About book The Oxford Illustrated History Of The Crusades (2001)
"[The Church] had inherited from Roman Law, the Old and the New Testament, and the Early Christian Fathers, pre-eminently St. Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430) various terms of reference by which to analyze instances of violence and pronounce upon their quality." p. 16"It is important to note a distinction between the senior clerical policy-makers who would one day devise theFirst Crusade and the lay people who would volunteer to go on it. The perspective of a Mediterranean wide struggle was visible only to those institutions, in particular the papacy, which had the intelligence networks, grasp of geography, and sense of long historical tradition to take a broad overview of Christendom and its threatened predicament, real or supposed." p. 16"It was supposed that Muslims were idolatrous polytheists, and fabulous stories circulated about the life of the Prophet Muhammad. But such ideas fell far short of amounting to a coherent set of prejudices which could motivate people to uproot themselves from their homes and families in the dangerous and costly pursuit of enemies in distant places." 18"This cast of mind was particularly evident at the thousands of saints' shrines which were dotted across western Christendom: there Christianity made anthropomorphic and accessible, could be seen, smelt, heard, and touched. Saints were a central element in eleventh-century devotion and performed many useful functions. They enabled the Church to walk the tightrope of holding out the possibility of salvation to the sinful populace while asserting Heavens' rigorous entry requirements." p. 26-27"The Crusades message cut the Gordian Knot." p. 33
When I started this book, I had just read two others which went chronologically through the Crusades in an overview manner, giving some details of battles, etc. So I was not necessarily looking forward to reading another book that did exactly the same on an overview level without going into any more detail on specific things I was interested in, but I really wanted to see some pictures and get an idea about the Crusades with some visual aids, so I started reading it anyway.I was pleasantly surprised that this book took a different approach and talked about various cultural/social/political ideas and movements on the peripheries of the battles which greatly helps inform them and gives them a context. This book to me is less about the Crusades as it is about how the Crusades affected the people involved in it and the people back home, and about the culture the Crusades grew out of. An excellent book (if a bit jumpy in style, which is unavoidable when you have several authors writing different sections).
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