Fighting for the Cross

What was it like to go on crusade? Why did you do it? What did you expect? How did you manage? Norman Housley's investigation of the experience of crusading and the mentalities of the participants is persuasive, scholarly and judicious. There have been plenty of narrative accounts of the crusades in recent years. This book is different. The focus is on the crusaders: their motivation, their religious ideas and spirituality, how they coped with their physical needs, and above all their aims and how they perceived the world into which they came. Professor Housley, who has done so much to champion the idea of crusading elsewhere in Europe and on its other frontiers, restricts himself to the crusades destined for the eastern Mediterranean. However, the reader cannot fail to be impressed by the range of his research, especially into the primary materials which are largely allowed to speak for themselves. While it is true that the writings of monks and clergy, especially those who remained at home, may distort the warriors’ experience and give an impression of what it was they thought they were doing in going on crusade that conforms more to the authors’ preconceptions than to reality, Housley is careful not to read more into his sources than they will reasonably bear. The picture he gives is of expeditions in which shipwreck, disease and starvation, not to mention the military actions of the enemy, were ever-present dangers. In some cases we can only wonder how the crusaders overcame the logistical difficulties that stood between them and their goal. Some of the ground is well trodden, but, especially in the later chapters which examine questions such as the religious devotion, the visions and miracles, the capacity to cope with setbacks and defeat, the changing attitudes to the Muslims and broadening of horizons, Housley has done well to pull together the disparate materials to produce a convincing picture. The fact is that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and especially between the late 1180s and 1250, an enormous amount of effort was put into sustaining the western presence in the Holy Land, and, but for the warfare and threat of warfare within Europe, there would have been much more. As Housley writes à propos the situation in the thirteenth century, ‘The Holy Land was always on the agenda but it never came first, and it needed to come first if it was to be saved’. But for many individuals crusading did come first, so much so that many perished. Although the idea took root, at a very early stage, that those who died were martyrs and assured of heaven, it is remarkable (as is pointed out in the concluding pages of the book) that, despite the energy shown by the church in mobilising the crusades, there was no large-scale commemoration of those who did not return

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