Completed circa 1474, Sebastien Mamerot's lavishly illustrated manuscript is the only contemporary document to capture four centuries of French crusades, when successive kings tried to capture the Holy Land. Jean Colombe, the medieval illuminator best known for his work on the "Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry," is the principal artist of its 66 exquisite miniatures.
Mamerot's manuscript was dedicated to his patron Louis de Laval, governor of Champagne, whose inspiration was the Christian equivalent of extremist "jihad - "a xenophobic holy war with its origins in a Papal appeal by Urban II. "Les Passages d'Outremer (The Expeditions to Outremer) "comprises 277 parchment folios, illustrated by Colombe and the finest caligraphers of the medieval era, and now resides in the French national library.