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God's War: A New History of the Crusades
God's War offers a sweeping new vision of one of history's most astounding events: the Crusades.
From 1096 to 1500, European Christians fought to recreate the Middle East, Muslim Spain, and the pagan Baltic in the image of their God. The Crusades are perhaps both the most familiar and most misunderstood phenomena of the medieval world, and here Christopher Tyerman seeks to recreate, from the ground up, the centuries of violence committed as an act of religious devotion.
The result is a stunning reinterpretation of the Crusades, revealed as both bloody political acts and a manifestation of a growing Christian communal identity. Tyerman uncovers a system of belief bound by aggression, paranoia, and wishful thinking, and a culture founded on war as an expression of worship, social discipline, and Christian charity.
This astonishing historical narrative is imbued with figures that have become legends--Saladin, Richard the Lionheart, Philip Augustus. But Tyerman also delves beyond these leaders to examine the thousands and thousands of Christian men--from Knights Templars to mercenaries to peasants--who, in the name of their Savior, abandoned their homes to conquer distant and alien lands, as well as the countless people who defended their soil and eventually turned these invaders back. With bold analysis, Tyerman explicates the contradictory mix of genuine piety, military ferocity, and plain greed that motivated generations of Crusaders. He also offers unique insight into the maturation of a militant Christianity that defined Europe's identity and that has forever influenced the cyclical antagonisms between the Christian and Muslim worlds.
Drawing on all of the most recent scholarship, and told with great verve and authority, God's War is the definitive account of a fascinating and horrifying story that continues to haunt our contemporary world.
(20060724)1024 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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About the author
Christopher Tyerman
30 books44 followersChristopher Tyerman is professor of the history of the crusades at Oxford University and a fellow of Hertford College. His books include God’s War, The Debate on the Crusades, and How to Plan a Crusade. He lives in Oxford.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews
May 10, 2015
If you want to keep your preconceived notions of the Crusades as a simple clash of cultures, of a silly and senseless war of religions, then don't read this book. In a little over 900 pages, Mr. Tyerman narrates this peculiar series of wars through the prisim of Western European politics, culture and history, while giving equal weight the the Muslim forces of the period. In it, he reveals the crusades as "Inspirational idealism; utopianism armed with myopia;...elaborate, sincere intolerance;[and] diversity and complexity of motive and performance." While this is an excellent history, it should not be read by the average reader. It is a heavy tome and has a lot of minute details, not to mention a vocabulary that will tax even the most well read (suggestion: look up the word "sybaritic" before reading this). It can also be very confusing to follow characters as so few had last names during this era, nor are all of their backgrounds fully explained. Also, surprisingly for an Oxford man, there are many simple grammatical mistakes (missing conjunctions, added letters, etc.) that add up after a while. Lastly, during the first 100 pages, Mr. Tyerman seems more intent on winning an argument than telling a story and the last 100 pages, while interesting, could have been left out entirely. But, if you are genuinely interested in knowing more about the Crusades and have the discipline of mind to make it through 900 pages, then this is a must read.
February 10, 2013
The very best history of the Crusades that I have ever read. Tyerman handles both the traditional crusades to the Holy Land, as well as the political crusades, the crusades against heretics (for example the Albigensian Crusade) as the Baltic crusades. The crusades against the Muslims in the Holy Land of course get the most attention, but the other crusades are not short-changed in any way.
One of the strengths of this book is Tyerman’s expert use of contemporary sources, both Christian and Muslim (and perhaps a few pagan, but I can’t honestly recall at this point), and his efforts to show the reader the status quo in the Holy Land between the crusades. The political situation in the Latin East was of major importance to the results of the crusades, so it’s a sound policy to make clear what was actually going on over there. As an example, the local barons peace-treaties and individual hopes played a large part in the failure of the Second Crusade; even if the army was decimated before it reached Outremer, King Conrad of Germany and Louis of France still had a large army at their disposal. Yet the Siege of Damascus ended in bitter failure, precisely because there was no agreement to be reached about division of spoils. The entrenched positions of the Outremer lords was a vital condition for this failure. Runciman, for example, takes up the Jerusalem apologist William of Tyre (who was almost desperate to attract new lords for the crusade, and so had to shift the blame from the Jerusalem lords to the western newcomers), and follows his line of thinking without really criticizing William, or looking at his motives. Tyerman exposes the biases, and gives a very good picture of what actually happened, as far as it is still possible to tell all these years later.
Another strength of this book is that Tyerman takes the time to really explain the background and the theories behind the crusades. The idea of a land-grab (to name just one example) can be put to rest, though there were definitely lords present who wanted to win land form themselves. Another example, for the First Crusade, is that Tyerman shows that a huge propaganda-offensive was employed before preaching really began. He also demonstrates that while Pope Urban II was probably surprised by the response to the call to crusade, he had nevertheless prepared the ground very thoroughly. Much of this was previously denounced as medieval simplicity (princes moved to tears, taking up the cross in an emotional mood), but Tyerman explains how much propaganda and staging went into this.
Over 1000 pages, with extensive notes and an index, God’s War is an excellent single volume history of the Crusades. Multi-faceted, erudite and following a clear narrative, this is a must-read for anyone seriously interested in the crusades.
One of the strengths of this book is Tyerman’s expert use of contemporary sources, both Christian and Muslim (and perhaps a few pagan, but I can’t honestly recall at this point), and his efforts to show the reader the status quo in the Holy Land between the crusades. The political situation in the Latin East was of major importance to the results of the crusades, so it’s a sound policy to make clear what was actually going on over there. As an example, the local barons peace-treaties and individual hopes played a large part in the failure of the Second Crusade; even if the army was decimated before it reached Outremer, King Conrad of Germany and Louis of France still had a large army at their disposal. Yet the Siege of Damascus ended in bitter failure, precisely because there was no agreement to be reached about division of spoils. The entrenched positions of the Outremer lords was a vital condition for this failure. Runciman, for example, takes up the Jerusalem apologist William of Tyre (who was almost desperate to attract new lords for the crusade, and so had to shift the blame from the Jerusalem lords to the western newcomers), and follows his line of thinking without really criticizing William, or looking at his motives. Tyerman exposes the biases, and gives a very good picture of what actually happened, as far as it is still possible to tell all these years later.
Another strength of this book is that Tyerman takes the time to really explain the background and the theories behind the crusades. The idea of a land-grab (to name just one example) can be put to rest, though there were definitely lords present who wanted to win land form themselves. Another example, for the First Crusade, is that Tyerman shows that a huge propaganda-offensive was employed before preaching really began. He also demonstrates that while Pope Urban II was probably surprised by the response to the call to crusade, he had nevertheless prepared the ground very thoroughly. Much of this was previously denounced as medieval simplicity (princes moved to tears, taking up the cross in an emotional mood), but Tyerman explains how much propaganda and staging went into this.
Over 1000 pages, with extensive notes and an index, God’s War is an excellent single volume history of the Crusades. Multi-faceted, erudite and following a clear narrative, this is a must-read for anyone seriously interested in the crusades.
October 22, 2025
This is a history of the crusades - the crusades in the Middle-East, Iberian peninsula, France, the Baltic, and Norther Europe. The book consists of convoluted, long sentences providing exhausting lists of names, titles, locations, and battles fought; galloping across the pages with barely a full-stop to provide a rest, with the occasional pithy observation providing a bit of humour. Scant attention was given to the personalities of the crusaders or the physical geography/scenery of the locations. There is a vast quantity of information in this book but I don't think the way it was presented was all that reader-friendly.
A timeline would have been helpful.
A timeline would have been helpful.
May 5, 2012
When I was younger, I saw Terry Jones' "The Crusades" series at a point where I knew relatively little about the subject. One of the historians interviewed, an elderly man leaning on a cane, struck me as rather an openly biased fellow. "Barbarians...they though they were barbarians...." he said, with a sort of self-assured upper-class arrogance that left little doubt as to his own opinion of the crusaders.
In the prologue to this book, Tyerman compares himself disfavorably to this historian (I guess nobody would be surprised to learn that the man in question was Sir Steven Runciman) - Tyermans' "clunking computer keyboard" can hardly be the equal of Runciman's "rapier wit". This is the case. The three-volume A History of the Crusades is a very well written work, and this one can be heavy at times. On the other hand, Tyerman has no cause for shame - God's War is much better history than Runciman's. Much has happened in crusading historyography since the 1950s, and Runciman cannot be read anymore - at least not by me - without irritation at his obvious and unashamed judgemental bias and tendency to create heroes where there were just ordinary humans - in Runciman's case his beloved byzantines and to a lesser extent their muslim foes/friends.
So, Tyerman writes better history. The book is thorough, extensive, well-researched, and takes into account the last 50 years - and especially last 20 years, defining years for the history of the crusade phenomenon. It presents the facts that we have and draws reasonable and likely correct explanations for behaviour; there are few "it must have been thus"'es in "God's War" and you can see how well-read the author is. Unfortunately, Tyerman isn't very good at making the history all that interesting. There are too many repetitions, too many names that do not pop up later in any defining or even important roles - and in some cases there are names that pop up later, but as they were simply part of a large collection of people 50 pages earlier you may have overseen them - and his language often leaves something to be desired. I now know what "fissiparous" means. I can hardly avoid it, as Tyerman overused the word to an almost parodic level in the first 3-400 pages.
