Customer Reviews

A History of the Crusades: Volume II The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100-1187

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I have read this Cambridge edition of Sir Steven Runciman's great three-volume "History of the Crusades". I can only say that the narrative is excelent, and that in my opinion it is difficult to find another book that describes so well, and in both detailed and concise ways, the two centuries of history of the Frankish states in Syria. The first volume comprises the whole first Crusade, from its origins to the establishment of the four Latin states: the Principality of Antioch, the counties of Edessa and Tripoli, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The second volume tells the history of those princedoms for almost a century, including the fall of Edessa, until the great defeat of the first Kingdom of Jerusalem, that for a long time had been an established Christian power in Palestine, extending well beyond the Jordan river. The third volume speaks of the last century of Outremer, reduced only to coast defenses, no longer powerful, and always in peril, until the fall of (St. John of) Accre in 1291. Two centuries where the main characters are the Frankish and Norman lords of the first Crusade, the Eastern Roman emperors of Constantinople (especially Alexius, John and Manuel Comnenus) and the now weak though organized Byzantine armies, the Counts of Edessa and Tripoli, the Princes of Antioch, the Kings of the Jerusalem (especially until the end of the first and mighty Kingdom), the pious Christian crusaders and the evil adventurers, the great and wise Saladin, Richard the Lionheart and the men of the Third Crusade, the shamefull venetians and Frenchmen who pillaged Constantinople in the so-called "Fourth Crusade", the fighting monks of the three great military orders (Temple, Hospital and Teutonic Knights), the Palestine-born barons who kept what remained of the Christian Holy Land, the Nestorian Mongols, the native Christians of Syrian or Greek stock, the Arab neighbours, the Armenian princedom in Asia Minor, the Moslem Turks and other related stocks, the cruel Egyptian Mameluks. It is a history of great achievements, brave and pious actions, great and doomed expeditions, treasons, cruelty (on both sides), great honour (Saladin is a good exemple), terrible defeats, a sudden resurrection, religious tolerance and also intolerance, etc. In summary, these three volumes include a wide range of developments, always seen from an independent and critical standpoint. Two hundred years of the history of a whole world that once existed and now is forever gone. Today its only remants are those Arab-speaking eastern Christians who due to the Crusader's activities turned to obbey the Roman Church, some Latin churches and castles, and the remembrances (brought again to life by this work) of one of mankind's greatest adventures.

When I was young, the Crusades were portrayed as brief incursions -- not much more than prolonged raids. It was not until I read Runciman's 3 volume history that the duration of the kingdoms established by the crusades became clear. Runciman was a gifted historian -- combining scholarship with story telling -- and this is arguably his finest work. While I have heard opinions that these books are "dated" -- and this is probably true -- I think the average reader looking to get a compelling overview of the crusades could not any better than this and the 2 volumes that follow.

Years ago, I had purchased this volume and Volume III in the old Harper Colophon paperback edition. I had to wait over 20 years before Volume I came back into print -- and then in one glorious summer I read all three volumes. (Just recently, I sprang for the deluxe Folio Society hardbound edition: I mean to re-read it some day.)

If you have any interest in the Middle Ages, or even in the pre-history of today's Middle East crises, this series is your starting point. The crusades bring together the best and worst of men, from Godfrey of Bouillon and Saladin on one hand, to the bickering kinglets of the later Crusades on the other.

The story of the Crusader Kingdoms is the subject of this volume. It is a long story of greed and attrition, leading to their extinction as the Saracens' power waxed and the Western monarchies' political will and religious zeal waned. The rise of nationalism in Western Europe sounded the death knell to the centuries'-long quest to regain the Holy Land.

Curiously, it was the Saracens who were tolerant to their subject peoples, and the Crusader Kingdoms who were not. The Jews and Christians had a much better time of it under Turkish rule than under the voracious princelings of the Kindgoms of Armenia, Edessa, Jerusalem, and so on. We have yet to learn our lessons from this conflict -- and we are still paying the price.

This, the third volume in Runciman's three volume history, is an excellent finale. The narrative focuses on the Acre, the last of the Crusader states, but the real treat is in Runciman's analysis of the effects of the Crusades. Well written and excellently researched, this is the definitive history of the Crusades from a European view.

This second volume of Steven Runciman's three-volume history of the crusades is a masterful piece of scholarship and historiography. If all historians read Runciman's History of the Crusades and learned of his style, there would be fewer complaints from readers that histories are dry, crusty stories.

Indeed, Runciman artfully weaves several elements such as the rise and fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the zenith of Byzantium and the ascension of the Turkish power in the persons of Zenghi, Nur ed-din and Saladin powerful, gripping narrative that brings the rogues and heroes of the crusades to life. Runciman skillfully explains the court intrigues behind the scenes in the crusader kingdom and fiefdoms, the delicate balance of power between Byzantium and the Frankish east and the Turks and the rivalry between Turkish clans and leaders.

