Fighting for the Cross: Crusading in the Holy Land

Fighting for the Cross: Crusading to the Holy Land

By Norman Housley

Yale University Press, 2008

Dr. Housley’s attempt to capture the spirit of what it was like to engage in crusading in the holy land during the period of 1095-1291 from the preaching of Urban II and Clermont to the fall of Acre, is fully realized in this fairly recent study.  Though written as a text book, the prose is easily read and informative, and is highly accessible to the wider public audience without much background in medieval studies.

The approach of the work is thematic in style, addressing largely the main issues such as the preaching of the cross, public awareness of the symbiotic relationship of pilgrimage and crusading, the expense and negative material gain, the opposition in the form of Turks, Arabs, and Byzantines, and remembrance in written records.  Housley strikes a balanced position when addressing the main players of the drama, from lord to peasant, declining to take an overtly moral stance that is so tempting for many historians.  Instead the focus is on the over shadowing impact of crusading, particularly the First Crusade, that affected the medieval mind set towards many things, both spiritually as well as culturally.  Of the more profound arguments, Housley stresses the fact that though the written documents, principally clerical chronicles demonstrating a demonization of the enemy, in fact many Europeans had a very good idea about the actual culture and achievements of the Turks as well as the Fatimid culture of Egypt.  He approaches this point by sifting through the hyperbole of the writers, looking closely at what facts they use to color their accounts, and on occasion, the unexpected admiration.  As a side note, this fits together very well with the actions of Emperor Alexius Comnenus I who is known to have given the First Crusaders some advice about the enemy during their brief stay on the outskirts of Constantinople. 

It is particularly difficult to find much wanting in Housley’s work.  Utilizing historical evidence from the First through the Seventh Crusade, he sites many of the examples a student of the crusades is bound to expect, while at the same time trying to pronounce a definitive stance towards nagging topics such as the perceived personas of Saladin and Richard I, giving each his due as a positive and negative personality, though perhaps a little more so in the case of Richard.  There is also the tendency in the chapter Brave New World to introduce teaser information on such subjects as Prester John and the Mongols, both important and interesting topics that don’t get covered as fully as the reader might like considering their importance in both their relevancy towards God’s aid from foreign quarters and how this was rationalized by the medieval west. 

On the whole an excellent book that I plan to utilize in my future teaching career, comprehensive and thought provoking, I would even suggest it as the starting place for anyone embarking on a study of the events and period of the crusades through the high middle ages.

-John Lowe (J. Sharp)