God's War offers a sweeping new vision of one of history's most astounding events: the Crusades. From 1096 to 1500, European Christians fought to recreate the Middle East, Muslim Spain, and the pagan Baltic in the image of their God. The Crusades are perhaps both the most familiar and most misunderstood phenomena of the medieval world, and here Christopher Tyerman seeks to recreate, from the ...
God's War: A New History of the Crusades - Barnes & Noble
God's War: A New History of the Crusades - Christopher Tyerman - Google ...
God’s War is reasonably if not totally comprehensive. The first four Crusades are covered in minute detail, the later Crusades less so. Tyerman, however, also discusses many related movements not normally considered as crusades, such as the Reconquista in Spain and Teutonic campaigns in the Baltic, and even the expansion of the concept of holy war to the conquest of the New World. This ...
The result is a reinterpretation of the Crusades, revealed as both bloody political acts and a manifestation of a growing Christian communal identity. Tyerman uncovers a system of belief bound by aggression, paranoia, and wishful thinking, and a culture founded on war as an expression of worship, social discipline, and Christian charity.
The foundation of Christian Outremer -- The Latin states -- East is east and east is west: Outremer in the twelfth century -- The Second Crusade. A new path to salvation? Western Christendom and holy war, 1100-1145 -- God's bargain: summoning the Second Crusade -- 'The spirit of the pilgrim God': fighting the Second Crusade -- The Third Crusade.