Tolerance and Intolerance: Social Conflict in the Age of the Crusades ed. by Michael Gervers, James M. Powell (review)

370 letters in canada 2001 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 values and the literary imagination shows Augustine=s contribution towards establishing the link between ethics and literature through narrative, especially personal narrative. Careful distinctions are made between Augustine and such >reflective thinkers= of antiquity as Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. The chapter on ancient literary realism offers subtle modifications to the well-known work of Erich Auerbach by comparing Augustine=s uses of representation with one of his sources, Porphyry. The following chapter on the problem of self-representation compares the uses of reading and writing in Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Augustine, who alike see these activities not as ends in themselves, but as a means to make a better person. The chapter moves forward to consider Abelard, Hugh of St Victor, Guigo I the Carthusian, and Christina of Markyate. This is followed by one of the most incisive chapters, on Petrarch=s portrait of Augustine in the Secretum. Here Petrarch is placed in a broad context of writing on the self that extends from Augustine through Descartes. Chapter 6 compares More=s Utopia with Plato=s Republic and Augustine=s City of God. In More, contemplation of an idealized community is not only an ascetic exercise, but articulates a new humanist program of social change. The last chapter takes up lectio spiritualis, or the use of reading and writing as a contemplative practice, as an unrecognized factor in the formation of European identity. This is a precisely focused, nuanced argument that refines the broad perceptions of Auerbach and Curtius on the Latin Middle Ages, romance philology, and European identity. Not all the chapters of this study are equally successful B sometimes the argument is not sufficiently developed, or leaves us wishing for clarification . But Stock=s inventiveness, powers of synthesis, and ability to analyse across a broad spectrum of texts and historical periods are everywhere apparent. This study of Augustine and meditative reading is a stimulus that provokes productive reflection on many aspects of Western European culture since antiquity. (THOMAS H. BESTUL) Michael Gervers and James M. Powell, editors. Tolerance and Intolerance: Social Conflict in the Age of the Crusades Syracuse University Press. xx, 192. US $18.95 This volume deals with the neglected subject of the policy towards minority groups, some within Europe itself, others on its geographical periphery, during the Crusader age. The Crusades confronted Western Christianity with the renewed problem of dealing with substantial populations of Christian schismatics B such as Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, and other Eastern Christians B along with Muslims, Jews, and pagans. The editors argue that their volume will illustrate how the conflicts of this period served as a necessary precedent for the rising struggle for toleration in the humanities 371 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Each paper was first given as a talk before the Society for the Study of the Latin East held at the Eighteenth International Congress of Historical Sciences in Montreal in 1995, focusing on aspects of the Crusaders= attitude towards their adversaries and uneasy allies. All of the papers stray from the well-worn discussion of Crusader ideology, and reveal that practical considerations often outweighed theology as the driving force of public policy. The first part of the volume deals with >Confrontation, Captivity, Redemption .= In this section, David Hay tackles two intriguing questions: whether the term >massacre= is an accurate reflection of the battles of this Crusade; and how extensive was the killing of women and other noncombatants . He suggests that the texts must be read more critically, since exaggeration often characterized both medieval and modern historians. Yaacov Lev likewise warns that the ransom and treatment of prisoners during these local conflicts was determined not only by religious considerations but also by strategic and economic motives, sometimes leading to a brutal and inhumane desire for revenge. The same theme is addressed by James Brodman, who documents the creation of new religious orders along with papal and secular efforts to ransom prisoners by using the rhetoric of Crusader ideology. The second part addresses >Cooperation, Conflict and Issues of Identity.= James Ryan chronicles the period...