But the book is still good. It is crammed full of information and reasoned explanation for events, it is written with a wide sweep and understanding of events, and it provides you with an updated view on crusade history. Sadly, though, it evades more than three stars. Had the history not been so good, it would have only gotten the one.
In the prologue to this book, Tyerman compares himself disfavorably to this historian (I guess nobody would be surprised to learn that the man in question was Sir Steven Runciman) - Tyermans' "clunking computer keyboard" can hardly be the equal of Runciman's "rapier wit". This is the case. The three-volume A History of the Crusades is a very well written work, and this one can be heavy at times. On the other hand, Tyerman has no cause for shame - God's War is much better history than Runciman's. Much has happened in crusading historyography since the 1950s, and Runciman cannot be read anymore - at least not by me - without irritation at his obvious and unashamed judgemental bias and tendency to create heroes where there were just ordinary humans - in Runciman's case his beloved byzantines and to a lesser extent their muslim foes/friends.
So, Tyerman writes better history. The book is thorough, extensive, well-researched, and takes into account the last 50 years - and especially last 20 years, defining years for the history of the crusade phenomenon. It presents the facts that we have and draws reasonable and likely correct explanations for behaviour; there are few "it must have been thus"'es in "God's War" and you can see how well-read the author is. Unfortunately, Tyerman isn't very good at making the history all that interesting. There are too many repetitions, too many names that do not pop up later in any defining or even important roles - and in some cases there are names that pop up later, but as they were simply part of a large collection of people 50 pages earlier you may have overseen them - and his language often leaves something to be desired. I now know what "fissiparous" means. I can hardly avoid it, as Tyerman overused the word to an almost parodic level in the first 3-400 pages.
But the book is still good. It is crammed full of information and reasoned explanation for events, it is written with a wide sweep and understanding of events, and it provides you with an updated view on crusade history. Sadly, though, it evades more than three stars. Had the history not been so good, it would have only gotten the one.
February 27, 2015
Christopher Tyerman's God"s War has the stated goal rehabilitating the Catholic Crusaders of the the Middle Ages who for most of the last 200 years have been the object of much scorn and derision. Tyerman is particularly anxious to present a more nuanced view of the Crusades than that found in Steven Runciman's history of the Crusades published between 1951 and 1954 which denounced the Crusades in the most uncompromising terms as being an exercise in unwarranted and tremendously destructive aggression against the people of the Middle East.
The reality is that there is really too much wrong with the Crusaders for them to be ever be completely exonerated. The most notorious outrage in the eyes of Europeans was the Infamous Sack of Constantinople in 1204 by the Fourth Crusade which occurred due to a highly unfortunate sequence of events. The crusaders were stranded in Italy without enough money to pay for their sea trip to the Holy Land. The Republic of Venice offered to provide the sea transportation to the Holy Land if the Crusaders would conduct a punitive raid against the Constantinople which was Venice's great rival for control of trade in the Eastern Mediterranean. The propriety of this agreement was questionable at best given that Constantinople was Greek and the capital of Orthodox Christianity. Nonetheless attack they did and with extraordinary brutality. After capturing the city, the Crusaders went on a three day rampage of rape, murder and theft that to this day poisons the relations between Catholic and Orthodox Christianity.
Outrages of similar magnitude to the Sack of Constantinople were conducted against the Muslims in the Middle East that have acquired similarly legendary status. Tyerman does not actually ignore any of the malfeasance he simply chooses to describe it in more muted tones than does Runciman which is his privilege.
To me the great strength of Tyerman's book is that he also covers the Crusades in the Baltic, Spain and Southern France something which Runciman and most other historians choose not to do. This is part of a broader effort on the part of Tyerman to show how the Crusades should not be viewed as forerunner to the the European Imperialism in the Middle East which occurred during the great nineteenth century scramble for colonies. Rather Tyerman presents the Crusades as an inherent feature of Europe's catholic culture in the Middle Ages. The Crusaders left for the Middle Ages to serve God, to win a place in Heaven and very frequently to atone for sins. Wars between noble families were common throughout the middle ages as were wars between nobles and their kings. The medieval code chivalry meant that the victors could not punish the losers. However, the losers could be persuaded to leave on a Crusade to redeem themselves. During their lengthy absences the king could assure the complete pacification of the area where the revolt had occurred.
Tyerman's book thus not only delivers a great narrative of the Crusades but it also provides tremendous insight into the culture and politics of medieval Europe.
The reality is that there is really too much wrong with the Crusaders for them to be ever be completely exonerated. The most notorious outrage in the eyes of Europeans was the Infamous Sack of Constantinople in 1204 by the Fourth Crusade which occurred due to a highly unfortunate sequence of events. The crusaders were stranded in Italy without enough money to pay for their sea trip to the Holy Land. The Republic of Venice offered to provide the sea transportation to the Holy Land if the Crusaders would conduct a punitive raid against the Constantinople which was Venice's great rival for control of trade in the Eastern Mediterranean. The propriety of this agreement was questionable at best given that Constantinople was Greek and the capital of Orthodox Christianity. Nonetheless attack they did and with extraordinary brutality. After capturing the city, the Crusaders went on a three day rampage of rape, murder and theft that to this day poisons the relations between Catholic and Orthodox Christianity.
Outrages of similar magnitude to the Sack of Constantinople were conducted against the Muslims in the Middle East that have acquired similarly legendary status. Tyerman does not actually ignore any of the malfeasance he simply chooses to describe it in more muted tones than does Runciman which is his privilege.
To me the great strength of Tyerman's book is that he also covers the Crusades in the Baltic, Spain and Southern France something which Runciman and most other historians choose not to do. This is part of a broader effort on the part of Tyerman to show how the Crusades should not be viewed as forerunner to the the European Imperialism in the Middle East which occurred during the great nineteenth century scramble for colonies. Rather Tyerman presents the Crusades as an inherent feature of Europe's catholic culture in the Middle Ages. The Crusaders left for the Middle Ages to serve God, to win a place in Heaven and very frequently to atone for sins. Wars between noble families were common throughout the middle ages as were wars between nobles and their kings. The medieval code chivalry meant that the victors could not punish the losers. However, the losers could be persuaded to leave on a Crusade to redeem themselves. During their lengthy absences the king could assure the complete pacification of the area where the revolt had occurred.
Tyerman's book thus not only delivers a great narrative of the Crusades but it also provides tremendous insight into the culture and politics of medieval Europe.
August 5, 2020
“Las Guerras de Dios: Una Nueva Historia de las Cruzadas” es un titánico trabajo del profesor de historia medieval y las cruzadas de la universidad de Oxford, el británico Christopher Tyerman. Más de 1300 páginas representan para cualquier lector casi como un asalto de alguna de las fortalezas en Acre, Antioquía o Jerusalén, por lo que todo aquel que lo intente deberá estar dotado de paciencia, persistencia y un conocimiento mínimo de la historia y la geografía de la Europa medieval antes de lanzarse al asedio…
Las Cruzadas siempre han sido un tema apasionante, más allá del crucial papel que jugaron en la historia medieval; en el moldeamiento de las monarquías medievales europeas; en la percepción de la religión y la espiritualidad en occidente; en la creación de rutas comerciales marítimas; en el mejoramiento de las tecnologías navales, miliares y de asedio en incluso en el modo en el que juntó a occidente y a oriente a través de la guerra, el odio y las irreconciliables diferencias religiosas. Más allá de todo ello, siempre me ha causado enorme curiosidad entender cómo alguien, movido por motivos religiosos (aunque no exclusivamente), decide dejar toda su vida atrás para emprender una campaña entre peregrina y guerrera, a tierras lejanas y desconocidas, para combatir gentes que nunca ha visto y de las cuales sólo conoce por la demonización que de ellos hacen los párrocos locales, con la esperanza de recuperar de sus sucias manos, la tierra en la que nació, vivió, predicó, sufrió y murió su señor Jesucristo. ¿Será esta ciclópea obra la que sacie mi curiosidad?
A las Cruzadas me había acercado ya a través de los libros del gran historiador francés Jean Flori así como aquellos tres colosales volúmenes de Steven Runciman y su A History of the Crusades. Y aunque en ambos casos se trata de clásicos sempiternos y eruditos, los libros de Flori abarcan personajes de las Cruzadas cuyas historias se cuentan de manera individual; mientras que los libros de Runciman tienen ya 70 años de haber sido editados. Tyerman desde el prefacio deja claro que con su obra no pretende competir con la monumental obra de Runciman. Sin embargo, se echaba de menos una historia general de las Cruzadas que se sintiera más cercana a nuestros tiempos y a las investigaciones históricas recientes. “Las Guerras de Dios” cumple de maravilla con dicho propósito. Con una visión eminentemente occidental del fenómeno cruzado, el autor expone no solo una narración histórica de las Guerras de Dios desde la Primera Cruzada de 1096 – 1099 hasta la batalla de Lepanto en 1571 y la progresiva disminución del interés cruzado producto del advenimiento de los otomanos y la reforma protestante; sino también una visión cultural, social y un acercamiento casi que sicológico al movimiento de los crucesignati a lo largo de los 4 siglos en los que las Cruzadas acaparaban la atención mediática y política de Europa. Tyerman no sólo se detiene en las Cruzadas principales (tradicionalmente descritas como 8 Cruzadas pero según la historiografía moderna y este libro, son 5 con otras tantas “Cruzadas menores”), sino que también dedica parte de su investigación a otros movimientos cruzados que hicieron parte del fenómeno o que por lo menos, se idearon como tal aunque su propósito no fuese la liberación de Tierra Santa: Las cruzadas albigenses, las cruzadas bálticas, las cruzadas del Reconquista española, la cruzada de los niños, la cruzada de los pastores y los movimientos cruzados de la Baja Edad Media como la Cruzada de Pedro y la toma de Alejandría, los asedios a Al-Mahdiya y Nicópolis en 1396 y la Cruzada de Pío II, “el último cruzado” en 1464.
