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England and the Crusades, 1095-1588

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Christopher Tyerman's England and the Crusades, 1095-1588 proves to be a book of relatively complex nature but thanks to some skillful writing and superb research, it proves to be quite readable. This book is about the political, economic and social impact the crusades had on England and the role England played during these crusades. There isn't much of the military aspect here and anyone looking for that would be deeply disappointed. What you get instead is how clever the taxes were, how money were generated, impact among families, parishes and the cost of going to the crusades with political and religious considerations as a factor. Much of the book covered during the core period of the crusades, between 1095 to 1400. Richard's Third Crusades get a lot of coverage since that was the primary English effort of the crusading period.

The book looks at how the crusades impacted on foreign and domestic politics. There's also a reflection of many Englishmen taking the cross and going to eastern Europe to fight the pagans there during the 14th and 15th century. Its probably cheaper to fight there then go all the way to the Holy Land. I was bit surprise that captured and ransoming of King Richard after his crusade wasn't given a major coverage considering how that had a major impact on England's social-economic well being.

Overall, an rather interesting book but its not for casual reader. Anyone reading this book got to have some deep interest in such matter. Author expect the reader to have some previous knowledge of the crusades and the book does not talk down to a novice level that much. A must reading for any English medieval history bluff.