A Clash of Expectations

The Crusades: a Beginner's Guide by Andrew Jotischky
London : Oneworld, 2015.
xi, 180 pages : illustrations ; 20 cm    

I guess it's just really, really hard to write a short and memorable introduction to a subject as sprawling and complex as the Crusades.  It might be like asking someone to write a short introduction to contact between Europeans and American Indians - the first 200 years.  There's just so much time and geography to cover, and so many important figures to include.  I liked reading The Crusades by Jotischky, but after finishing it, I retained the broadest outlines of the history.

Perhaps that is the best a lay reader can hope for.  Jotischky does a fine job of laying out the major events of the Crusades which spanned the period of 1095 to about 1291.  He also provides some of the major forces underlying the Crusades (the complex web of papal, nobility, state and royal power, the role of religious belief, the cultural differences of both allies and enemies, etc.).  It is an interesting period for certain, but I'm afraid it's just too much for one short book.

I would recommend this book to a student who is already interested in the Crusades, or one who is researching the Crusades, but I would hesitate giving it to a student who is just interested in a non-fiction work of history.


    

The Templars - Bias Revealed

The Templars: the secret history revealed by Barbara Frale.
New York : Arcade Pub., 2009.
xiv, 232 p. ; 22 cm.

I was hugely disappointed in this "history" of the Templars. Given the popularity of Dan Brown's books, I was hoping for a well-written, informative narrative of the Templars. Booklist reviewer Ray Olson called it "the first-choice primer on its legend-laden subject" and Library Journal's Daniel Harms praises the book as "the work is a solid contribution on a topic where misinformation is rife." I couldn't disagree more. The book begins with a great deal of religious legend dressed up as history, and much of the early narrative appears as little more than an apologia for the misdeeds of Christianity/Catholicism - with a generous helping of anti-Muslim cant thrown in for good measure. Her point of view is very positive toward the Crusaders of the late llth and early 12th century and simplifies and distorts their motives and behaviors to the point where one has to doubt everything that follows.

The book opens by dressing up theological wishful thinking as historical fact:

• "Jesus, son of Mary, died in Jerusalem on April 7 in the year 790 after the founding of Rome...his disciples....soon resumed their religious activities with renewed enthusiasm, because they were certain that their master had risen from the dead..."
• "the disciples who remained in and around Jerusalem gathered up all the evidence of Christ's earthly passage and began preparing a well-ordered record of the events of his life...in accounts that bore the auspicious title that Jesus himself had suggested..."
• "In the fourth century...The empress mother Helen....conducted what amounted to an archaeological expedition...The result was the discovery of the the wood of the True Cross..."

I honestly don't see how you can take such a historian seriously. As for her comments on Muslims:

• (in 1071) "Pilgrimages became extremely dangerous because the roads were infested with Muslim brigands..."
• (describing the horrendous slaughter of Jerusalem by crusaders in 1099) "the crusaders finally recaptured Jerusalem...but not without some committing heinous crimes at the expense of the Muslim population, despite orders from their leaders to protect..." (the rotten apple excuse).
• "the crusaders were unable to exercise complete control over the territory, and they were constantly exposed to to the risk of Muslim aggression."

With such dishonesty, I found it impossible to finish the book, and would definitely not recommend it.

Interestingly, I did a brief bit of searching on Professor Frale, and found that she recently weighed in on the Shroud of Turin, declaring that it had the imprint of a "death certificate" for Jesus. Curious to say the least.