The Era of the Crusades

by Kenneth W. Harl

What were the forces that led to one of history's most protracted and legendary periods of conflict? How did they affect the three great civilizations that participated in them? And, ultimately, why did they end and what did they accomplish? In these 36 lectures, you'll look at the "big picture" of the Crusades as an ongoing period of conflict involving Western Christendom (we would now call it Western Europe), the Byzantine Empire, and the Muslim world. From this perspective, you'll study the complex but absorbing causes of the Crusades, which include the many political, cultural, and economic changes in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. You'll examine the Crusades in terms of the specific military campaigns-the eight "canonical" Crusades that took place from 1095-1291-proclaimed to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim hands and return them to Christendom. You'll consider the immediate circumstances-the leaders, purposes, key battles, and degrees of success or failure-surrounding these often-monumental expeditions. You'll also explore a wide variety of misperceptions and long-debated questions about the Did the popes preach the Crusades as a way to increase their personal power and authority? Why did the members of the Fourth Crusade decide to sack Constantinople, turning the Crusades from Christian against "infidel" to Christian against Christian? Taken together, these historically rich lectures are an opportunity to appreciate fully how Western Civilization changed in many profound ways during the Crusading era.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Medieval, European History, War, Religion

Audio CD

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Dr. Kenneth W. Harl is Professor of Classical and Byzantine History at Tulane University in New Orleans, where he teaches courses in Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Crusader history. He earned his B.A. from Trinity College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University.

Recognized as an outstanding lecturer, Professor Harl has received numerous teaching awards at Tulane, including the coveted Sheldon H. Hackney Award two times. He has earned Tulane's annual Student Body Award for Excellence in Teaching nine times and is the recipient of Baylor University's nationwide Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teachers.

In 2007, he was the Lewis P. Jones Visiting Professor in History at Wofford College. An expert on classical Anatolia, he has taken students with him into the field on excursions and to assist in excavations of Hellenistic and Roman sites in Turkey.

Professor Harl has also published a wide variety of articles and books, including his current work on coins unearthed in an excavation of Gordion, Turkey, and a new book on Rome and her Iranian foes. A fellow and trustee of the American Numismatic Society, Professor Harl is well known for his studies of ancient coinage. He is the author of Civic Coins and Civic Politics in the Roman East, A.D. 180–275 and Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700.

Reviews

[Ted Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

It may be because I love the topic, but I say this is one of Harl’s better works. He approaches Catholic Western Europe, Orthodox Byzantium, and the Muslim Near East with consideration and understanding. He discusses their histories, their ideas, and their peoples with evident love for their accomplishments and describes the intricate relationships between them, ranging from trade to diplomacy to war. A third of the run time of this course is spent on the historical development of these regions before the First Crusade is called, paying each civilization the appropriate attention needed to tell this story with nuance and humanity.

I strongly recommend this course. I think it’s exemplary of this style of conversational collegiate lecture. Yeah, your over-educated professor goes off on whatever tangent they want, but they stay relatively focused and the passion rubs off on you. If that’s not what you’re looking for, you may want to try something else. If you leave a one-star review because of Harl’s stammer or mispronunciation (according to your own arbitrary determination of how historical Greek, West Turkic, langues d’oïl, or Franconian should sound) after understanding that this work is not meant to be a buttery-smooth reading of a written text, you’re a moron.

[Lewis Graham · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel compelled to write a review of this audiobook through sheer annoyance. Professor Harl may know his subject matter inside out, but his mangling of names and places thoroughly spoiled this for me. Amongst the constant 'Um's' and 'ah's' in literally every sentence is the incredibly annoying mispronunciation littered right through all 18 hours of this book. Amongst the worst are:

Schism (Sism), Sepulchre (Seplookir), Basil (Bayzil), Antioch (Antiak) and most irritating of all is King Louis (King Lewis). What's even more extraordinary is that 22 hours in he pronounces Louis correctly once then reverts back to Lewis!

Far more enjoyable Crusade accounts can be found by Thomas Asbridge and Rodney Stark's superb 'God's Battalions'. Easily the poorest of all the Great Courses I've listened to. Such a shame, as the guy clearly loves his subject matter.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

I shall now ponder the whole idea of "lecture" as a medium. I think Professor Harl is rather an intelligent man quite well versed in his subject area; however, I took less than full pleasure in his lectures because his delivery suffered a sort of amateur flavor for the lack of polish due to lots of "ahs" and "ums" and a significant number of misstatements that had to (granted immediately) be corrected during the course of his talks. It was enough to make me wonder whether the lectures ought not have been given by the professor, recorded, transcribed, and then read for production for the final product. But then I suppose the series would have been produced by someone other than "The Great Courses" entity.

