Product Description

On the last Tuesday of November 1095, Pope Urban II delivered an electrifying speech that launched the First Crusade. His words set Christendom afire. Some 100,000 men, from knights to paupers, took up the call--the largest mobilization of manpower since the fall of the Roman Empire. Now, in The First Crusade, Thomas Asbridge offers a gripping account of a titanic three-year adventure filled with miraculous victories, greedy princes and barbarity on a vast scale. Readers follow the crusaders from their mobilization in Europe (where great waves of anti-Semitism resulted in the deaths of thousands of Jews), to their arrival in Constantinople, an exotic, opulent city--ten times the size of any city in Europe--that bedazzled the Europeans. Featured in vivid detail are the siege of Nicaea and the pivotal battle for Antioch, the single most important military engagement of the entire expedition, where the crusaders, in desperate straits, routed a larger and better-equipped Muslim army. Through all this, the crusaders were driven on by intense religious devotion, convinced that their struggle would earn them the reward of eternal paradise in Heaven. But when a hardened core finally reached Jerusalem in 1099 they unleashed an unholy wave of brutality, slaughtering thousands of Muslims--men, women, and children--all in the name of Christianity. The First Crusade marked a watershed in relations between Islam and the West, a conflict that set these two world religions on a course toward deep-seated animosity and enduring enmity. The chilling reverberations of this earth-shattering clash still echo in the world today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #735846 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 448 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In 1095, Pope Urban II preached a fiery sermon that changed the course of Western history: he urged Christian warriors to take up the sword and defend their brothers in the East who had been defeated by the Muslims, and to retake the holy city of Jerusalem, then under Islamic control. Asbridge, a British authority on the Crusades, brilliantly re-creates the three-year history of the First Crusade, chronicling its difficulties and victories, not downplaying its brutality but emphasizing its genuinely religious impulse. He vividly recounts the terrible winter of 1096 in Antioch, which reduced the Christian armies from 100,000 to 30,000. Focusing on the warriors' beliefs, Asbridge astutely points out that the warriors interpreted this as God's cleansing of the weaker and less committed fighters and concluded that victory was ordained for the survivors in the final, bloody battles. Asbridge also observes that the Christian forces acted less out of an inborn hatred of Islam than out of a desire for a place in heaven if they died in battle. While relations between Christianity and Islam did not break down immediately as a result of the crusaders' triumph, later pro-war propaganda on both sides drove a wedge between the two religions. Asbridge combines fast-paced history writing, evocative prose and lucid research for a first-rate history of the First Crusade. B&w illus., 9 maps.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–This concise, fascinating account begins with a brief discussion of the events and individuals who influenced Pope Urban II's call for a holy war in 1095. Blending recent research with 11th- and 12th-century writings, Asbridge describes the extraordinary circumstances that introduced the pacifist Christian church to militarism and launched tens of thousands of men and women on a journey they could scarcely comprehend. The number of significant participants of the First Crusade was huge, but the author keeps the telling manageable by focusing on two dozen of the most famous. Readers learn about their appearance, backgrounds, and beliefs before setting out with them for Jerusalem. Vivid eyewitness accounts are quoted, with corrections made for obvious errors, such as estimates of numbers of fighters. The frenetic preparations for departure, the horrors of the journey, and the savage battles are described with compelling realism. The bloody sack of Jerusalem concludes the main narrative, but an aftermath covers the subsequent lives of the major participants, and a conclusion evaluates the crusade's long-term impact. Several useful features include 9 maps, 16 pages of black-and-white photographs of medieval art and fortifications, an annotated cast of characters, and a glossary.–Kathy Tewell, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
In November 1095, Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade in the French city of Clermont, declaring that Christians had endured oppression and abuse at the hands of "their savage Muslim masters." He alleged that Jerusalem, the epicenter of Christian tradition, lay in the grasp of Islam. The pope called on Catholic Europe to take up arms and that those fighting as "soldiers of Christ" would be purified by the fire of battle. Asbridge chronicles this three-year, 3,000-mile battle across Europe, which involved 100,000 soldiers. The crusaders faced exhaustion, disease, and starvation while demonstrating a capacity for intense religious devotion and appalling brutality. Thousands of Muslims were killed in the name of Christianity, as well as thousands of Jews because of fervid anti-Semitism. The author sheds new light on the expedition's inception, explaining what motivated such a large number of Europeans to join the crusade. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

A book that reads like an action movie
This is one of the best history books I have read in a long time. It is incredibly well-written and contains a fascinating account about the first crusade. It will keep you riveted until the end.

Asbridge doesn't merely give a blow-by-blow of the action - although action is certainly not lacking. He explores how the crusade got started and the varied motivations of the participants. Characters like Bohemond, Godfrey of Boullion and Peter the Hermit come to life and fascinate.

One of the great strengths of this book is Asbridge's discussion of the history of crusade scholarship - the ideas scholars both modern and medieval had about why the crusade happened and how it played out. I also found that some of the things I learned in college (and I didn't graduate that long ago!) about the crusades have been disproved by further scholarship.

I always have found it ironic that, in a later crusade, western knights pillaged Constantinople when they were supposedly Christians united against a common foe. The roots of breakdown of the relationship between the crusaders and the Byzantine empire are explored, answering my questions.

Asbridge is remarkably balanced and objective when discussing the sensitive area of Christian and Muslim relations. My only complaint is that a couple of times in the beginning of the book that the author includes some snide comments about Christianity.

Kudos to Thomas Asbridge! I hope he decides to write another book about the other, less "successful" crusades.

