"The First Crusade" by Peter Frankopan

When, in November 1095, Pope Urban II preached at Clermont, France, in about the need for a crusade to recover Jerusalem from the Muslims, it was partly to boost his own standing (he was one of two alternative popes, the other having control of Rome) and partly in response to a call for help from Byzantine emperor  Alexios I Komnenos. This book rewrites the myths to show how important Alexios was to the ultimately successful campaign to retake Jerusalem. Even though he was never physically present, preferring to lead from Constantinople, and was therefore accused of cowardice (unfairly, as a soldier before he became emperor and subsequently as emperor he often led his armies in the field) and sidelined by a history mostly written by the westerners, nevertheless his contribution to the logistics, ensuring that the armies were almost always well-provisioned, was crucial. 

This book is therefore an important contribution to the history of those times, as well as being immensely readable. Of all the characters, my favourite is the immensely brave and hugely talented soldier Bohemond who decided to keep Antioch for himself thus provoking a crisis in the leadership of the allies. When Bohemond returned home to the west he needed to pass through waters controlled by Byzantium. “Bohemond was so convinced that the emperor would take revenge for his treachery during the Crusade that he travelled home in secret. He even spread reports that he had died and had a coffin designed which purported to be carrying his corpse. As his ship passed through imperial waters, he lay in his sarcophagus alongside a dead chicken whose rotting carcase lent the coffin a powerful and unmistakable smell of death.” (Ch 10)

Readable and interesting. June 2024; 206 pages

Peter Frankopan also write The New Silk Roads

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"Saladin" by John Man

A biography of the 12th Century Islamic warrior who confronted Richard the Lionheart in the Third Crusade.

And what a man! Son of a provincial governor, Saladin was a Kurd born in Tikrit (later famous as the home of Sadam Hussein) who grew up in Damascus. He rose to become a mostly successful warrior and a ruler (under his emir and caliph) of an area stretching from Egypt to Turkey. He managed to combine ruthlessness where necessary with justice and mercy becoming famed for his chivalry, his trustworthiness and his generosity and doing his best to negotiate rather than fight. He destroyed the crusader states that had been set up after the First Crusade, reducing the Kingdom of Jerusalem to a tiny coastal strip (which didn't include Jerusalem) although having taken Acre he lost it again to the Third Crusaders,

And what a biography. I read Man's Genghis Khan about ten years ago and found it heavy going but this was a delightful read. There was sufficient scholarship but not too much and lots of fascinating facts and some interesting perspectives: the twelfth century problems of the middle east provide a carefully curved mirror in which to view today's issues. One might almost see modern Israel as a foreign (US) sponsored crusader state in the middle of a fragmented Islamic world; Sunni and Shi'a still scrap, the Assassins were the suicide bombers of their time, and today's civil strife in Syria with its shifting and reshifting alliances are an echo of the division of Saladin's day.

And it had two really helpful maps!

There were lots of bits I thought: I must find out more about this. That's always a good sign. But here are the very best of the good bits:

• In Baalbek in Lebanon there are thousand tonne megaliths which are even today "the worlds's greatest hewn stones ... twenty times the weight of the megaliths of Stonehenge" (p 23)
• "medieval Islam hungered for learning and inspired brilliant scholarship. Paper displaced papyrus, bookshops thrived, libraries graced the homes of the rich ... one street in Damascus had a hundred bookshops." (p 25)
• "The only way to survive was to flee or to fawn: 'Kiss any arm you cannot break'." (p 43)
• On Mount Qasiyoun just north of Damascus "Cain killed his brother Abel" (p 58)
• "He lacks words for what he sees, and then lacks words to describe his own inadequacy." (p 60)
• "seize the chance of undistracted study and seclusion before a wife and children cling to you and you gnash your teeth in regret at the time you lost." (p 62)
• "a grim landscape of forested valleys and bare hills, surging like a wrestler's muscles" (p 68)
• Frank Amalric sealed an alliance with the young Caliph of Egypt with "an ungloved handshake, a precedent utterly shocking to courtiers used to their ruler's untouchability." (p 90)
• "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a princess without a husband must be in need of a prince - acknowledged not by the princess, perhaps, but certainly by those with the power to choose the husband" (p 136)
• "Raymond was a legend for his bravery, good looks, charm and strength: they said he could crush a stirrup with one hand (which seems a silly way to prove one's strength; a horseshoe, maybe, but why a stirrup?)." (p 136 - 137)
• Saladin put the Melkites in charge of the Holy Sepulchre "a sect that traces its rituals back to the Apostles." (p 253)
• "licentious harlots ... selling themselves for gold, bold and ardent, loving and passionate, ink-faced and unblushing" (p 272)
• "Lord Shang, writing in China in about 400 BC ... advised that for those who rule might is right, power everything. Human beings are idle, greedy, cowardly, treacherous, foolish and shifty. The only way to deal with them is to entice, terrify, reward and punish." (p 320)
• "people who had endured terrible experiences, yet come through well psychologically ... shared a belief that the universe is fundamentally a supportive place, that it rewards action, and that any setback is a challenge to be overcome." (p 322)

