The books in the Routledge Companions series are advertised on the back cover of The Routledge Companion to the Crusades as “superbly thorough and accessible reference sources”. This most recent contribution to the series is no exception. The subject of the book is a huge one, covering over 700 years. The crusading movement had its roots in the early Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land, reached its height in the Middle Ages and culminated with the fall of Malta in 1798. The book includes chronologies, maps, brief biographies of key crusading figures and historians of the crusades, an extended historiographical essay, shorter essays on thematic issues (such as the crusades from Byzantine, Armenian, Jewish and Muslim perspectives, crusades and the Italian city republics and crusading songs and poems) and bibliographies. The sections and themes are treated interdependently and are not conceived as “watertight units” (Preface, p. ix). The work relies largely on secondary sources (Preface, p. x) and is intended primarily for university students, sixth form students, students in adult education and for anyone interested in the crusades generally (Preface, p. ix). The author draws attention to the relevance of an understanding of the crusades to the present day (Preface, p. ix) and shows in his historiographical essay how the history of the crusades has been influenced by the times in which historians were writing (see, for instance, pp. 262‐3).
The book begins with an excellent chronological outline that shows the development of pilgrimage and crusade. Through the overview that it provides, one can see, for instance, how crusading fervour overtook the West at the time of the First Crusade. One can see, subsequently, the first generation of crusading knights dying out and, with them, the initial enthusiasm for crusading. One can sense the beleaguered and isolated condition of the crusader states until, 50 years on, crusading fervour was revived by St Bernard of Clairvaux. One can see how generations were born and brought up in the crusader states, having greater ties with the Frankish states in the East than they had with their families' original homeland in the West.
This is followed by a section providing narrative outlines of the individual crusades. Whereas in the chronological section various strands of all sorts of different tales are intertwined, the narrative account ignores these in favour of telling the tale of a particular area of crusading endeavour, such as the Anti‐Byzantine or the Anti‐Ghibelline crusades. One sees how, in the end, there were crusades against just about anyone, including fellow Christians, such as the Byzantines, and the ways in which such crusades were justified at the time.
There follows a section that provides brief biographies of crusading figures. These put flesh on some of the historical figures mentioned in the earlier sections and indicate their significance in a colourful way.
The book includes a major essay on the historiography of the crusades, full of interesting detail, which essentially begins with the late fifteenth century. We learn how the term “crusade” only established itself in historical usage from 1750, and how Gibbon appears to have been the first historian to have given the crusades numbers (e.g. First Crusade, Third Crusade, etc.). We see how the period in which the historian was writing coloured his view of the crusades. (The Enlightenment, for instance, took a negative view of the Middle Ages and the Byzantine Empire, whereas, during the Romantic period, the Middle Ages were seen in a more positive light.)
If there is anything missing from this magisterial reference work on the crusades, it is the provision of some kind of a study of the primary source material. Who was writing contemporary accounts of the crusades and why? Although, in the chronological section, reference is made to when primary source accounts of the crusades were written and their writers are often given brief biographies in the section on crusading figures, some additional commentary would have been helpful to see how these accounts developed and changed according to time and circumstance. In all other respects, though, this is a comprehensive work on a vast topic that incorporates an awe‐inspiring level of detailed knowledge in a manner that is easily accessible.
