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"The Crusades first appeared in English translation in 1972 and was widely acclaimed both as a work of scholarship and as a teaching instrument that brilliantly encompassed within a single comprehensive volume the history of the crusades....[The new edition] will continue to provide the basic foundation for beginners and advanced students alike of the subject in an authoritative, orderly, and judicious manner."--History: Reviews of New Books
"Many have considered Mayer's work to be the best short introduction to the crusades. They will certainly applaud this updated edition."--Church History
"[Mayer] is the leading historian of the Crusades writing in German today."--The Catholic Historical Review
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THE geography of the world as men pictured it in the late eleventh century differed hardly at all from the conceptions formulated in classical times. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
THE geography of the world as men pictured it in the late eleventh century differed hardly at all from the conceptions formulated in classical times. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Mayer has produced an authoritative work that provides an excellent overview of the Crusading phenomenom. My only minor complaint is that sometimes it is too densely packed with detail and could do with a couple more maps. However I would strongly recommend this work to anyone who is serious about learning more of this fascinating area of history. I used this work when studying at University and have since looked back at it and it is still among the best. Forget about some of the coffee-table crusading books that are out there - get this one.
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53 of 54 people found the following review helpful
The Crusades: A Masterful Synthesis
5 July 2000
Format:Paperback
The second edition of Mayer's work on the crusades should be a basic text in any course dealing with the subject. It is lucidly written with a particularly good translation by John Gillingham.
Mayer has succeeded in explaining the crusade phenomeon within in the context of its own period by focusing on the societies which produced the crusaders. Mayer eschews the mono-causal explanations that too frequently pass for informed judgments in text books of medieval history. He turns instead to the numerous contemporary circumstances that led Christian men and women to make the long and difficult journey to the East. In particular, Mayer's effort to explain the problem of remission of sins and indulgences granted to crusaders is a model of clarity attained by few other historians dealing with the problem.
Although Mayer is at his best in dealing with the First Crusade, his treatment of the later crusades is also valuable.This is the only work of its kind that deals with the first century of crusading warfare as a unified whole.
the Crusades in a socico-political context
28 May 2012
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Mayer's treatment of the Crusades is outstanding. His examination of Europe's forays into the Levant between 1095 - 1291 shows the complex inter-relationship and on-again, off-again cooperation between various secular authorities, and the political competition between state and church. To my suprise, he also draws attention to the political turmoil within the Muslim states between 1095 - 1192 that was an accidental boon to the Crusading Europeans.
The majority of the book is concerned with the first three crusades (1096 - 1192) - the climate in which they were called, the goals and aims of the Church, the internal strife between various kings, princes and other aristocrats, the emergence of Crusading orders (the Templars, Hospitaliers and Teutons) and the "crusading states" the were established in the interm between waves of arriving religious warriors. The attention to deail is exquisite - the real strength of the book is the way in which Mayer puts the crusades in context with the myriad of forces at play, especially between the Pope and various secular authorities, and how this competition was exacerbated with the presence of crusader states in the eastern mediterranean. The last quarter of the book "skims" over the fourth and following crusades (although his discussion of competing theories of the foruth crusade: was it an accident or underhanded real politik that led to the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 and his treatment of the "children's crusade" made for fascinating reading), concluding with the arrival of the Mongols. The concluding chapters really read as if they were "phoned in" compared to his writing of the earlier crusades.
Having not read the original German, I can't comment on the quality of the translation, other than to say it reads clearly, albiet the scholarship may be a bit dated (the first German edition was published in 1965, the second edition which I read was published in 1990. Compared to Runciman A History of The Crusades, 3 Volume Set: The First Crusade, The Kingdom of Jerusalem, The Kingdom of Acre (Deluxe Folio Society Issue), I liked this better if only because Runciman is painfully detailed, making it difficult for all but the specialist to get lost in the forest for the trees. For those seeking a solid, well-written and thorough history of the early (first three) crusades, this would be my recommendation.
The majority of the book is concerned with the first three crusades (1096 - 1192) - the climate in which they were called, the goals and aims of the Church, the internal strife between various kings, princes and other aristocrats, the emergence of Crusading orders (the Templars, Hospitaliers and Teutons) and the "crusading states" the were established in the interm between waves of arriving religious warriors. The attention to deail is exquisite - the real strength of the book is the way in which Mayer puts the crusades in context with the myriad of forces at play, especially between the Pope and various secular authorities, and how this competition was exacerbated with the presence of crusader states in the eastern mediterranean. The last quarter of the book "skims" over the fourth and following crusades (although his discussion of competing theories of the foruth crusade: was it an accident or underhanded real politik that led to the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 and his treatment of the "children's crusade" made for fascinating reading), concluding with the arrival of the Mongols. The concluding chapters really read as if they were "phoned in" compared to his writing of the earlier crusades.
Having not read the original German, I can't comment on the quality of the translation, other than to say it reads clearly, albiet the scholarship may be a bit dated (the first German edition was published in 1965, the second edition which I read was published in 1990. Compared to Runciman A History of The Crusades, 3 Volume Set: The First Crusade, The Kingdom of Jerusalem, The Kingdom of Acre (Deluxe Folio Society Issue), I liked this better if only because Runciman is painfully detailed, making it difficult for all but the specialist to get lost in the forest for the trees. For those seeking a solid, well-written and thorough history of the early (first three) crusades, this would be my recommendation.
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