But, as I say, the professor seems to know his subject. Perhaps almost too well in some cases, where he made somewhat snarky asides about some personalities that he felt entitled to make due to his immense knowledge, but which he may not have fully supported with scholarly background. A minor point, perhaps, but those of us with less than full knowledge of why a given king might have really been a dullard might be entitled to know whether the professor can support such a claim with relevant background.

The final lecture in the series does give a useful rationale in the end for why the Crusades came to pass and their proper place in history. It might have been well for such an overview to have been presented in advance, with appropriate reference to which lectures would focus on the main points that were going to be made in them. The 36 lectures could seldom be called boring, but lacking the "tightening up" mentioned in the paragraph above one can easily envisage a "pick and choose" mode that might get one into the material for a taste and out again in four to six hours without having to slog through the entire eighteen, or so.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did you know that I went to a catholic college for five years [undergrad and graduate], and not ONCE did I learn about the crusades? So I decided to take matters into my own hands. The Era of Crusades is a great courses plus lecture turned audio book, available through my audible plus subscription.

Professor Kenneth Harl dives deep into the crusades, and explains how political and religious factors lead to each crusade, and how each crusades differed form each other. This lecture doesn't really go into strategies or how attacks were launched, but instead talks about how tensions between the church and the state lead to certain leaders trying to reclaim Jerusalem in a crusade.


This lecture series was dense, and provided alot of information. It was more then just a cursory gloss over the subject, which I appreciated. I appreciated the lecture style which would discuss what was happening in East and West Europe as well as Asia and Asia minor in a parallel, so the listener knew what was going on in each spot of the world at the same time.

This is the second lecture by Professor Kenneth Harl I have listened to. The other one being about the Vikings. I was unsure about how I felt about the lecture style in thay one because I felt often women in history were described negatively, when men with the same qualities wernt. In The Era of The Crusades I still found many of the descriptions of women to be very harsh, but it was balanced out with more of the men additionally being described negatively.


The Crusades were a lot more complex than Robin Hood Men in Tights lead me to believe. So I'm glad I listened to this book!

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

By now I've more or less gotten used to Harl's lecturing style, but on the whole this was one of his less enjoyable courses despite the fascinating topic. He certainly covers said topic very thoroughly, giving extensive (one might say excessively extensive) background over the first third of these lectures before we ever even get to the First Crusade. While a lot of it is interesting, I did overall feel that the material could have been condensed into 24 rather than 36 lectures. As usual, I also had to cringe my way through a number of lectures that seemed to consist of more "uhm" and "ah" than actual sentences... and Harl's pronunciation is, at times, enough to drive one to despair. (Ah yes, all those famous French kings named "Lewis"... good grief.)

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not particularly interested in the Crusades (and I generally avoid medieval to modern European history), but as I've noted before, I have already worked my way through the lecture series that are most interesting and most readily accessible to me. And I am indirectly interested in the Crusades since they influence other areas of history that are more directly appealing to me: the Byzantine Empire, the Middle East; and even something as particular as specific as castles, since I learned from Citadels of Power: The Castle in History and Archeology (a lecture series that I listened to years back, before I decided that I would review them here) that the classic stone castle that we all think of owes much to the Crusades: apparently Crusaders returning to Western Europe were influenced in their architectural designs by the impressive defenses of Constantinople as well as the fortifications they constructed to hold important locations in the Middle East.

Some of the other reviews here are critical of the lecturer's presentation, and there is some justice to that: if he had fewer um's and ah's and slips requiring correction or restatement the lectures would be both more professional seeming, and easier to understand. But at the same time, I think Professor Harl speaks with an easy familiarity with and enthusiasm for the material that I find appealing, as I likewise find the bits of dry humor that are scattered throughout. I reserve more of my criticism for the structure of the lectures and how the end is somewhat confusing.

The lectures are divided into three parts. The first part lays the groundwork for the Crusades and is very broad and thorough, deeper than you might expect and quite good. The middle part generally tells the history of the first four Crusades, as well as their consequences and impacts and is also fairly good and easy to follow. But the final section is more of a muddle; it covers the 5th through 8th Crusades, but also the fallout of the Crusades more generally. There is no clear chronological description of events, and sometimes it feels like the lecturer is repeating himself, but then you realize that earlier this particular event was described in anticipation of it happening, and now it is being described in its proper place in time. I was left feeling both confused about what happened, and also generally underwhelmed since the narration became meandering and lacked a clear focus.

The other bit of criticism is that I think it had a bit of a Western European bias. The other major cultures involved-- the Byzantine Empire and the various Islamic faction and polities-- are given fair treatment, but it still felt like the narrative focus was still a bit more on what the Western Europeans were doing and thinking.