Con una exposición ordenada, equilibrada y completa de toda la historia de las cruzadas incluyendo aspectos definitivos como sus convocatorias, prédicas, financiaciones y reclutamientos iniciales; con una descripción ecuánime de todos los grandes protagonistas que participaron a lo largo y ancho de ellas (por ejemplo, no entrona a Ricardo Corazón de León, a Godofredo de Bouillón o a Saladino y tampoco sataniza a Felipe Augusto o a Reinaldo de Châtillon), Las Guerras de Dios se erige como un libro imprescindible sí se busca un texto general sobre las Cruzadas. No es un texto fácil de leer: es extenso, lleno de nombres (muy parecidos entre sí como los 10.000 Reinaldos, Felipes, Eduardos, Enriques y Bohemundos que se citan), y plagado de fechas y batallas que además exige un mínimo conocimiento de la historia medieval europea. Puede incluso criticarse su visión preminentemente occidental del fenómeno cruzado, dejando de lado el enfoque árabe y musulmán del mismo (traspié que se puede corregir leyendo el grandioso y muy recomendado Las cruzadas vistas por los árabes de Amin Maalouf); e incluso, un lenguaje excesivamente académico que hará echar de menos la prosa literaria con la que Runciman decoró a su obra. Aún así, Las Guerras de Dios se erige como un libro fundamental para todos los amantes de la historia en general, de la Edad Media y de las Cruzadas. Es uno de esos trabajos que el tiempo le dará el título de “clásico”, y que merece un lugar en la biblioteca para ser releído en unos años.
“¿Qué es lo que impulsó a tantas personas a cambiar su vida de forma tan decisiva en pos de un ideal tan ambiguo y peligroso como la liberación de Tierra Santa? Explicable como una expresión de fe, ansiedad, obediencia social o religiosa, autopromoción moral o material, identidad, solidaridad, intolerancia solipsista y agresión expansiva, para cada individuo, cualquier elección relacionada con la cruzada podría haber capturado, o tal vez no, los secretos de Dios. Aunque podamos observar las manifestaciones externas, la decisión personal e interna de seguir la cruz, de infligir daño a otros exponiéndose a sí mismo a un grave riesgo, al precio de enormes privaciones, al servicio de una causa que consumía, no puede ser explicada, excusada o rechazada ni como una virtud ni como un pecado.”
Las Cruzadas siempre han sido un tema apasionante, más allá del crucial papel que jugaron en la historia medieval; en el moldeamiento de las monarquías medievales europeas; en la percepción de la religión y la espiritualidad en occidente; en la creación de rutas comerciales marítimas; en el mejoramiento de las tecnologías navales, miliares y de asedio en incluso en el modo en el que juntó a occidente y a oriente a través de la guerra, el odio y las irreconciliables diferencias religiosas. Más allá de todo ello, siempre me ha causado enorme curiosidad entender cómo alguien, movido por motivos religiosos (aunque no exclusivamente), decide dejar toda su vida atrás para emprender una campaña entre peregrina y guerrera, a tierras lejanas y desconocidas, para combatir gentes que nunca ha visto y de las cuales sólo conoce por la demonización que de ellos hacen los párrocos locales, con la esperanza de recuperar de sus sucias manos, la tierra en la que nació, vivió, predicó, sufrió y murió su señor Jesucristo. ¿Será esta ciclópea obra la que sacie mi curiosidad?
A las Cruzadas me había acercado ya a través de los libros del gran historiador francés Jean Flori así como aquellos tres colosales volúmenes de Steven Runciman y su A History of the Crusades. Y aunque en ambos casos se trata de clásicos sempiternos y eruditos, los libros de Flori abarcan personajes de las Cruzadas cuyas historias se cuentan de manera individual; mientras que los libros de Runciman tienen ya 70 años de haber sido editados. Tyerman desde el prefacio deja claro que con su obra no pretende competir con la monumental obra de Runciman. Sin embargo, se echaba de menos una historia general de las Cruzadas que se sintiera más cercana a nuestros tiempos y a las investigaciones históricas recientes. “Las Guerras de Dios” cumple de maravilla con dicho propósito. Con una visión eminentemente occidental del fenómeno cruzado, el autor expone no solo una narración histórica de las Guerras de Dios desde la Primera Cruzada de 1096 – 1099 hasta la batalla de Lepanto en 1571 y la progresiva disminución del interés cruzado producto del advenimiento de los otomanos y la reforma protestante; sino también una visión cultural, social y un acercamiento casi que sicológico al movimiento de los crucesignati a lo largo de los 4 siglos en los que las Cruzadas acaparaban la atención mediática y política de Europa. Tyerman no sólo se detiene en las Cruzadas principales (tradicionalmente descritas como 8 Cruzadas pero según la historiografía moderna y este libro, son 5 con otras tantas “Cruzadas menores”), sino que también dedica parte de su investigación a otros movimientos cruzados que hicieron parte del fenómeno o que por lo menos, se idearon como tal aunque su propósito no fuese la liberación de Tierra Santa: Las cruzadas albigenses, las cruzadas bálticas, las cruzadas del Reconquista española, la cruzada de los niños, la cruzada de los pastores y los movimientos cruzados de la Baja Edad Media como la Cruzada de Pedro y la toma de Alejandría, los asedios a Al-Mahdiya y Nicópolis en 1396 y la Cruzada de Pío II, “el último cruzado” en 1464.
Con una exposición ordenada, equilibrada y completa de toda la historia de las cruzadas incluyendo aspectos definitivos como sus convocatorias, prédicas, financiaciones y reclutamientos iniciales; con una descripción ecuánime de todos los grandes protagonistas que participaron a lo largo y ancho de ellas (por ejemplo, no entrona a Ricardo Corazón de León, a Godofredo de Bouillón o a Saladino y tampoco sataniza a Felipe Augusto o a Reinaldo de Châtillon), Las Guerras de Dios se erige como un libro imprescindible sí se busca un texto general sobre las Cruzadas. No es un texto fácil de leer: es extenso, lleno de nombres (muy parecidos entre sí como los 10.000 Reinaldos, Felipes, Eduardos, Enriques y Bohemundos que se citan), y plagado de fechas y batallas que además exige un mínimo conocimiento de la historia medieval europea. Puede incluso criticarse su visión preminentemente occidental del fenómeno cruzado, dejando de lado el enfoque árabe y musulmán del mismo (traspié que se puede corregir leyendo el grandioso y muy recomendado Las cruzadas vistas por los árabes de Amin Maalouf); e incluso, un lenguaje excesivamente académico que hará echar de menos la prosa literaria con la que Runciman decoró a su obra. Aún así, Las Guerras de Dios se erige como un libro fundamental para todos los amantes de la historia en general, de la Edad Media y de las Cruzadas. Es uno de esos trabajos que el tiempo le dará el título de “clásico”, y que merece un lugar en la biblioteca para ser releído en unos años.
“¿Qué es lo que impulsó a tantas personas a cambiar su vida de forma tan decisiva en pos de un ideal tan ambiguo y peligroso como la liberación de Tierra Santa? Explicable como una expresión de fe, ansiedad, obediencia social o religiosa, autopromoción moral o material, identidad, solidaridad, intolerancia solipsista y agresión expansiva, para cada individuo, cualquier elección relacionada con la cruzada podría haber capturado, o tal vez no, los secretos de Dios. Aunque podamos observar las manifestaciones externas, la decisión personal e interna de seguir la cruz, de infligir daño a otros exponiéndose a sí mismo a un grave riesgo, al precio de enormes privaciones, al servicio de una causa que consumía, no puede ser explicada, excusada o rechazada ni como una virtud ni como un pecado.”
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March 17, 2016Consulted rather than read. Grand work, but not untendentious. Seek other views too.
In his preface he discusses the historian's perspective:
My perspective is western European... A history of the Crusades could be very different in structure if composed from the viewpoint of medieval Syrian, Egyptian or Andalusian Muslims, or European or Near Eastern Jews, or Balts, Livs or Prussians. However, the essential contours of the subject would, if observed dispassionately, look much the same, because this study is intended as a history, not a polemic, an account not a judgement...
It's quite possible that I'm simply upset with him because I'm among these Europeans who 'bizarrely' have seen a chivalric figure in Saladin. I confess to that. But is his determined demolition of the legend of Saladin (and Nur al-Din before him) truly in concordance with that preface? Or rather -- isn't the fault in the preface? I don't know that such a history is possible. This hasn't struck me as being one.
