.
The Crusades in general intrigues me, such a turbulent time in the world where cultures and religions could come together at that point without any other means of expression other than violence. Everyone pointed fingers and neither side was innocent, but the Crusaders themselves were clearly no Boy Scouts. There are many a documented instances of Jewish populations on the route to the Holy Land suffering at the hands of these guys, and yet the idea of putting on chain mail and riding hundreds if not thousands of miles to defend a city is incredible to me.