Overall, a decent source on the subject which would have been much improved by greater clarity in both the presentation and the overall structure of the lectures.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series of 36 lectures on the Crusades covers 300 years of history, and the lecturer is not shy about providing a slew of background and contextual detail. Some previous knowledge of the history of the Middle Ages might help, since the era of the Crusades draws in just about every major historical figure of the time -- from Medieval Europe (what the hell is a Hohenstauffen?) to the Byzantine Empire to the powerful Islamic and Turkomen empires. It's a fantastic overview, but it is really easy to lose the forest for the trees here. Harl has a tendency to get excited and stammer a bit while spewing out more detail than is necessary -- he is clearly a competent and passionate historian, but at times I wished this series had been edited better. Or at all.

It's also a little disturbing that, according to GR, "people with similar taste" read "Once Upon a Potty" and "Time to Pee!"

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have enjoyed other lectures by Kenneth Harl in the past. He is easy to listen to and does a good job of covering a number of aspects of the history of the period even including the prester John and the impact of the rise of the Mongols. My only wish is that there had been coverage on the rise and fallof the monsatic fighting orders--such as the templars.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kenneth Harl is one of the best of the Teaching Company lecturers. I recommend any of his courses: they are all packed with facts, laced with the occasional well-supported and counter-intuitive interpretation, and plenty of fun tidbits.

[Marcus · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, time for another set of lectures from Teaching Company; this time around I decided to revisit Crusades. I had no high expectations, because by now I know that TTC courses in 'classical disciplines' tend to be pretty elementary. But I really enjoyed professor Harl's lecture set about steppe peoples I've listened to couple of years ago, so I knew it would at very least be fun refresher run.

My presumptions were correct on two accounts. The lectures were a blast to listen to, simply because professor Harl has this rather unique gift of turning a lecture about history into a fascinating adventure tale. Also, the level of the lectures were, at least on the surface, kept at introductory level. Newcomers to the topic should have no problems keeping up with the 'story'.

I was however completely wrong in my assumption that the lectures would mainly consist of repetition of material I was already familiar with. In fact I could not have been more wrong in this respect, for one simple reason - the story professor Harl tells may be familiar to people already acquainted with the subject of Cursades, but his analysis of those events is 'of the beaten path' and quite briliant, if you ask me. First of all, his lectures are completely free of the post-colonial guilt trip that tends to polute Western studies about anything even vaguely associated with the Crusades. This in itself is quite a breath of fresh air. And if that wasn't enough, his take on Crusades as a series of interactions between three power centers quite ignorant of each other on pretty much every level and therefore quite prone to misunderstand both each other and the overall geo-political situation, is nothing short of being brilliant. For me at least, a lot of puzzle pieces suddenly fell into place after regarding the history of Crusades, as professor Harl suggests, through a pair of 'tragic comedy of misunderstandings and misconceptions'-spectalces.

'The Era of Crusades' needs, in my opinion, to be listened to by anyone with interest in the subject and in middle-age history of Europe and Asia Minor. You don't have to agree with the overall thesis presented by the good professor, but I guarantee that he will make you think about that period in a somewhat different manner.

[Chad · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a review of the audiobook produced by Audible and read by the author.

I forced myself to listen to over 10 hours of this book, I don't give up easily. After an hour or two of most books with sub-par narration, my brain adapts and I can ignore the problems, not with this one! Edit out the "ums" and "ahs", and nearly every sentence Professor Harl speaks will be more concise and probably shorten the book by a couple of hours. The book feels like he's speaking from the cuff using a simple outline, not allowing himself to formulate eloquent thoughts. He often backtracks to correct misstatements, which interrupt the flow. He also has an odd way of pronouncing common words like the noun allies (uh-LIES), which must be brought to us by his sponsors, as it's used so often! I decided that life is too short to listen to crappy audiobooks.

The subject matter is fascinating, and I love The Great Courses series. I realized that I wasn't absorbing the material at all due to Professor Harl's distracting delivery. I'm sure he's an expert in his field, but he should probably stick to writing history and letting an editor clean things up before a professional reader turns it into an audiobook.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this audio Great Course, Kenneth Harl describes the twelfth and thirteen centuries by looking at what happened before, during and after the Crusades. The Crusades started when Pope Urban II pleaded with Western Europe in 1095 to return the Holy Lands to the Christians. Harl focuses on the Byzantine Empire, Western Europe and the Islamic world during this period rather than the specific details of each of the Crusades. Basically, he provides the background for a deeper look at the who and what of each Crusade.