In his preface he discusses the historian's perspective:
My perspective is western European... A history of the Crusades could be very different in structure if composed from the viewpoint of medieval Syrian, Egyptian or Andalusian Muslims, or European or Near Eastern Jews, or Balts, Livs or Prussians. However, the essential contours of the subject would, if observed dispassionately, look much the same, because this study is intended as a history, not a polemic, an account not a judgement...
It's quite possible that I'm simply upset with him because I'm among these Europeans who 'bizarrely' have seen a chivalric figure in Saladin. I confess to that. But is his determined demolition of the legend of Saladin (and Nur al-Din before him) truly in concordance with that preface? Or rather -- isn't the fault in the preface? I don't know that such a history is possible. This hasn't struck me as being one.
March 22, 2013
A thoroughly comprehensive and almost exhaustive overview of the crusades. Rather than focus solely on the military campaigns, Tyerman devotes a lot of attention to aspects such as preaching, finance, recuitment, and law, as well as the culture and politics of the crusading states, and the spread of the crusading notion into regions wholly separate from the traditional Holy Land. In a work as big as this, there are bound to be parts that seem a little dry and uninteresting, but it's hard not to be impressed at the depth and breadth of Tyerman's scholarship.
February 24, 2018
A well-researched, readable history of the Crusades.
Tyerman describes the mix of religious motives and self-interest that drove the crusaders, and shows how this affected situations like the Albigensian crusade, the Teutonic Knights, and the wars between Byzantium and its rivals. The author also spends a good deal of time on how the ideology of crusading developed and how crusading was institutionalized.
The narrative can get a bit dry, some of the information feels like trivia, and it helps to have background knowledge. Also, the narrative is told almost entirely from the Western perspective. The discussion of genealogies can get tiresome, the narrative jumps around a bit, and Tyerman’s rendition of the historical and geographical setting can be a bit dull at times. Other than those issues,this is a pretty thorough treatment of the subject.
A dense but broad, nuanced work.
Tyerman describes the mix of religious motives and self-interest that drove the crusaders, and shows how this affected situations like the Albigensian crusade, the Teutonic Knights, and the wars between Byzantium and its rivals. The author also spends a good deal of time on how the ideology of crusading developed and how crusading was institutionalized.
The narrative can get a bit dry, some of the information feels like trivia, and it helps to have background knowledge. Also, the narrative is told almost entirely from the Western perspective. The discussion of genealogies can get tiresome, the narrative jumps around a bit, and Tyerman’s rendition of the historical and geographical setting can be a bit dull at times. Other than those issues,this is a pretty thorough treatment of the subject.
A dense but broad, nuanced work.
February 12, 2018
Tremendous work..It has resonance for us in the current political climate.
July 18, 2023
Thick as a moug. Tremendous social, religious, and political context on each of the crusades though, particularly the first four.
January 21, 2025
One of the most impressive feats of historical writing I’ve seen. Although it tends towards the verbose and requires some background knowledge of the era this is the most comprehensive history of crusading I’ve seen, covering crusades in Spain, the Baltic and Southern France in addition to the more famous crusades in the Middle East.
May 23, 2010
I learned a bit on less known Crusades. I'm not particularly in love with the fact: While Normans besieged Bari, Croats went to help Bari, and Normans sacked Croatian capital and tried to establish themselves. They failed. What Normans didn't fail was to sack in 1204 in the Fourh Crusade Croatian city of Zadar (prior to proceeding to Byzantium).
All this spiced up with Tyerman is not mentioning Croats at all, as if it was only Greek, Bulgarians, Serbs... fighting the Turks.
(Let me put it in perspective, in 1593. Germans and Croats of 10000 strong troop defeats 40000 Turks. This is at least a size of any army fighting in western Europe.)
To sum it up, I don't know what the author researched by himself, except compiling few earlier books.
All this spiced up with Tyerman is not mentioning Croats at all, as if it was only Greek, Bulgarians, Serbs... fighting the Turks.
(Let me put it in perspective, in 1593. Germans and Croats of 10000 strong troop defeats 40000 Turks. This is at least a size of any army fighting in western Europe.)
To sum it up, I don't know what the author researched by himself, except compiling few earlier books.
December 1, 2024
Extremely detailed, and uneasy to read at times due to the details of surrounding events. One is almost certain to forget quite a few details by the end of this monumental piece of research.
Of course writing about five centuries of various tribulations and intermittent wars accompanying the Crusades is quite difficult. Tyerman managed to create a clear, understandable yet undiluted and unaligned description of the most complex and arguably most misunderstood series of events, formative to the psychology and philosophy of the European nations.
Of course writing about five centuries of various tribulations and intermittent wars accompanying the Crusades is quite difficult. Tyerman managed to create a clear, understandable yet undiluted and unaligned description of the most complex and arguably most misunderstood series of events, formative to the psychology and philosophy of the European nations.
January 12, 2011
I chose this book because I wanted a history of all the crusades in one book, instead of having to read about each seperatly from the the points of view of different authors. While this book is packed with information, the events often fail to leap off the page, and each person becomes just one more name who I wish the author would tell me more about. At times I felt like I was just plodding through documents. I guess I will have to do what I was trying to avoid and go one crusade at a time.
April 19, 2014
Very thoroughly reasearch book and honestly presented. Tyerman did an admirable job in not taking sides in the conflicts. The book was somewhat long, but because of it, it was fairly comprehenive.
March 28, 2014
God's War
Christopher Tyerman
Read it in a thick and cumbersome paper back weighing in at 1023 pages.
Diving deep into the rabbit hole with an engrossing, detailed, events, causes, and outcomes of the premier activity in regards to and concerning the theatres of the Levant, Modern Spain, and Modern Eastern Europe/Western Russia from 1080AD to the death throws and eventual end of the Crusades loosely around 1500AD. Tyerman is considered a British Medieval Historian and a fellow of both Hertford College and Oxford University. He is most qualified to write this, with about eight publications already on the subject, a handful more on assorted medieval history, and other erroneous history gems. To say that the Crusades was solely about religious domination and control of Holy Land is a gross misunderstanding of the political nature and motives of Europe and other regions during this time frame. Tyerman delves exhaustively into these motives, customs, history, supplies, logistics, mood and interaction of the papacy, and men of the times, to shed light on the events that would be generally known as the Crusades, in which Tyerman has broken down as (and I have tried to summarize here):
The First Crusade - Comprising the initial efforts from the papacy for pursuit of the Holy Land. Encompassing some of the most notorious wild tales of Peter the hermit, the lance, and the bloody capture of Jerusalem.
"On 14 June Peter and twelve others dug around the floor of the cathedral until, as evening fell, Peter himself discovered what he and his fellow diggers took to be the point of the Lance sticking out of the ground at the bottom of the excavations. The discovery transformed the army's mood from terrified inertia to awed encouragement…"
Frankish Outremer - The precarious position of the Frankish monarchy in Outremer beset by enemies on all sides and with an internal political climate equally as deadly.
"Infuriated by his son's cowardice in the face of an attack from Antolia, Joscelin, seriously ill and bed ridden, insisted on leading out his troops borne on a litter. Seeing this, the invaders hurriedly withdrew, On receiving the news, Joscelin, ordering his litter to be put down on the road, died giving thanks to God."
The Second Crusade - The attempt to strengthen Frankish Outremer by Lords and Kings making the pilgrimage to the holy city and the creation of the knightly orders. In addition, Alfonso's initial papal approval of a crusade against the Muslims on the Iberian peninsula.
"All were united in acknowledgement of the personal human cost, thrown more sharply into relief by the lack of any wider material gain."
The Third Crusade - The rise of Saladin and the Ayyubids forced the Frankish Kingdom in Outremer into decline as well as the expedition of the third Crusade to retake Jerusalem helmed by such famous Kings as Richard I, Frederick I, and Phillip II.
"The last weeks if the siege were dominated by the contest of the Christian siege engines, catapults, sappers and scaling ladders against the defenders…Each Christian commander possessed his own great stone-throwers…Phillip II had many, his best, called 'Malvoisine' or 'Bad Neighbor', constantly needed repair as it was a prime target of enemy bombardment."
The Fourth Crusade - The German Crusade of 1195-1198, the sack of Constantinople, thereby removing Byzantium as an active buffer between Western Christendom and the Turks.
"William Trussel left his English lands on Crusade in 1190. Six weeks later his wife was murdered by his bastard half-brother and her body flung into a nearby marl pit."
The Expansion of Crusading - The Albigensian Crusades, the destruction of the Cathars, and the conquest of Languedoc. Including the fifth Crusade also known as the famed Children's Crusade, expansion of Crusading in Spain and in the Baltic. In short, expanding the boarders of Western Christendom from boarder threats, encroachment, and against Christianity factions within the Catholic kingdom.
"The crusaders' decision to spare Carcassonne the destruction of Beziers was prompted not by humanity but by a realization that whoever was to inherit the lordship of the area needed to rule more than ruins and smouldering charnel houses."
The Defense of Outremer - The precarious perch of Outremere in the 13th century, its defense and fall as well as Louis IX efforts in Egypt.
"Rhetoric did not win wars. Money, men and ships could."
The Later Crusades - Follows some of the more unfortunate efforts as well as Tyerman's summarization, conclusion, etc.
"Over subsequent generations, the failure to mount a large, still less effective, western European military campaign against the Mamluks or, later, the Ottoman Turks, shifted the emphasis of wars of the cross while transforming their nature."
