How to Plan a Crusade

New book is not about what every man should know before venturing to Syria these days, but rather a thorough and exemplary book on what it took to mount a crusade in the Middle Ages

How to Plan a Crusade: Reason and Religious War in the Middle Ages
by Christopher Tyerman
Allen Lane 2015
ISBN-10: 1846144779
ISBN-13: 978-1846144776

ABSTRACT:

This book presents a lively and compelling 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 fascinating on diplomacy, communications, propaganda, the use of mass media, medical care, equipment, voyages, money, weapons, credit, wills, ransoms, animals, and the power of prayer. It brings to life an extraordinary era in a novel and surprising way.

The book has received a number of very positive reviews in the Spectator, the Guardian and The Times.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Christopher Tyerman is Professor of the History of the Crusades, University of Oxford, a Fellow and Tutor in History at Hertford College, Oxford, and Lecturer in Medieval History at New College, Oxford. He has written extensively on the crusades, most recently God’s War: A New History of the Crusades and The Debate on the Crusades. He is also the editor of the Penguin Classics edition of the Chronicles of the First Crusade.

FEATURED PHOTO:

Ordre du S.-Esprit au Droit-Désir. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Français 4274. Source: Wikipedia