Harl’s course is divided into thirty six lectures, each lasting about thirty minutes. He mentions, and seems to be familiar with what seems to be hundreds of historical people. His presentation is not smooth, but he exudes so much knowledge and excitement about his subject that he draws in the listener.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another solid, technically sound series of lectures from Kenneth Harl. This is his area - "long" Roman/Byzantine history with an emphasis on numismatics/trade/etc. - and he once again delivers across 36 30-minute sessions. I can see why my uncle, a fan of Braudel, had stockpiled so many of the courses Harl did; I could listen to dozens of hours of him talking solely about coins (the insights from which are significant: it's one piece of material history of which we have lots of remnants, and allows for the substantiation of claims such as the the post-Arab Turkish east remaining heavily if not completely dependent for its economic development on old Byzantine gold coins and silver coins from Western Europe...no Crusades, no Ottoman Empire (which was "always already" weaker than it seemed)).

[Sally Kintz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been very interested in learning about the crusades and exactly what happened. I don't know what I was expecting, I think something more like Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, which was pulled together more clearly and concisely. There is no question Professor Harl knows his subject. I wish it had been better edited.

This may be my player (my iPhone 12) or the audio book I was listening to through Audible, but the narration would just go silent for minutes while the counter was still moving. It did this several times throughout the book.

[C.A. Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

The information was good, though somehow the lecturer was a little less engaging, so I found it harder to stay focused on the material. Also, there were like 13 lectures before they even GOT to the Crusades. I skipped a lot. But, I do feel like with what I was able to focus on and the ones I did listen to, I got a 30,000 foot overview so that I've got a framework for any additional studies on this period of history.

[Roy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The other Great Courses presentation about the Crusades gives more of a narrative about the Crusades and just the minimum about the causes and especially the effects of the crusades. Although both presentations are very informative, I feel that this one can give one a bit better understanding of why the crusades are important to study and how they helped to shape our world into what we know it to be today.

[Jaan Liitmäe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good tempo, fun!

[Jarno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little too much concentration characters and too little analyzis. Still overall very enjoyable.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very detailed, yet the narrative was engaging and moved quickly.

[Summerfire]

When is someone going to tell this guy how to pronounce "ally"?

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

He has such an interesting way of telling history. It's easy to stay engaged.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aspects of this were interesting, and the delivery just fine (Audible). I personally met the limits on my interest in this part of history. The lectures were too in depth at times for me.

[Mark Lawry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good friend had written in his review that Harl did an even better job in this than he did in his "The World of Byzantium." I had a hard time believing that since Byzantium was a great work but I would say he was correct. Harl speaks real fast and presumes you have a solid understanding of European and Mediterranean geography and leaders (for about a 300 year period.) Don't ask me to write a paper on all the players. No idea how Harl can know so much about so many people and places over such an extended period of time. My takeaway from these 36 half hour lectures is that this era was very complex. Western Europe, the Byzantines, and the Muslim world were all in their own multi-directional civil wars during this time. Add the Mongols completely destroying cities into the mix if life wasn't enough of a disaster. So much of our lives around the world were shaped by this period. Banking, logistics, statecraft, technology of all sorts, arts, architecture were all being developed and spread as a result of this era. Yet another Great Course that makes me want to get back to Europe to explore areas I didn't appreciate enough.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

An overview of the entire Crusader period with perspective about each of the participating empires and parties. This course does an admirable job of keeping a very touchy subject in the realm of facts and not conjecture and manages not to bleed into political territory a feat in and of itself for this era.

More of an overview then an in-depth analysis which is saying a lot since this is 18 discs long but I did learn quite a bit and even more important helped me put this time period into a broader perspective.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

As other reviewers have said, this lecture set could probably be tightened up in terms of delivery and content. I had to set this one down for a while and then returned to it a few months later (starting from the beginning since I lost count of Baldwins and Crusades).

Well worth the listen though! The last lecture in particular was a great summary.

I finished Dr. Harl's Great Ancient Civilizations of Asia Minor immediately before this, and it provided some useful context.

[Ross Rawnsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

If history is your thing, then you cannot go wrong with the Teaching Company. In this case, Professor Harl is knowledgeable and excited by his topic, and this comes off in the lectures.

I have yet to be disappointed by any of the Great Courses, and will continue listening to various lectures moving forward. Highly recommended!

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this one, but couldn't get into it. I learned enough to know that the cartoon history version of the crusades is dangerously misleading. If that's a victory, then I'll take it and try to catch this topic again in the future.

[Roberta Westwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting span of history
The Crusades took place over such a long span of time that it’s a lot to take in (so many lectures!). Helpful to learn from someone who knows his stuff and is so passionate.

[Jeff Yoak · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first lecture came off as boring and somewhat dreary so I cut bait quickly.

[Albert Rowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the course and would recommend it if 200 years of Crusader history is your kind of thing....