How to Plan a Crusade: Religious War in the High Middle Ages

How to Plan a Crusade: Religious War in the High Middle Ages PDF

Author: Christopher Tyerman

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2017-10-03

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1681775867

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A spirited and sweeping account of how the crusades really worked—and a revolutionary attempt to rethink how we understand the Middle Ages. The story of the wars and conquests initiated by the First Crusade and its successors is itself so compelling that most accounts move quickly from describing the Pope's calls to arms to the battlefield. In this highly original and enjoyable new book, Christopher Tyerman focuses on something obvious but overlooked: the massive, all-encompassing and hugely costly business of actually preparing a crusade. The efforts of many thousands of men and women, who left their lands and families in Western Europe, and marched off to a highly uncertain future in the Holy Land and elsewhere have never been sufficiently understood. Their actions raise a host of compelling questions about the nature of medieval society. How to Plan a Crusade is remarkably illuminating on the diplomacy, communications, propaganda, use of mass media, medical care, equipment, voyages, money, weapons, wills, ransoms, animals, and the power of prayer during this dynamic era. It brings to life an extraordinary period of history in a new and surprising way.

France in the Making 843-1180

France in the Making 843-1180 PDF

Author: Jean Dunbabin

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2000-02-03

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 019158830X

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Covering the centuries between the disintegration of the Carolingian empire and the rise of the French monarchy, this book traces the long period of gestation that ended with the emergence of the kingdom of France as a recognizable political entity capable of inspiring the loyalty of its peoples. The author describes the emergence in the late ninth and tenth centuries of principalities and lesser political units in which the personal qualities or resources of the rulers permitted them to command obedience. In the eleventh century, the threat of political fragmentation led princes to establish sounder theoretical foundations for their authority in legal and administrative procedures. The twelfth-century kings of France, hitherto little more than princes of the Ile-de-France, exploited the state-building activities of their princes to re-establish their own lordship over all the princes, counts, and bishops within their realm. At the same time, they contrived to identify themselves in their subjects' imaginations with the dawning sense of French community. By 1180 the kingdom of France was firmly established, both on the map of Europe and in the minds of its inhabitants.

To Follow in Their Footsteps

To Follow in Their Footsteps PDF

Author: Nicholas L. Paul

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2012-09-21

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0801465982

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When the First Crusade ended with the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, jubilant crusaders returned home to Europe bringing with them stories, sacred relics, and other memorabilia, including banners, jewelry, and weapons. In the ensuing decades, the memory of the crusaders' bravery and pious sacrifice was invoked widely among the noble families of western Christendom. Popes preaching future crusades would count on these very same families for financing, leadership, and for the willing warriors who would lay down their lives on the battlefield. Despite the great risks and financial hardships associated with crusading, descendants of those who suffered and died on crusade would continue to take the cross, in some cases over several generations. Indeed, as Nicholas L. Paul reveals in To Follow in Their Footsteps, crusading was very much a family affair. Scholars of the crusades have long pointed to the importance of dynastic tradition and ties of kinship in the crusading movement but have failed to address more fundamental questions about the operation of these social processes. What is a "family tradition"? How are such traditions constructed and maintained, and by whom? How did crusading families confront the loss of their kin in distant lands? Making creative use of Latin dynastic narratives as well as vernacular literature, personal possessions and art objects, and architecture from across western Europe, Paul shows how traditions of crusading were established and reinforced in the collective memories of noble families throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Even rulers who never fulfilled crusading vows found their political lives dominated and, in some ways, directed by the memory of their crusading ancestors. Filled with unique insights and careful analysis, To Follow in Their Footsteps reveals the lasting impact of the crusades, beyond the expeditions themselves, on the formation of dynastic identity and the culture of the medieval European nobility.

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