The First Crusade: Origins and Impact (review)

302 Reviews didactic. The author successfully demonstrates that proverbs were an integral part of the literary corpus of the troubadours and that there was an audience expectation of proverbial material and references to proverbs. Her book is scholarly, but most readable. One feature many readers will appreciate is her practice of citing in the original language important statements by Spanish and German scholars of Old Provencal, and then rendering them into English. Maxwell J. Walkley Department of French Studies University of Sydney Phillips, Jonathan, ed., The First Crusade: Origins and Impact, Manchester and N e w York, Manchester University Press, 1997; paper; pp. xvi, 202; 4 maps; R.R.P. not known. The first crusade remains one of the most intriguing events of Middle Ages. The success of a group of armies from western Europe in capturing Jerusalem in 1099 continues to astonish, and attempts to place it with reference to developments in European life during the eleventh century have suggested important ways of thinking about the society within which it originated. The importance of the topic makes bulletins describing recent work welcome, and it is for the interest of the reports it contains, by both established and youthful scholars working in Britain, that this book will be welcomed. A quick survey will give an idea of the ground the contributors cover. John France evaluates patronage and the appeal of the crusade in a fascinating discussion, although one perhaps a little lacking in focus. More traditional in its approach is the Reviews 303 elegantly written paper by Colin Morris, w h o teases implications concerning Peter the Hermit out of the narrative sources which mention him. Marcus Bull demonstrates h o w the composition of charters had been developing in ways which make them useful for historians of thefirstcrusade, without, however, using them to any great extent to throw light on the movement. Alan Murray considers a German text of the sixteenth century, the Chronicle of Zimmern, and argues persuasively that it need not be taken seriously as a source for the crusade. By showing, on the basis of Arab sources, h o w disunited the Islamic world was at the end of the eleventh century, Carole Hillenbrand suggests that the Seljuq Turks were prepared to sacrifice Jerusalem. Thomas Ashbridge interprets campaigns fought on a plateau near Antioch in 1098 in the light of a struggle between Bohemond and R a y m o n d of Toulouse for control of the city, while William G. Zajac contributes a rich discussion of captured booty. The editor contributes a brief postscript, and the book concludes with a chronology of key events and a select bibliography. Two contributions constitute the pick of the crop. Susan Edington argues for a re-evaluation of the account of Albert of Aachen which would make the first crusade look considerably more German and less disposed to hostility towards the Byzantines than the other texts would have us believe; along the w a y she provides an effective critique of Runciman's use of Albert. One may wonder whether there was anything n e w to say about relations between the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus and the first crusade, but Jonathan Shepard's discussion of the topic not only covers all the bases but takes the question m u c h further, by using evidence contained in a text which describes the bringing of relics to a monastery near Tours in 1103. This document, first noted in 1988, seems to show that Alexius had a far more sustained 304 Reviews relationship with the crusaders than has hitherto been thought. There is a good deal to be grateful for in this collection. But one has a feeling of erudition being deployed towards the edges of a field where big things are stirring in the middle. A short introduction by Jonathan Riley-Smith alerts readers to the need to rethink the crusade. W e must re-examine the narrative sources in Latin, and pay more attention to material in Arabic. More important, however, is data in cartularies which historians of the crusade have never used. Riley-Smith tells us that he has discovered in them the names of over...