A wonderful, extraordinarily readable biography. April 2018; 358 pages

"The Spring Voyage" by R J Mitchell

In 1458 two galleys travelled from Venice to the Holy Land (via Dubrovnik, Rhodes etc). They were packed with pilgrims (one of them a founding fellow at the newly established Eton College), three of whom kept detailed diaries. So this is a historical reconstruction of their trip.

They meet in Venice where they take the Venetian galleys which have been allocated, by auction (it was a lucrative trade) to take pilgrims to the Holy Land. The book details the voyage, via Dubrovnik and Rhodes and Cyprus, and the hardships the pilgrims endured (and grumbled about). They then travelled overland to Jerusalem where they 'did the sights' like any modern tourist would. There were not terrible dangers (though some of them died from sickness) nor bandits (though they encountered and escaped from a pirate ship) nor incredible rip-offs (although there were enumerable small ones). Nevertheless this book gives an authentic account of life near the end of the middle ages.

After Jerusalem most of the party returned home the way they had come although one very small group continued to the monastery of St Catherine at the foot of Mount Sinai. On the way back this group went to Matariya, on the outskirts of Cairo, where the Holy Family (the book is of an age where all such references are capitalised) rested during the flight into Egypt and a Garden of Balm trees grew up; it was then claimed (is it still true) that this was the only place in the world where these trees (Commiphora opobalsmum) grew. Although wikipedia records that Matariya was part of the ancient Egyptian city of Heliopolis, the gardens nor the legend of the Holy Family are not recorded; balm is recorded as stemming from a variety of trees from across the world, it is associated with the Balm of Gilead from the Bible and with a potential ingredient of Greek Fire.

Perhaps there is a book to be written on balm.

The pilgrims also saw a giraffe (a "zaraffa"): "white skinned with red spots; it is lower at the read end than at the front. It has a supple neck of three arms' length, a long head with a pointed nose, eyes that are large and rather like those of an ox, large ears like a cow's, on the top of its head two little horns like those of a young goat." (p 158). A  pretty good description"!

Other nice bits:

• "In medieval times most laymen, as well as the great majority of clerics, led extraordinarily static and insipid lives." (p 15)
• "Ordinary men and women ... faced the rigours and hardships without flinching, indeed, with every sign of pleasure." (p 15)
• "a Venetian ducat ... was worth less in Cyprus than in Rhodes. It would seem that the value diminished as the distance from Venice diminished." (p 19)
• "On a pilgrimage the mouth of your purse must always be open." (p 25)
• "Also take with yew a lytel cawdren and frying pan, dysches, platterys, sawserrys of tre, cuppes of glas, a grater for brede, and such necessaryes." (p 51)

An interesting account of an obscure voyage: keep it for reference! June 2017; 184 pages

"Jerusalem" by Simon Sebag Montefiore

This book is a comprehensive history of Jerusalem from at least 1500 BC. It scarcely ever flag: with 2,500 years of history to get through it is difficult to see how it could!

But.

All the reviewers rave about it. Charles Moore, Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, Colin Thubron... Who am I to disagree?

Although it acknowledges that the only source of information for much of the early history is the Old Testament and although it notes that there are inconsistencies and multiple voices in the OT nevertheless it then treats much of what has then been said as fact. And repeats it. So it is less a work of history than a retelling of the OT tales.

And I wonder how impartial SSM has been in his description of the more recent history.

But the most lasting impression from this monumental work is the tragedy of humanity. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a microcosm of the City which is a microcosm of the world. The Holy Sepulchre is used by eight (?) Christian sects including Copts, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Ethiopians and Catholics. They fight over their areas (you can lay claim to the floor you sweep so there are broom wars) and the right to have precedence during certain festivals. The fights extend to weapons including guns and cause injuries and sometimes deaths. Similarly the City is fought over by Moslems, Jews and Christians. In its history these fights have led to mutilation, castration, torture, bisection, impalement, crucifixion, burning and wholesale deportations, enslavements and massacres of entire populations.

The message of this book is that the more sacred something is, the more evil is done in its name. The message of this book is: Do not live in this city. It is accursed.

A monumental history. But this author has written better: the sometimes confusing but brilliant Stalin: In the Court of the Red Tsar and the unbelievably exciting Young Stalin.



August 2012; 628 pages