You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
A detailed account of the circumstances and motives of the first crusaders.
""Riley-Smith marshals his case lucidly.""--Times Literary Supplement ""Riley-Smith's analysis of the formation of Crusading ideology offers a provocative new interpretation. . . . [His] scholarship is impeccable, and he supports his contentions with
The Crusades: A History is a comprehensive, single-volume history of the Crusades, from their beginnings in the eleventh century through to their decline and eventual ending at the close of the eighteenth century. As well as providing an account of the major Crusades, the book describes the organization of a Crusade, the experience of crusading and the Crusaders themselves.
An enhanced and expanded 4th edition of Jonathan Riley-Smith's classic single-volume history of the Crusades.
Explores the conflict of ideas, beliefs and cultures and shows both the contradictions and diversity of holy war. He draws on contemporary writings - on chronicles, songs, sermons, travel diaries and peace treaties - to throw a brilliant new light on people and events we thought we knew well.
Claiming that many in the West lack a thorough understanding of crusading, Jonathan Riley-Smith explains why and where the Crusades were fought, identifies their architects, and shows how deeply their language and imagery were embedded in popular Catholic thought and devotional life.
Riley-Smith’s 1986 book gives convincing case for a ‘revisionist’ view of the crusades, challenging the common belief that the crusades were motivated by fanaticism and were designed to plunder the Holy Lands. After studying handwritten documents held in churches across Western Europe in which crusaders explained their personal reasons for heading out on the “holy war,” he pioneered the use of computer spreadsheets to cross-reference data on individual crusaders and their families allowing him to paint a much more complete picture than had been possible previously. Riley-Smith determined that most crusaders were motivated by spiritual devotion and a genuine desire to atone for past sins.
Maps, narrative, and contemporary accounts trace the history of Christian crusading in the East, the Mediterranean, Spain, Western Europe, and elsewhere
Perhaps no work of history written in the 20th century has done more to undermine an existing consensus and cause its readers to re-evaluate their own preconceptions than has Jonathan Riley-Smith's revisionist account of the motives of the first crusaders. Riley-Smith's thesis – based on extensive original research and firmly rooted in his refusal to uncritically accept the evidence or reasoning of earlier historians – is that the majority of the men who travelled to the east on crusade in the years 1098-1100 were primarily motivated by faith. This finding, which ran directly counter to at least four centuries of consensus that other motives, not least greed for land, were more important, has helped to stimulate exciting reappraisals of the whole crusading movement. Riley-Smith backed it up with forensic examination of the key crusader-inspiring speech delivered by Pope Urban II, looking to clarify the meanings of five competing contemporary accounts in order to understand how an initially simple, and rather confused, appeal for help became a sophisticated rationale for the concept of ‘just war.’
Written by a team of leading scholars, this richly illustrated book, with over 200 colour and black and white pictures, presents an authoritative and comprehensive history of the Crusades from the preaching of the First Crusade in 1095 to the legacy of crusading ideas and imagery today.