The 13th century saw the Middle East invaded and occupied by both the Crusaders and the Mongols, but both invaders quickly built their own political systems and transformed the Middle East.

The 13th century ushered in a violent transformation of the Middle East. Crusader armies burst into the Levant and took large swaths of territory. Towards the east the Mongols crossed into the heartlands of Islam. While the initial sentiment to the invaders was one of terror, both the Crusaders and the Mongols came to be seen as part of the landscape, and societies under their rule came to see them as people they could do business with. The region was forever changed, but what were these changes and what was the legacy of this period? Dr Nicholas Morton joins MEMO to help answer these questions.

Dr Morton is the course leader for History at Nottingham Trent University and the author or editor of several books. His most recent publication is The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East (2022) which offers a multi-perspective account of the Mongol invasions into the Middle East during the 13th century.