Call number
270.4RIL
Status
Available
Call number
Pages
117
Description
Riley-Smith's acclaimed book is now regarded as a classic short study. The updated fourth edition of this essential introduction features a new Preface which surveys and reviews developments in crusading scholarship, a new map, material on a child crusader, and a short discussion of the current effects of aggressive Pan-Islamism.
Publication
Ignatius Press (2009), Edition: 4th, 117 pages
ISBN
158617360X / 9781586173609
Collection
User reviews
LibraryThing member meandmybooks
This was good. I wanted a quick "refresher" on the Crusades, and this was just right. The author's stated goal is to define the term "crusade," and so, appropriately, he focuses on issues such as the motivations and mindset(s) of the participants; the division and uses of power among the various
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religious and sacred authorities; and the ways in which Christian theology and Church doctrine supported and restrained (or didn't restrain) the Crusades. He puts a strong emphasis on the penitential aspect of the Crusades -- the idea that many who went on or supported the Crusades were motivated by the promise of indulgences -- and also on that of Holy War (defined as the defense of or reclamation of areas which had at some point been Christian, and the suppression of heretics). I'm currently also reading Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, and Riley-Smith's focus on religious motivations is a nice change from Tuchman's endless insistence that sheer blood-thirstiness was the only real motivator in this period. The author does his best to explain the ideas behind the Crusades, often supported by excerpts from papal letters, sermons, etc., without spending time passing judgment on views which he acknowledges few now would consider valid. Show Less