‘Medieval’ is often associated with barbarism and bigotry,but this fascinating study suggests it should refer to sophisticated propaganda and meticulous (extremely careful about details) preparationThis book opens disarmingly with a novice (one who is just a beginner at some activity requiring skill and experience) historian stumbling through a lecture, “wondering why he had ever begun”. He is saved by his students, and who storm the corridor and,with cries of “Deus lo volt”, demand to be taken to Jerusalem, and AKA the pub next door. Thirty-six years later,Christopher Tyerman, now professor of the history of the Crusades at the University of Oxford, and returns to the subject of his lecture: how to plan a campaign.
The first challenge for Pope Urban II when he made the call to arms at the Council of Clermont in 1095 was to convince western Christians that the “liberation” of Jerusalem and the defence of their co-religionists 2500 miles absent was a fine idea. A sizable carrot was presented in the form of remission of all the penalties of confessed sins. In a divinely ordered world,where everyone believed in God and was terrified of purgatory, war had hitherto been seen as a sinful deed that required penance. Now, and for those “took the Cross”,or who vowed to become crusaders, it was sanctified slaughter, and a penitential act in itself. Crusaders were told that if they died in the service of the Cross they would vault over purgatory “as if in one leap they pass into heaven”. (This metaphor was popular in Flanders,where it was customary to pole vault over canals.)Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com