Customer Reviews

The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation (Crusade Texts in Translation)

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Like all the books from the "Crusade Texts in Translation" series, this one offers a magnificent set of primary source documents related to its subject, in this case, the Third Crusade.

The main body of this work is a portion of a chronicle written by a Latin from Outremer meant to continue the famous history of William of Tyre. The author is too generous with Saladin, striving to portray him as virtuous and merciful as possible in order to load criticism onto the European monarchs and nobles who participated in the Crusade. The idea is that if the nobles of Outremer had been more virtuous, the loss of Jerusalem would not have taken place. The Kingdom of Heaven movie seems to have almost entirely rellied on this account during the process of concocting their historical fiction, which would seem to suit them well, since part of their goal was to lionize Saladin and portray him as a far more open-minded and merciful leader than he actually was, while also demonizing the Templars in a way that is not congruent with historical reality. It is imporant to read this chronicle alongside another volume in this series "The Chronicle of the Third Crusade", along with the Muslim sources of these events, which can be found in "The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin" as well as the collection called "Arab Historians of the Crusades". Not surprisingly, the Muslim sources give a more accurate picture of Saladin as a man beant on annihilating Christians and Christianity from the world.

The final portion of this book contains several letters written by key figures of the Third Crusade, including some fascinating documents related to Richard the Lionheart. As a BA in history about to enter a graduate program in Crusades studies, I certainly reccommend this book.

This is a translation of William of Tyre's work. Alas, remember that William of Tyre's work can at times be reliable and other times, not. So be sure to read the other works.

This book pretty much sets up the narrative to what was going on in the Kingdom of Jerusalem between 1184-1197.

You get to read about the kind of politics that went on, western idealism of the Greek Empire (Eastern Romans) and their muslim contemporaries.

The tale starts out with Baldwin IV trying to disinherit Guy de Lusignan. Guy makes a raid on some bedouins (camel-herders) and Baldwin dies from the shock; due to his lepresy. Then the Kingdom goes to Baldwin V who is taken as regent by the Count of Tripoli, Raymond III, where the boy-king dies of lepresy also, sadly...there are quite a few things in here I simply don't want to spoil, but I hope that this review might get the blood pumping for more, I know I did. And still do. I hate William of Tyre for hating Templars, but dammit, it's a good book. You have all got to read this.