This is not intended for the casual reader, and even the casual historic reader. Due to the very complex nature of the papacy, feudalism and the regional identities and conflicts it produced; a reader should be very familiar with these ideals before attempting God's War or else allow themselves to be lost in the bulk of the tomb with no light. While Tyerman does a fantastic and scholarly job , it's exactly that, scholarly.
Heavily enjoyed.
Christopher Tyerman
Read it in a thick and cumbersome paper back weighing in at 1023 pages.
Diving deep into the rabbit hole with an engrossing, detailed, events, causes, and outcomes of the premier activity in regards to and concerning the theatres of the Levant, Modern Spain, and Modern Eastern Europe/Western Russia from 1080AD to the death throws and eventual end of the Crusades loosely around 1500AD. Tyerman is considered a British Medieval Historian and a fellow of both Hertford College and Oxford University. He is most qualified to write this, with about eight publications already on the subject, a handful more on assorted medieval history, and other erroneous history gems. To say that the Crusades was solely about religious domination and control of Holy Land is a gross misunderstanding of the political nature and motives of Europe and other regions during this time frame. Tyerman delves exhaustively into these motives, customs, history, supplies, logistics, mood and interaction of the papacy, and men of the times, to shed light on the events that would be generally known as the Crusades, in which Tyerman has broken down as (and I have tried to summarize here):
The First Crusade - Comprising the initial efforts from the papacy for pursuit of the Holy Land. Encompassing some of the most notorious wild tales of Peter the hermit, the lance, and the bloody capture of Jerusalem.
"On 14 June Peter and twelve others dug around the floor of the cathedral until, as evening fell, Peter himself discovered what he and his fellow diggers took to be the point of the Lance sticking out of the ground at the bottom of the excavations. The discovery transformed the army's mood from terrified inertia to awed encouragement…"
Frankish Outremer - The precarious position of the Frankish monarchy in Outremer beset by enemies on all sides and with an internal political climate equally as deadly.
"Infuriated by his son's cowardice in the face of an attack from Antolia, Joscelin, seriously ill and bed ridden, insisted on leading out his troops borne on a litter. Seeing this, the invaders hurriedly withdrew, On receiving the news, Joscelin, ordering his litter to be put down on the road, died giving thanks to God."
The Second Crusade - The attempt to strengthen Frankish Outremer by Lords and Kings making the pilgrimage to the holy city and the creation of the knightly orders. In addition, Alfonso's initial papal approval of a crusade against the Muslims on the Iberian peninsula.
"All were united in acknowledgement of the personal human cost, thrown more sharply into relief by the lack of any wider material gain."
The Third Crusade - The rise of Saladin and the Ayyubids forced the Frankish Kingdom in Outremer into decline as well as the expedition of the third Crusade to retake Jerusalem helmed by such famous Kings as Richard I, Frederick I, and Phillip II.
"The last weeks if the siege were dominated by the contest of the Christian siege engines, catapults, sappers and scaling ladders against the defenders…Each Christian commander possessed his own great stone-throwers…Phillip II had many, his best, called 'Malvoisine' or 'Bad Neighbor', constantly needed repair as it was a prime target of enemy bombardment."
The Fourth Crusade - The German Crusade of 1195-1198, the sack of Constantinople, thereby removing Byzantium as an active buffer between Western Christendom and the Turks.
"William Trussel left his English lands on Crusade in 1190. Six weeks later his wife was murdered by his bastard half-brother and her body flung into a nearby marl pit."
The Expansion of Crusading - The Albigensian Crusades, the destruction of the Cathars, and the conquest of Languedoc. Including the fifth Crusade also known as the famed Children's Crusade, expansion of Crusading in Spain and in the Baltic. In short, expanding the boarders of Western Christendom from boarder threats, encroachment, and against Christianity factions within the Catholic kingdom.
"The crusaders' decision to spare Carcassonne the destruction of Beziers was prompted not by humanity but by a realization that whoever was to inherit the lordship of the area needed to rule more than ruins and smouldering charnel houses."
The Defense of Outremer - The precarious perch of Outremere in the 13th century, its defense and fall as well as Louis IX efforts in Egypt.
"Rhetoric did not win wars. Money, men and ships could."
The Later Crusades - Follows some of the more unfortunate efforts as well as Tyerman's summarization, conclusion, etc.
"Over subsequent generations, the failure to mount a large, still less effective, western European military campaign against the Mamluks or, later, the Ottoman Turks, shifted the emphasis of wars of the cross while transforming their nature."
This is not intended for the casual reader, and even the casual historic reader. Due to the very complex nature of the papacy, feudalism and the regional identities and conflicts it produced; a reader should be very familiar with these ideals before attempting God's War or else allow themselves to be lost in the bulk of the tomb with no light. While Tyerman does a fantastic and scholarly job , it's exactly that, scholarly.
Heavily enjoyed.
February 18, 2025
Cu adevărat o carte monumentală. Tratează în mod exhaustiv și fascinant, în același timp, subiectul cruciadelor.
October 8, 2025
"We can't end on a loss."
- Frederick Barbarossa, Philip the Fair, Richard the Lionheart, Frederick II, Louis IX, Clement III, and some other dudes with funny sounding names. Probably.
- Frederick Barbarossa, Philip the Fair, Richard the Lionheart, Frederick II, Louis IX, Clement III, and some other dudes with funny sounding names. Probably.
May 13, 2025
Originally I sort of read this book a while back for my class on the Crusades. I do remember it being dense, so it was hard to read in general—it’s about 900 pages🙃. However, reading it alongside the teacher's explanations really helped, and the book provided extra context. Overall, I still think it’s a very good book if you’re really interested in this specific subject. But if you’re just looking for a simple and casual read, then I wouldn't recommend it.
Technically, I never fully read it (only certain portions at a time for my class), but I’d like to re-read it someday—completely this time.
Technically, I never fully read it (only certain portions at a time for my class), but I’d like to re-read it someday—completely this time.
September 24, 2014
Lately, historical fact doesn't seem important, such as with all the misinformation about the Templar Knights. So, to get the true story I sought out a book on the Templars to get the true story which turned out to be completely different than the crap that passes for history on the History Channel (Ancient Aliens, anyone?). So, when I became interested in the Crusades I found a wealth of legends and stories and politically correct misinformation on what the Crusades were and what effect they had on Western and Middle-eastern history. Frankly I thought that I was impossible to get the real story as I thought archival material to tell the story properly was no longer extant. Then I stumble onto Christopher Tyerman's excellent "God's War."
This is NOT a book for casual reading. At over 900 pages it covers every single aspect of every single Crusade, both large and small, some Crusades of which I had never heard. The research for this book was monumental and certainly represents the life's work of the author. He is certainly blind from reading ancient records and his fingers certainly arthritic from carefully handling ancient scrolls. There is so much detail in this book that occasionally I was forced to take a break to clear my head. However, if you are interested in knowing about the Crusades this book is a must read. I doubt that there will ever be another book about this subject that is so comprehensive.
Tyerman describes the origin of "taking the cross," a religious event in which a person pledged to perform some holy war, usually to free the holy land from infidels. The Pope would usually call for the effort but after that he usually lost control to the leasers who led the effort. The book covers in detail the effort of each Crusade, through recruitment, financing the effort, transportation to the combat zone, warfare once there and the results. The Crusades had benefits (such as getting idle combat troops out of Europe) as well as detriments (it was here that the Popes first began selling indulgences for money to finance Crusades, a practice which eventually led to the Great Schism and the Protestant Reformation.
As you will learn when you read "God's War" it was never simply "Christians vs. Muslims" as Christians were always warring Christians and Muslims were constantly warring Muslims so the groups warring each other were always an amalgamation of alliances between various Christian and Muslim groups which is aptly explained in God's War.
With all the resentment some have for the Crusades it is good that there is a book you can go to for the truth and "God's War" is it. I can't recommend it highly enough.
This is NOT a book for casual reading. At over 900 pages it covers every single aspect of every single Crusade, both large and small, some Crusades of which I had never heard. The research for this book was monumental and certainly represents the life's work of the author. He is certainly blind from reading ancient records and his fingers certainly arthritic from carefully handling ancient scrolls. There is so much detail in this book that occasionally I was forced to take a break to clear my head. However, if you are interested in knowing about the Crusades this book is a must read. I doubt that there will ever be another book about this subject that is so comprehensive.
Tyerman describes the origin of "taking the cross," a religious event in which a person pledged to perform some holy war, usually to free the holy land from infidels. The Pope would usually call for the effort but after that he usually lost control to the leasers who led the effort. The book covers in detail the effort of each Crusade, through recruitment, financing the effort, transportation to the combat zone, warfare once there and the results. The Crusades had benefits (such as getting idle combat troops out of Europe) as well as detriments (it was here that the Popes first began selling indulgences for money to finance Crusades, a practice which eventually led to the Great Schism and the Protestant Reformation.
As you will learn when you read "God's War" it was never simply "Christians vs. Muslims" as Christians were always warring Christians and Muslims were constantly warring Muslims so the groups warring each other were always an amalgamation of alliances between various Christian and Muslim groups which is aptly explained in God's War.
With all the resentment some have for the Crusades it is good that there is a book you can go to for the truth and "God's War" is it. I can't recommend it highly enough.
