Chronicles of the First Crusade

The story of the First Crusade, as witnessed by contemporary writers 
 
'O day so ardently desired! O time of times the most memorable! O deed before all other deeds!' 
 
The fall of Jerusalem in the summer of 1099 to an exhausted and starving army of western European soldiers was one of the most extraordinary events of the Middle Ages. It was both the climax of a great wave of visionary Christian fervour and the beginning of what proved to be a futile and abortive attempt to implant a new European kingdom of heaven in an overwhelmingly Muslim world. This remarkable collection brings together a wide variety of contemporary accounts of the First Crusade, including Pope Urban II's initial call to arms of 1095, as well as the first-hand writings of priests, knights, a Jewish pilgrim, a destitute noblewoman, an Iraqi poet and the historian Anna Comnena. Together they provide a vivid and nuanced picture of the First Crusade and the people who were swept up in it. 
 
Edited with an introduction and notes by Christopher Tyerman

Of all the modern histories of the crusades it is the shrewdest, the most reliable and the most complete [Praise for God's War]

Christopher Tyerman is a Fellow and Tutor in History at Hertford College, Oxford and Lecturer in Medieval History at New College Oxford. He has written extensively on the crusades, most recently God's War: A New History of the Crusades (2006) and The Debate on the Crusades (2011).

'O day so ardently desired! O time of times the most memorable! O deed before all other deeds!' 
 
The fall of Jerusalem in the summer of 1099 to an exhausted and starving army of Western European soldiers was one of the most extraordinary events of the Middle Ages.It was both the climax of a great wave of visionary Christian fervour and the beginning of what proved to be a futile and abortive attempt to implant a new European kingdom in an overwhelmingly Muslim world.The legacy of these events continues to be argued over more than nine centuries later.This remarkable collection of first-hand accounts brings to life the First Crusade in all its cruelty and strangeness.

A New History of the Crusades

God's War

14,000 hardcovers sold to date, including 9,000 in the UK Trade

Christopher Tyerman is a Fellow in History at Hertfod College, Oxford, and a Lecturer in Medieval History at New College, Oxford. He is the author of England and the Crusades.

The story of how a group of warriors, driven by faith, greed and wanderlust, carved out new Christian-ruled states in the Middle East is one of the most extraordinary of all epics. The crusaders' stunning initial success started a sequence of great Crusades, each with its own story, that fundamentally shaped the Christian and Muslim worlds for two centuries, until the last Crusader castles were finally expunged. The energy and commitment that sent army after army into the eastern Mediterranean also led to the invasion and conversion of Central and Baltic Europe, Spain, Portugal, the destruction of the Cathars in Provence and the settlement of America. Told with great verve and authority, God's War is the definitive account of a fascinating but also horrifying story. 
 
&lsquo;We are still living with the images and legends of the crusades&hellip;Tyerman tells us how the Church set about preaching the crusades, exploiting the perennial pessimism and guilt of the European nobility of the Middle Ages. He shows how crusading ideology penetrated the religious sensibility of the period, as well as its secular fiction and poetry&hellip;Of all the modern histories of the crusades it is the shrewdest, the most reliable and the most complete.&rsquo; &ndash; The Spectator

Christopher Tyerman

An impressive synthesis of a complicated subject, presented in elegant, readable prose. Not many historians could have done it

His deeply researched study is dedicated to exploring the relationship between human reason and religious war in all its aspects - justification, propaganda, recruitment, finance, logistics - to show us how 'reason made religious war possible.'

Mining details on victualing and logistics 800 years ago is Tyerman's forte, and he throws them on to the page like chaff from a trebuchet... it is comprehensive, laying down a great skein of fact where there was only supposition (much of it false). And, as the West gears up for the crusade of 2015-16 against Islamic State, it is horribly timely.

Tyerman's book is fascinating not just for what it has to tell us about the Crusades, but for the mirror it holds up to today's religious extremism

How to Plan a Crusade is serious and scholarly, the synthesis of decades of work on difficult, fragmented sources. Administrative records weren't routinely kept until around 1300, which makes Tyerman's task harder and more impressive...this is also a lively book, laced with wry asides and enough surprising details to pique the general reader.

There is a deeper story here about the rise in Britain of both class structure and bureaucracy...

Wonderfully written and characteristically brilliant account of the logistics (and motivations) that underpinned the Crusades

Reason and Religious War in the High Middle Ages

In this highly original and enjoyable book, Christopher Tyerman focuses on the massive, all-encompassing and hugely costly business of actually preparing a crusade. The efforts of many thousands of men and women, who left their lands and families in Western Europe, and marched off to a highly uncertain future in the Holy Land and elsewhere have never been sufficiently understood. How to Plan a Crusade is fascinating on diplomacy, communications, propaganda, the use of mass media, medical care, equipment, voyages, money, weapons, credit, wills, ransoms, animals, and the power of prayer. It brings to life an extraordinary era in a novel and surprising way.

Christopher Tyerman

Praise for How to Plan a Crusade

An impressive synthesis of a complicated subject, presented in elegant, readable prose. Not many historians could have done it

His deeply researched study is dedicated to exploring the relationship between human reason and religious war in all its aspects - justification, propaganda, recruitment, finance, logistics - to show us how 'reason ...

Mining details on victualing and logistics 800 years ago is Tyerman's forte, and he throws them on to the page like chaff from a trebuchet... it is comprehensive, laying down a great skein of fact where there was on ...

An impressive synthesis of a complicated subject, presented in elegant, readable prose. Not many historians could have done it

His deeply researched study is dedicated to exploring the relationship between human reason and religious war in all its aspects - justification, propaganda, recruitment, finance, logistics - to show us how 'reason ...

Mining details on victualing and logistics 800 years ago is Tyerman's forte, and he throws them on to the page like chaff from a trebuchet... it is comprehensive, laying down a great skein of fact where there was on ...

An impressive synthesis of a complicated subject, presented in elegant, readable prose. Not many historians could have done it

His deeply researched study is dedicated to exploring the relationship between human reason and religious war in all its aspects - justification, propaganda, recruitment, finance, logistics - to show us how 'reason ...

Mining details on victualing and logistics 800 years ago is Tyerman's forte, and he throws them on to the page like chaff from a trebuchet... it is comprehensive, laying down a great skein of fact where there was on ...

Books by Christopher Tyerman

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