This second novel concerns the rise and fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, its place in the three-volume set is critical in that Runciman articulates a few of his his theories concerning the lessons learned from the crusades, and they are difficult to refute. Runciman of particular relevance to contemporary foreign policy in that region, Runciman notices that the politically fractious Turks discovered a unifying force in the presence of the alien Franks, which became a focal point in the development of a pan-Turkish/Muslin identity and a nexus for action. Also, Runciman argues that first-generation crusaders acclimated to local political and cultural customs and could have co-existed to some degree with the Turks and Muslims had it not been for the brash crusaders that arrived after the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and viewed the situation in more stark, black-and-white terms. Runciman also holds that the Latins could have made more effective use of Byzantium in formulating policy for the east rather than competing with it in some instances and altogether ignoring it in others. Finally, while Runciman assumes that the triumph of Islam in the crusades was an inevitability (mostly due to the policies chosen by the petty nobles that arrived in the east after the first crusade to aggrandize rather than consolidate crusader power) there were shrewd, far-sighted individuals and more of these distinguished men could have stemmed the tide a bit longer. In other words, qualities such as leadership and "the vision thing" are timeless.

Like the first book in the set, this book combines scholarly accuracy and detail with a narrative skill even popular-level history writers would envy. This book manages to surpass even Runciman's stellar history of the First Crusade. It has the same level of scholarship and readability as the first volume, but the period covered in this volume is even more interesting than the first, making this the pinnacle of Runciman's trilogy. Beginning with the expansion of the Latin Kingdom following the First Crusade, Runciman takes us through the golden years of the kingdom, the beginnings of the great military orders, Saladin's rise to power, and the complex interplay of the factions surrounding the crusader states.

What makes this volume better than the rest is a combination of the great amount of detail in this volume (compared to the less-detailed third volume, which covers much more in the same amount of space), the enthusiasm he shows for the subject (which is lessened in other volumes which involve the crusaders beating up on his beloved Byzantines), and the very interesting characters who lived in this period. From the great statesman Baldwin and the heroic Leper King to the great Byzantine Emperor Manuel to the Old Man of the Mountain and the enigmatic Reynald de Chatillon, this period was filled with characters it would be difficult to write a boring book about. Runciman shows he is up to the task of bringing together a coherent account of the motives and actions of all of these characters, and he does so in a way that makes it fairly easy to keep track of who is who and what is going on.

This may be the single greatest volume written about the crusades, though it only covers one crusade (the second, which did very little and gets only one chapter) and is primarily focused on the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Principality of Antioch. It is both accurate and readable. It is, in fact, more than readable. It is something quite rare in the world of academic history books; it is fun. Runciman has a tendency to indirectly point out humerus ironies, mock the characters in the story, and make subtle sarcastic remarks. It takes a little while to catch on to his dry humor, but it really makes the book a delight to read. Anyone who can combine witty, engaging writing with the level of scholarship present in this book deserves the recognition Runciman has received as the writer of the greatest account of the crusades ever produced.

Runciman was a genius. A brilliant writer in English, whose grand ambitions never lead him astray from the most meticulous separation of fact from speculation, he was also an extraordinary polyglot. He read not only the Latin, Old French and Greek among the contemporary accounts of the Crusades, but the Arabic, Syriac, Persian, Hebrew, Gergian, Ethiopic, Slavonic, Norse and Mongolian as well, not to mention modern secondary works in many more languages still. If he shows any favoritism at all among the warring factions of the Crusades, then it is towards the Byzantine Greeks, although what looks like favoritism to me may only be due to my own ignorance. Even if I'm right about his favoring the Greeks, Runciman is still by far the most impartial historian of the Crusades known to me. He's certainly the only one who took the trouble and had the talent to read all the sources in the original. (Most people who've read widely in more than one language can probably appreciate how much tends to be lost in translation, not to mention how much is never translated at all.) As if his reading weren't enough, he often walked through the cities and over the battlefields which he describes in his works, in order to discover things which no one had yet written.

Runciman makes sweeping judgements and expresses strong opinions, although these are often decently hidden between the lines of his polite Cambridge prose. But all of his judgements and opinions have the support of the most solid scholarship.

I recommend the three-volume 'History of the Crusades'. The book 'The First Crusade' is an abridgement of the first volume, without footnotes or appendices or bibliography. In addition to the the three-volume history, I also have a copy of the abridgement 'The First Crusade', but it's the illustrated hardcover edition, ISBN 0521232554. I got it just for the pictures, many in color. The three volumes of the 'History of the Crusades' have a few black-and-white illustrations, and the paperback edition of 'The First Crusade' has no illustrations.

All three volumes of this historical work are written extremely well. They are very enjoyable to read. Sir Runciman's observations and personal conclusions are well reasoned and seem unprejudiced. These volumes (3)are among the most enjoyable works I have read on the history of the crusades, I recommend them to anyone interested in a realistic but balanced look at the Crusades and their contributions to Western Civilization as well as their problematic execution. Pax Tecum Fr Bill

I am not sure if it was the subject matter, but I enjoyed this book more than the other two in the trilogy. This one focused on the high tide of the Crusader States and shows them in all their glory and shame. The political manueverings of the Crusaders, the Western Europeans and the Muslims was quite interesting. I knew little of this period before reading these books and was confused at some points. A little foreknowledge might be helpful.

This series of three books provides a comprehensive and detailed history of the crusades in Outremer. It is very readable, and although there have been recent re-visualisations of this era, these books still remain the seminal secondary source for this history.

The format is perhaps a little old, but these books are invaluable for anyone who is interested in the history of the crusades.