January 17, 2012
I must admit I got lost amidst the details of names and places of the Near East, the Baltics, Iberia, North Africa and Anatolia. But one comes away with the realization that the Middle Ages was a time of constant turmoil and war; did they do anything else? And the *massive* waste of lives and treasure is overwhelming.
One insight: the Teutonic Knights conquered and ruled Prussia as an independent state. This explains why the tradition of the military was so strong in that region, reflected in modern times.
This book is a necessary adjunct to any general history of the 12th-15th centuries for a balanced view of all that was going on. One of the reasons everything is so confusing is that society in Europe was coalescing into nation-states and here we see the beginning of that process as the nobility competed for power, treasure and land. It also shows the dominance the Church had -- not just political or "religious" -- but embedded in the culture, values and identity of every person, small or great.
One insight: the Teutonic Knights conquered and ruled Prussia as an independent state. This explains why the tradition of the military was so strong in that region, reflected in modern times.
This book is a necessary adjunct to any general history of the 12th-15th centuries for a balanced view of all that was going on. One of the reasons everything is so confusing is that society in Europe was coalescing into nation-states and here we see the beginning of that process as the nobility competed for power, treasure and land. It also shows the dominance the Church had -- not just political or "religious" -- but embedded in the culture, values and identity of every person, small or great.
October 16, 2018
Another academic paper pusher making the paper stack high enough so he can get to the highest tax paid pension plan possible.
Chapter 1, called "The Origins of Christian Holy War", starts with how a young castellan sells his land to the Church. Wow! This is truly a New history. The Crusades started with this guy. Actually no. Tyerman is just too shallow and too bad of a writer to be able to express himself well.
And it gets better. The second paragraph of that first chapter, that talks about the FIRST Crusade and which chapter opens the first section creatively named "The First Crusade", well the second paragraph starts with:
> Fifty years later, in an account of the Second Crusade, [...]
Hence the Second Crusade is the origin of the First Crusade. Lucky for the reader that the UK tax payer is supporting this leech. Or the reader would have been left with the ridiculous idea that the Second Crusade came after the First.
Chapter 1, called "The Origins of Christian Holy War", starts with how a young castellan sells his land to the Church. Wow! This is truly a New history. The Crusades started with this guy. Actually no. Tyerman is just too shallow and too bad of a writer to be able to express himself well.
And it gets better. The second paragraph of that first chapter, that talks about the FIRST Crusade and which chapter opens the first section creatively named "The First Crusade", well the second paragraph starts with:
> Fifty years later, in an account of the Second Crusade, [...]
Hence the Second Crusade is the origin of the First Crusade. Lucky for the reader that the UK tax payer is supporting this leech. Or the reader would have been left with the ridiculous idea that the Second Crusade came after the First.
April 30, 2013
Thorough, comprehensive, well written, scholarly - and so filled with medieval names, unfamiliar locations, characters of varying significance - the experience is akin to reading a Russian novel. I found it almost impossible to keep things straight in my own mind as the narrative progressed - who did what when to whom for what reason... and who they were and where they fit in. But then, perhaps that is a telling illustration of the chaotic social, cultural and societal constructs that made the medieval ages so medieval?
Lots to learn here - but do not take it on lightly!
Lots to learn here - but do not take it on lightly!
July 1, 2020
It's a very responsible book, carefully sourced, lacking in speculation, etc., and it's great information on a vastly interesting subject. My problem with this book is not so much that it's a dense, heavy read, but that's it's unnecessarily so. Why use four clear sentences when one paragraph-length sentence with half a dozen dependent clauses will do? I kind of view that writing style as self-consciously academic, and this book would have conveyed its information much more effectively with a proper editor.
August 20, 2007
Again, really dense. A Who's Who of the Middle Ages, but without interesting information about them. Lots of military strategy, which is good if you like that sort of thing. I didn't make it more than halfway through the Second Crusade, and I mostly skimmed my way that far. This book is not for the faint of heart, or the casual reader looking to get a quick history fix.
Read
January 13, 2017A bit baggy, wooden, and in European/Oxford line with absurd, if not suicidal, Islamic apologetics. A test run before the master, Runciman, and his three-volume tome arrived at the bookstore. From what I was able to trudge through, the big book would have served a much higher purpose as toilet paper, tissues, looseleaf, paper towels, &c.
April 19, 2020
A good read that covers all the crusades.
March 17, 2024
Nearly three months after starting God’s War, reading it in doses of various sizes in between easier reading material, all that I can do is offer praise to God that I am delivered from such an onerous occupation.
I will begin by acknowledging the obvious. There can be no questioning of the enormous wealth of knowledge that the author, Christopher Tyerman, possesses about the subject. This book had potential but is ruined largely because it is virtually unreadable.
This is over 900 pages of largely bland, convoluted, and at times almost impenetrable historical synthesis. A few whitty remarks or a sentence or two here or there of penetrating analysis fail to compensate for a style that is, on the whole, dull and monotonous. The historian’s task is to present information in a way that is engaging and understood with as little difficulty as possible. Tyerman fails spectacularly.
The manner in which information is organized is extremely convoluted. Chronology often hops around, and as a result, the material is often repetitive. At times, this is pardonable, because different events happening at the same time need to be described separately. Yet the text often leaps a few decades back and forth while maintaining focus on the same general topic, which is needlessly confusing. The most ridiculous example of confused chronology is probably the discussion of political Crusades in the 13th century against the Hohenstaufens and other internal European enemies, which for some reason is placed near the very end of the book, after the Crusades against the Ottomans and the fall of Constantinople were already described. Surely that would have been much better placed in the context of the discussion of the Sixth Crusade. Tyerman’s inconsistent chronology is confusing to the reader and damages the book’s value even as a reference work, as someone may be unsure of whether an event that happened at a certain time is described in one place or 100 pages ahead.
The book is absurdly unbalanced in terms of the attention that it gives to various topics. Tyerman seems focused on trying to cram as many names into the text as possible at the expense of creating a coherent narrative. Too many obscure people and place names appear with little to no introduction, often never to be referenced again, and in many cases, not even appearing to do anything particularly important that would justify their being mentioned . The Shepherd’s Crusade is briefly mentioned (p. 721) but never elaborated upon. What is it? We aren’t told until about eighty pages later. Yet the book is curiously lacking detail in many cases. In contrast to the enormous amount of information about Western Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic world receive very little coverage. While Tyerman is correct in his justification that the impetus for the Crusades came from Western Europe, the Crusades cannot be properly understood without comprehending the nature of Byzantine and Muslim society, and too often for what is supposed to be a book about the Crusades as a whole, that simply feels like an afterthought. The discussion of military campaigns is often lacking in detail while comparatively trivial things are discussed instead. For example, the chapter on the Reconquista says nothing about how the Crusaders recaptured Cordoba and Seville, but there’s a weird rant about Mexicans at the end of it. The chapter about the fall of Outremer fails to note the capture of several key places before the Fall of Acre in 1291, nor does it mention the brawl between newly arrived Latins and Muslims in Acre that served as justification for the siege. And while the organization and justification of the Crusades are discussed in painstaking detail, the weapons that were used on crusade and agriculture in the Outremer states receive almost no attention. The Baltic Crusades are summarized in tortuously minute intricacy in a chapter of 48 pages that thoroughly exhausted me. Yet the Hussite Crusades, a series of five major wars waged over 15 years, are disposed of in a single paragraph (p. 902). Discussion of the Ottoman weakening of Byzantium leaves much to be desired. There is, for instance, no mention of the fall of Bursa in 1325 or Nicaea in 1331. In sum, Tyerman is too obsessive about cramming certain kinds of details into the book yet overlooks others, creating a book that is at once lacking in valuable information and tediously exhaustive.
Among the author’s most annoying habits is his tendency to, it seems deliberately, use very obscure words all of the time. At some points, especially in the first half of the book, it seemed like almost once per page I would be busy googling a word that I did not understand. Among Tyerman’s go-to words of choice, the word “sybaritic” appears three times, “fastidious” five times, “parvenu” and “fissiparous” eight times each, and “internecine” no less than 13 times. All of these little known words were ridiculously overused by Tyerman, giving the impression that he was using the book as an opportunity to show off his vocabulary. They and similarly obscure words were often utilized when no adjective, let alone such a complicated one, was needed to convey his point, and there were a couple of times in which, based on the definitions that Google gave me, I wasn’t even sure that he was using the words correctly. In addition, obscure Latin or French terms would occasionally appear without elaboration. On top of trying to keep track of the gigantic mountain of historical information in this book, having to go to Google to look up a word or translate something so often was a most unwelcome distraction. The book would have been challenging to read even without this choice, and this just needlessly makes it worse.
The needlessly complex language was accompanied, most strangely, by an unusually high number of typos. I do not know precisely how many there were, but there were far too many. One or two is excusable, especially in a book in this length. The number of them though that were here is indicative of sloppy editing. Most of the time, it was just annoying, although in one case, when King Richard II of England was instead referred to as King Richard I (p. 853), it created actual confusion. If Tyerman and his editors had spent less time scouring the dictionary for the most obscure words by which to impress fellow academics and publicists and more time proofreading, it could have made the book significantly more readable, and perhaps I could have seen my way to giving it three stars instead of two.
