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ORB Online EncyclopediaCrusades
A Commentary on the BBC Series
By Paul Crawford
Recently one of the medieval discussion lists raised questions about the usefulness of the BBC Crusades series, hosted by Terry Jones. Without picking too many nits (easy to do to popular presentations of medieval subject matter, and not always fair), let me give my basic objections to the series.
- Jones based his approach on an outdated historiographical approach. He presents the Crusaders as stupid, smelly barbarians who were merely out to make a quick buck (denarius?) and if possible have some fun breaking somebody's head while they were at it.
This used to be the general view of crusades, and one of its best-known proponents is Sir Steven Runciman. It mars his otherwise superb narrative history of the crusades.
But this view has been carefully disassembled by a number of crusade historians in the last 30 years or more, most notably by Jonathan Riley-Smith. Riley-Smith and his students (and others) have shown that there were at least as many motives for crusading as there were crusaders, and that crusading was generally a very expensive and risky proposition that drained Western Europe of money and manpower. It was very far from being just a way for western criminals to enhance their personal fortunes.
As for the idea that crusaders were merely smelly, stupid barbarians: well, that would likely find acceptance with the same people who believe in the Dark Ages and jus primae noctis, and use "medieval" as a pejorative adjective.
- Jones presents the crusaders (and often their opponents, too) as cartoon characters, objects of mirth, unreal figures. This is one reason why I referred to the series as "Monty Python Goes on Crusade."
This approach certainly does hold students' attention much better than a serious, documentary approach, and I too find it very tempting to adopt in my own classes. But I think it does a great disservice both to the subjects and to the students. The men and women on both sides of the Crusades were real people, with real hopes and fears, who gained great triumphs and suffered appalling losses, and in between lived rather ordinary lives. We trivialize their humanity, and deny our students the opportunity to acquaint themselves with a diversity of opinion and experience far more profound than any they might encounter in the modern world, if we reduce our historical subjects to the sort of cartoon characters and joke-butts that Jones makes them out to be.
Our business is primarily to educate, not to entertain, is it not? If both can occur at once, good; but if not....
- Jones is profoundly unsympathetic to the Crusaders, evidently because they were often deeply religious (and worse, Christian--gasp!). He ridicules their beliefs and ignores their arguments in favor of crusading (arguments which were often carefully constructed and quite sophisticated, regardless of whether or not one is convinced by all, some, or none of them). This does an unacceptable level of violence to the historical record.
He also tends to treat the Muslims as though they were modern, secular Westerners, infinitely tolerant of dissent and dedicated to religious freedom, instead of persons as devoutly, aggressively and unquestioningly Muslim as their Frankish counterparts were unquestioningly Christian. He completely ignores (or cannot understand) the fact that a nonreligious worldview was virtually incomprehensible to most people of the time. This bias is both more subtle and more misleading than his generally open contempt of Christianity. The Muslims would likely have been appalled by Jones' view of religion, and would probably have had his head for it (cf. their disgust with Frederick II's disrespect to his own religion).
- The infamous 18th-century Venetian masquerade as a part of the 12th-and13th-century 4th Crusade is perhaps the most egregious example of Jones' contempt for historical subtlety. Here, instead of giving a balanced view of theories on the misdirection of the 4th crusade, Jones merely substitutes some silly, irrelevant eye-candy for the viewer and leaves us not one whit the wiser about how such a remarkable diversion could occur. This cavalier attitude toward facts and impartiality destroys the usefulness of the whole series--or at least, it destroys the usefulness of the 1.5 episodes I could stand to watch. I can't, obviously, vouch for the others, but I leafed through the book which accompanies the series, and found it subject to the same breezy carelessness.
I'm certainly not against the use of humor, by the way: only its use when it obscures the reality and the humanity of our historical subjects. And I'm not against the use of films that are occasionally historically imprecise, either. That is perhaps holding filmmakers to too great a standard of accuracy. But I don't think they should be allowed to distort the facts ruthlessly, constantly, and consistently in favor of one side over the other.
For non-scholars who wish to explore the Crusades for themselves, ORB recommends the following historical resources:
- Billings, Malcolm. The Crusades: Five Centuries of Holy Wars, Sterling, 1996. (Published in England as The Cross and the Crescent.)
This is the best introduction. It reflects scholarly, up-to-date historiography in easily readable language and format; full of gorgeous pictures, many in color. Highly recommended for the beginner, and also for those who know a little and want to know more.
- Bennett, Matthew, with N. Hooper. The Cambridge Illustrated Atlas of Medieval Warfare: The Middle Ages 768-907, Cambridge, 1996.
Lots of color pictures and maps. Includes treatment of many of the Crusades.
- Gabrieli, Francesco. Arab Historians of the Crusades, London, 1969.
Contains translations of sources from the Muslim side. Easily readable and generally reliable. Still available through Barnes & Noble, Scholars' Bookshelf, and other publishers.
- Hallam, Elizabeth, ed. Chronicles of the Crusades, New York, 1989.
Consists primarily of a wide variety of translations of chronicles and other sources. Large coffee-table format with a plethora of wonderful photographs, joined to solid scholarship and readable text. Highly recommended.
- Mayer, Hans Eberhard, trans. J. Gillingham. The Crusades, Oxford, 1965, 1972.
Textbook-style treatment of the eight Crusades to the Holy Land; the best representative of the school of thought which believes that only expeditions to the Holy Land were true Crusades (disregarding Spain, the Baltic, southern France, and elsewhere).
- Riley-Smith, Jonathan, ed. The Atlas of the Crusades, New York & Oxford, 1991.
Wonderful resource, filled with maps, pictures, and reliable text. Highly recommended.
- Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades: A Short History, New Haven & London, 1987.
Another textbook-style treatment of the Crusades, by a historian who believes that Crusades went not only to the Holy Land but also to other areas of the medieval world. Highly recommended.
- Riley-Smith, Jonathan, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, Oxford et al., 1995.
A collection of extended essays by recognized Crusade scholars. Pictures. Best for the reader who has absorbed Billings' and Riley-Smith's books title The Crusades (see above), and who wants more.
- Riley-Smith, Jonathan. What Were the Crusades?, 2nd ed., London et al., 1992.
Excellent introduction to the technical study of the Crusades; explains motivations, types of Crusades, etc. Very brief; almost a pamphlet. Rather difficult to obtain in the USA.
- Runciman, Sir Stephen. A History of the Crusades, 3 vols., Cambridge,1951-4.
Probably the most brilliant narrative treatment of the Crusades ever written. Unfortunately marred by outdated scholarship which often treats the Crusaders as unsophisticated, stupid, and more wicked than their contemporaries. But so well-written that it can still be read with profit and pleasure as long as one remembers its shortcomings.
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