Taking the Cross
This is a wonderful book. The author, Thomas Asbridge, has written a taut, clear account of a time in history that, at least for me, has always seemed terribly murky and shrouded in fable.

The main strength of the book is its strong, direct, linear flow. The reader follows the First Crusade from its birth in Clermont and Pope Urban's preaching tour across France; to the Crusade's bloody finale and the Christian army's rampage through Jerusalem. Asbridge is, plain and simply, a good writer, and his vivid language bring the time and place to remarkable light. He has a good writer's eye for drama and the telling detail, and he brings in amazing writings from Crusade participants to flesh out the telling. Characters and events really came to life in my mind's eye while reading, whole landscapes and battles, so that I found myself setting the books aside more than once, simply to let the movie play for a moment. All in all, a great reading experience.

As the book progressed, I really came to visualize the Crusading armies marching from Western Europe across the known world, slowly transforming itself through the crucible of starvation, decease, horrific battles, and hardship. They had begun as an unorganized, splintered assortment of rabble and soldier, princes and false prophets, numbering perhaps 100,000 souls, barely able to mount a cohesive attack. By the time they had reached Lebanon, the army had hardened down to a pack of fast moving, ruthless veterans, sending terror through the Muslim world. Muslim cities, hearing of their barbarity, began begging for peace, throwing riches at them, usually to no avail.

Finally, this efficient juggernaut simply stormed against the heavily fortified Holy City of Jerusalem, taking it quickly and horribly despite overwhelming odds against them, then tore through the city like starved wolves, killing everything (including children and women). The image of the victorious crusaders, coming to fall in tearful prayer at the Holy Sepulchre, their faces and clothes still drenched in blood, is one of the most perfect in the book - at once capturing the strange amalgamation of genuine religious fervor and blood-curdling terror that marked the times. The author also poses many new ideas about the Crusades as well (such as his view of the effect of the religious relic, the Holy Lance, which the author feels had much less importance than is traditionally thought), which make this book good for both history novice and expert alike.

The author does a good job of viewing the times in a fair light. The magnificent achievement of the crusading armies is not understated. After reading what the soldiers and knights of this crusade went through, it is easier to understand why they truly considered many of their victories "miracles" and sure evidence of God's hand. The author does not overlook the grimmer realities of the First Crusade either, which can be summed up in this simple sentence near the end of the book: "In bitter revelation, these eastern Christians soon discovered that they had in fact been better off under Muslim rule than they were in a 'liberated' Jerusalem."

You will be glad you read this book. -Mykal Banta

Excellent Overview of Complex First Crusade
Thomas Asbridge's excellent "new history," "The First Crusade," accomplishes the complex task of demonstrating both the truth and the lie of the (currently popular) statement, "the Crusades were when Christians attacked Muslims for money." By combining both serious scholarship (considerable critical attention is paid to original sources, with long passages quoted) with a hefty dose of common sense (Asbridge does not accept anything from the original sources blindly) and a gift for clear concise writing, Asbridge has produced a work that is sure to become a standard for the study of the First Crusade. For the first time, I feel I have read a balanced account of the Christian campaign to retake Jerusalem in the late 11th century.

Asbridge probably hits his highest marks when he analyzes the complex motives of the Crusaders. It's not always easy to explain a complex situation, and the Crusades, Asbridge reminds us, were incredibly complex undertakings. He starts with an excellent exposition of the political and religious events that brought Pope Urban II to the papacy, which goes a long way towards demonstrating Urban's motives for initiating the Crusade. But Urban was no warrior-pope -- he had to inspire others to take up the quest, and the disparate, competitive leaders of the Crusades each had their own agendas. Sure, there was some demonization of the Muslims and there was a considerable amount of religious fervor involved (Asbridge makes a convincing case that a sinful knight would eagerly look at the spiritual salvation offered by the Crusades), but there were also several folks who went along on the Crusades for less noble purposes.

Asbridge resists the temptation of so many historians to bite off a "silver bullet" and say that "X is the reason everyone went on the Crusades." This is refreshing and has the benefit of probably being true. Some of the book's most entertaining passages come from when the competing agendas and conflicting purposes of the Crusaders threaten to bring down the entire operation, particularly where the Roman Catholic Crusaders are playing dice with the Greek Orthodox Emperor of Byzantium/Constantinople, Alexius (one heck of a character!).

Another high mark for Asbridge is his attention to the chaotic political state of the Islamic world at the time. Asbridge points out that far from demonizing all Muslims, the Crusaders made treaties with Muslims and played one Muslim sect against another as long as it suited their purposes. While Asbridge never goes so far as to say that the Crusaders didn't really consider Muslims "the other," he makes a convincing case that not all Crusaders viewed all Muslims as the embodiment of evil --thereby refuting a currently chic notion.

Asbridge does not spare the reader the horrors of the Crusades, either, which in addition to battle included starvation and disease. He does refrain from adopting a "you are there" style of reconstructing the battlefield, although he does provide lengthy quotes of battle scenes from contemporary writers. Quick to point out the medieval trait of greatly over-exaggerating the numbers of soldiers involved in battles, Asbridge paints a good battle scene, but if you're looking for a riveting "A Bridge Too Far" style account, you're probably going to be disappointed.

A lean work, clocking in at under 350 pages, "The First Crusade" includes helpful maps and a charming attention to detail -- Asbridge notes, for example, the irony that Pope Urban dies after the capture of Jerusalem but before he can learn the "good news." Highly recommended, "The First Crusade" offers an explanation of the unique characteristics of this campaign and in its conclusion, makes a convincing yet brief case for its future impact. Check it out.