Not only is the book nearly impossible to read, but it is also affected by the bias of the author. Before Tyerman, the essential work on the Crusades in the English language was deemed to be Steven Runciman’s three volume history, which appeared in the 1950s. Though beautifully written, Runciman’s work is now judged by many historians to be deeply problematic on account of being influenced by heavy bias against the Crusaders as well as an increase in knowledge about the Crusades that has helped to discredit much of his thesis. Tyerman’s work is often seen as a modern, impartial look at the Crusades to replace the prejudiced and controversial Runciman work as the new classic English study of the Crusades. Yet Tyerman has his own biases as well that severely affect the quality of the work, and they almost invariably demonize the Crusaders.
Tyerman accuses Christian theologians of distorting the Bible to create their theories of just and holy war (p. 29). He denounces the Catholic government of Francisco Franco and accuses it of utilizing the history of the Crusades for sinister means (p. 673), although he makes no mention of the more recent, better known, and more widespread cases of contemporary Islamic extremists such as Osama bin Laden using images of the Crusades for their own ends. He falsely portrays the Ottomans as tolerant and secular (pp. 846-847), ignoring widespread practices such as the abduction of Christian children for forcible conversion to Islam and service in the Ottoman army and the transformation of churches into mosques. His statement at the conclusion of the book that the Crusades cannot be excused (p. 922), while failing to pay proportionate attention to Muslim conquest that prompted the Crusades, distorts the image of the Crusades by effectively adopting Runciman’s verdict that they stand out as “nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of God,” rather than what they were, which was a not altogether abnormal feature in the centuries-long world of the Middle Ages in which religious militancy was a normal and largely accepted part of life, both in Christendom and in Islam.
Throughout his discussion of the Fifth Crusade, Tyerman repeatedly labels John of Brienne’s motives in advocating the acceptance of a peace agreement to end the crusade as selfish, on the basis that John merely wanted the kingdom restored for himself to rule. Yet the primary aim of the crusade was to restore the Holy Land, and the treaty promised to do just that. We have no way of knowing that John did not advocate this position due to a sincere desire to see peace and the recovery of the Holy Land. In assuming that he did it purely for selfish reasons, Tyerman does him a massive disservice. It is sad how Tyerman frequently argues correctly thoughout the book that piety and material motives are not mutually exclusive, yet fails to see that here. Regarding the Seventh Crusade, he says that its failure was not the fault of Robert of Artois but rather of King Louis IX (p. 801), ignoring the fact that it can be true both that Louis’ strategy was flawed and that Robert was foolish for entering Mansourah without the main army. He says that Charlemagne was canonized but fails to clarify that the canonization was performed by an anti-pope (p. 908).
The place where Tyerman’s biases show themselves the most is in his discussion of the Sixth Crusade, led by the excommunicated Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Tyerman has a strong partiality towards Frederick that causes him to consistently interpret events in a manner favorable to him and unfavorable to his enemies. In opening his discussion of Frederick’s crusade, Tyerman implies that the crusade was viewed negatively only in hindsight (p. 739). Yet, as his own history shows, the spectacle of an excommunicate leading a holy war, spending more time negotiating with the infidels than fighting them, and ultimately settling for only partial sovereignty over Jerusalem, created widespread resentment at the time that it occurred. In his bid to redeem Frederick, Tyerman glosses over many of his messier actions. He speaks of how Frederick married the daughter of John of Brienne and therefore became King of Jerusalem, but omits to mention the fact that Frederick had promised John that he would not claim the kingship if he married her. Likewise, he says nothing of him arresting Crusader leaders opposed to him, seizing the weapons of his enemies within the kingdom just prior to his departure, and intercepting communications between the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Pope, and that the agreement with al-Kamil went so far as to allow Muslims within Jerusalem legal autonomy. Tyerman notes the holy wars proclaimed against Frederick, and describes them as having scandalized Christians and possibly jeopardized the fate of the Holy Land. This may be true, but his omission of Frederick’s more questionable behavior places them out of context. He portrays Frederick being buried while wearing his Crusader cross as a sign of genuine devotion to the cause of crusading (p. 755), but has no problem admitting that other rulers took the cross and made other gestures in support of the Holy Land simply for show.
God’s War is a travesty. The fact that it is considered the main English language book on the Crusades is an insult to the subject, which indeed deserves much better. Having read Thomas F. Madden’s summary of the Crusades, which is maybe only a little more than a tenth of the size of this titanic tome, I honestly wonder whether I learned more information from that book or this one. I have never before encountered a book so large that teaches so little. It’s nothing more than a slightly moderated and much more unreadable version of Steven Runciman. Christopher Tyerman’s God’s War is written by and for the ivory tower academic expert and upper class British snob. All others are advised to steer clear.
I will begin by acknowledging the obvious. There can be no questioning of the enormous wealth of knowledge that the author, Christopher Tyerman, possesses about the subject. This book had potential but is ruined largely because it is virtually unreadable.
This is over 900 pages of largely bland, convoluted, and at times almost impenetrable historical synthesis. A few whitty remarks or a sentence or two here or there of penetrating analysis fail to compensate for a style that is, on the whole, dull and monotonous. The historian’s task is to present information in a way that is engaging and understood with as little difficulty as possible. Tyerman fails spectacularly.
The manner in which information is organized is extremely convoluted. Chronology often hops around, and as a result, the material is often repetitive. At times, this is pardonable, because different events happening at the same time need to be described separately. Yet the text often leaps a few decades back and forth while maintaining focus on the same general topic, which is needlessly confusing. The most ridiculous example of confused chronology is probably the discussion of political Crusades in the 13th century against the Hohenstaufens and other internal European enemies, which for some reason is placed near the very end of the book, after the Crusades against the Ottomans and the fall of Constantinople were already described. Surely that would have been much better placed in the context of the discussion of the Sixth Crusade. Tyerman’s inconsistent chronology is confusing to the reader and damages the book’s value even as a reference work, as someone may be unsure of whether an event that happened at a certain time is described in one place or 100 pages ahead.
The book is absurdly unbalanced in terms of the attention that it gives to various topics. Tyerman seems focused on trying to cram as many names into the text as possible at the expense of creating a coherent narrative. Too many obscure people and place names appear with little to no introduction, often never to be referenced again, and in many cases, not even appearing to do anything particularly important that would justify their being mentioned . The Shepherd’s Crusade is briefly mentioned (p. 721) but never elaborated upon. What is it? We aren’t told until about eighty pages later. Yet the book is curiously lacking detail in many cases. In contrast to the enormous amount of information about Western Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic world receive very little coverage. While Tyerman is correct in his justification that the impetus for the Crusades came from Western Europe, the Crusades cannot be properly understood without comprehending the nature of Byzantine and Muslim society, and too often for what is supposed to be a book about the Crusades as a whole, that simply feels like an afterthought. The discussion of military campaigns is often lacking in detail while comparatively trivial things are discussed instead. For example, the chapter on the Reconquista says nothing about how the Crusaders recaptured Cordoba and Seville, but there’s a weird rant about Mexicans at the end of it. The chapter about the fall of Outremer fails to note the capture of several key places before the Fall of Acre in 1291, nor does it mention the brawl between newly arrived Latins and Muslims in Acre that served as justification for the siege. And while the organization and justification of the Crusades are discussed in painstaking detail, the weapons that were used on crusade and agriculture in the Outremer states receive almost no attention. The Baltic Crusades are summarized in tortuously minute intricacy in a chapter of 48 pages that thoroughly exhausted me. Yet the Hussite Crusades, a series of five major wars waged over 15 years, are disposed of in a single paragraph (p. 902). Discussion of the Ottoman weakening of Byzantium leaves much to be desired. There is, for instance, no mention of the fall of Bursa in 1325 or Nicaea in 1331. In sum, Tyerman is too obsessive about cramming certain kinds of details into the book yet overlooks others, creating a book that is at once lacking in valuable information and tediously exhaustive.
Among the author’s most annoying habits is his tendency to, it seems deliberately, use very obscure words all of the time. At some points, especially in the first half of the book, it seemed like almost once per page I would be busy googling a word that I did not understand. Among Tyerman’s go-to words of choice, the word “sybaritic” appears three times, “fastidious” five times, “parvenu” and “fissiparous” eight times each, and “internecine” no less than 13 times. All of these little known words were ridiculously overused by Tyerman, giving the impression that he was using the book as an opportunity to show off his vocabulary. They and similarly obscure words were often utilized when no adjective, let alone such a complicated one, was needed to convey his point, and there were a couple of times in which, based on the definitions that Google gave me, I wasn’t even sure that he was using the words correctly. In addition, obscure Latin or French terms would occasionally appear without elaboration. On top of trying to keep track of the gigantic mountain of historical information in this book, having to go to Google to look up a word or translate something so often was a most unwelcome distraction. The book would have been challenging to read even without this choice, and this just needlessly makes it worse.
The needlessly complex language was accompanied, most strangely, by an unusually high number of typos. I do not know precisely how many there were, but there were far too many. One or two is excusable, especially in a book in this length. The number of them though that were here is indicative of sloppy editing. Most of the time, it was just annoying, although in one case, when King Richard II of England was instead referred to as King Richard I (p. 853), it created actual confusion. If Tyerman and his editors had spent less time scouring the dictionary for the most obscure words by which to impress fellow academics and publicists and more time proofreading, it could have made the book significantly more readable, and perhaps I could have seen my way to giving it three stars instead of two.
Not only is the book nearly impossible to read, but it is also affected by the bias of the author. Before Tyerman, the essential work on the Crusades in the English language was deemed to be Steven Runciman’s three volume history, which appeared in the 1950s. Though beautifully written, Runciman’s work is now judged by many historians to be deeply problematic on account of being influenced by heavy bias against the Crusaders as well as an increase in knowledge about the Crusades that has helped to discredit much of his thesis. Tyerman’s work is often seen as a modern, impartial look at the Crusades to replace the prejudiced and controversial Runciman work as the new classic English study of the Crusades. Yet Tyerman has his own biases as well that severely affect the quality of the work, and they almost invariably demonize the Crusaders.
Tyerman accuses Christian theologians of distorting the Bible to create their theories of just and holy war (p. 29). He denounces the Catholic government of Francisco Franco and accuses it of utilizing the history of the Crusades for sinister means (p. 673), although he makes no mention of the more recent, better known, and more widespread cases of contemporary Islamic extremists such as Osama bin Laden using images of the Crusades for their own ends. He falsely portrays the Ottomans as tolerant and secular (pp. 846-847), ignoring widespread practices such as the abduction of Christian children for forcible conversion to Islam and service in the Ottoman army and the transformation of churches into mosques. His statement at the conclusion of the book that the Crusades cannot be excused (p. 922), while failing to pay proportionate attention to Muslim conquest that prompted the Crusades, distorts the image of the Crusades by effectively adopting Runciman’s verdict that they stand out as “nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of God,” rather than what they were, which was a not altogether abnormal feature in the centuries-long world of the Middle Ages in which religious militancy was a normal and largely accepted part of life, both in Christendom and in Islam.
Throughout his discussion of the Fifth Crusade, Tyerman repeatedly labels John of Brienne’s motives in advocating the acceptance of a peace agreement to end the crusade as selfish, on the basis that John merely wanted the kingdom restored for himself to rule. Yet the primary aim of the crusade was to restore the Holy Land, and the treaty promised to do just that. We have no way of knowing that John did not advocate this position due to a sincere desire to see peace and the recovery of the Holy Land. In assuming that he did it purely for selfish reasons, Tyerman does him a massive disservice. It is sad how Tyerman frequently argues correctly thoughout the book that piety and material motives are not mutually exclusive, yet fails to see that here. Regarding the Seventh Crusade, he says that its failure was not the fault of Robert of Artois but rather of King Louis IX (p. 801), ignoring the fact that it can be true both that Louis’ strategy was flawed and that Robert was foolish for entering Mansourah without the main army. He says that Charlemagne was canonized but fails to clarify that the canonization was performed by an anti-pope (p. 908).
The place where Tyerman’s biases show themselves the most is in his discussion of the Sixth Crusade, led by the excommunicated Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Tyerman has a strong partiality towards Frederick that causes him to consistently interpret events in a manner favorable to him and unfavorable to his enemies. In opening his discussion of Frederick’s crusade, Tyerman implies that the crusade was viewed negatively only in hindsight (p. 739). Yet, as his own history shows, the spectacle of an excommunicate leading a holy war, spending more time negotiating with the infidels than fighting them, and ultimately settling for only partial sovereignty over Jerusalem, created widespread resentment at the time that it occurred. In his bid to redeem Frederick, Tyerman glosses over many of his messier actions. He speaks of how Frederick married the daughter of John of Brienne and therefore became King of Jerusalem, but omits to mention the fact that Frederick had promised John that he would not claim the kingship if he married her. Likewise, he says nothing of him arresting Crusader leaders opposed to him, seizing the weapons of his enemies within the kingdom just prior to his departure, and intercepting communications between the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Pope, and that the agreement with al-Kamil went so far as to allow Muslims within Jerusalem legal autonomy. Tyerman notes the holy wars proclaimed against Frederick, and describes them as having scandalized Christians and possibly jeopardized the fate of the Holy Land. This may be true, but his omission of Frederick’s more questionable behavior places them out of context. He portrays Frederick being buried while wearing his Crusader cross as a sign of genuine devotion to the cause of crusading (p. 755), but has no problem admitting that other rulers took the cross and made other gestures in support of the Holy Land simply for show.
God’s War is a travesty. The fact that it is considered the main English language book on the Crusades is an insult to the subject, which indeed deserves much better. Having read Thomas F. Madden’s summary of the Crusades, which is maybe only a little more than a tenth of the size of this titanic tome, I honestly wonder whether I learned more information from that book or this one. I have never before encountered a book so large that teaches so little. It’s nothing more than a slightly moderated and much more unreadable version of Steven Runciman. Christopher Tyerman’s God’s War is written by and for the ivory tower academic expert and upper class British snob. All others are advised to steer clear.
June 19, 2023
This is a dry and detailed book. The prose is not very easy to read, and to follow it you'll probably need to know a lot of the historical background beforehand. Moreover, Tyerman makes a few unambiguous grammatical errors, seemingly because he loses track of where his convoluted sentences are going. But a lot of insight is hidden within the dull text.
Medieval Christians earnestly believed in the crusader cause. But by delving into such detail, Tyerman shows that in nearly every episode of crusading, there were people who mixed their religious obligations with blatant self-interest. Christian kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula used crusading ideology, along with the full set of church-based incentives for crusaders, to bolster their wars against the Muslim kingdoms. The "Albigensian Crusade" against heretics in southern France was endorsed by the church but driven largely by French nobles' desire to seize land in the region. The Teutonic Knights, founded to forcibly convert the remaining pagan peoples of northeastern Europe, continued to exist long after the conversion of Lithuania left them with no reason for being, and western nobles habitually joined them on "crusading" raids to fight the knights' local rivals. Mediterranean powers from western Europe, like Sicily and Venice, used efforts to bolster the crusader states in the early 12th century as excuses to seize territory from the Byzantine Empire. Westerners' willingness to fight the Byzantines contributed to the convoluted series of mistakes that led the Fourth Crusade to attack Constantinople, but greed wasn't the sole motivation in that case. By the time they sacked Constantinople, the crusaders were trapped by their own bad decisions. And while the sack was a disaster, it may only have hastened the disintegration of an empire that was already being torn apart by civil war.
A major focus of Tyerman's work is how crusading ideology developed. Christianity's history of justifying violence on religious grounds goes back at least to Augustine, but Urban II and his predecessor Gregory VII invented the idea that people could be forgiven their sins if they fought a divinely endorsed war. The resulting system of indulgences, originally designed to encourage the crusades, expanded over the centuries, providing a major motivation for the Protestant Reformation. Meanwhile, the concept of spreading Christianity through violence mutated, especially after crusading itself came to seem futile. In this diffuse form, crusading ideology shaped the European view of the entire world and contributed even to the Spanish attitude toward their conquests in the Americas.
I read this book alongside Thomas Asbridge's The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land, which isn't as extensive as Tyerman's book but is much better at telling a story and is easier for newcomers to the subject. Asbridge also gives nearly equal space to the Muslim as well as the Christian perspective, whereas Tyerman focuses on Europeans. If you haven't read about the crusades in depth before, go to Asbridge first, but if you have, Tyerman is well worth reading.
Medieval Christians earnestly believed in the crusader cause. But by delving into such detail, Tyerman shows that in nearly every episode of crusading, there were people who mixed their religious obligations with blatant self-interest. Christian kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula used crusading ideology, along with the full set of church-based incentives for crusaders, to bolster their wars against the Muslim kingdoms. The "Albigensian Crusade" against heretics in southern France was endorsed by the church but driven largely by French nobles' desire to seize land in the region. The Teutonic Knights, founded to forcibly convert the remaining pagan peoples of northeastern Europe, continued to exist long after the conversion of Lithuania left them with no reason for being, and western nobles habitually joined them on "crusading" raids to fight the knights' local rivals. Mediterranean powers from western Europe, like Sicily and Venice, used efforts to bolster the crusader states in the early 12th century as excuses to seize territory from the Byzantine Empire. Westerners' willingness to fight the Byzantines contributed to the convoluted series of mistakes that led the Fourth Crusade to attack Constantinople, but greed wasn't the sole motivation in that case. By the time they sacked Constantinople, the crusaders were trapped by their own bad decisions. And while the sack was a disaster, it may only have hastened the disintegration of an empire that was already being torn apart by civil war.
A major focus of Tyerman's work is how crusading ideology developed. Christianity's history of justifying violence on religious grounds goes back at least to Augustine, but Urban II and his predecessor Gregory VII invented the idea that people could be forgiven their sins if they fought a divinely endorsed war. The resulting system of indulgences, originally designed to encourage the crusades, expanded over the centuries, providing a major motivation for the Protestant Reformation. Meanwhile, the concept of spreading Christianity through violence mutated, especially after crusading itself came to seem futile. In this diffuse form, crusading ideology shaped the European view of the entire world and contributed even to the Spanish attitude toward their conquests in the Americas.
I read this book alongside Thomas Asbridge's The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land, which isn't as extensive as Tyerman's book but is much better at telling a story and is easier for newcomers to the subject. Asbridge also gives nearly equal space to the Muslim as well as the Christian perspective, whereas Tyerman focuses on Europeans. If you haven't read about the crusades in depth before, go to Asbridge first, but if you have, Tyerman is well worth reading.
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