England and the Crusades 1095-1588 (review)

Reviews 179 T y e r m a n , Christopher, England and the Crusades 1095-1588, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1988; cloth; pp. xvi, 492; 5 maps, 2 genealogies, chronology, list of Popes 1068-1590; R. R. P. UK£31.95, US$45.95. Remarkably, the same year saw two deceptively similar monographs produced: Simon Lloyd's English Society and the Crusade 1216-1307 and the book under review here. While the generaltopicsof the two are indeed the same, the focus and emphasis differ gready. Both works are based on exhaustive reviews of primary sources. Both are invaluable to any Crusade historian. Tyerman's work covers a much longer time span and is written in a much more personal style. He does not hesitate to criticise many notable historians for the occasions on which their assertions are not based on sufficient evidence and he adds his own opinion on events which cannot be documented but for which the preponderance of facts suggests a solution; for example, the matter of Henry II's 30,000 mark treasure adegedly sent to Jerusalem. The first nine chapters cover the background to the First Crusade and the period up to 1337, thus aU the major Crusades prior to the fall of Acre. Chapter 10 covers 1337-1410, chapter 11 the fifteenth century, chapter 12 investigates national Crusades, and the final chapter the sixteenth century, after which the Reformation and its new priorities put an end to traditional Crusading. As Tyerman explains in the introduction, this is not another history of the Crusades from an English point of view. It examines instead the effects the Crusading movement had on medieval England and Wales. It is not a history of Crusader batdes nor of English and Welsh activities in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. It is not intended to replace other recent books which concentrate on the more general aspects of Crusading. It is then a wide-ranging book examining such rarely-treated matters as anti-semitism, military uniforms, civil disobedience, and the rise of nationalism. This work is refreshing for its brilliant piecing together of figures and data from a wide array of primary sources. Together with intelUgent speculation, these provide solid information which revises or complements incorrect or incomplete data to be found elsewhere. The continuing emphasis is naturally on the importance of the Holy Land to England and on Crusades in which the English took part. One of the most successful areas is the linking of the idea of Crusade to national contemporary issues. It examines Crusading within a specific framework of contemporary English ideology and politics. The impeccable and exhaustive research demonstrated throughout make this a valuable source to those who are not able to consult the sources themselves. There is no doubt that this work complements that of Lloyd. N o Crusade historian can afford to be without both of them. It would seem ungenerous perhaps to mention the rare spelling errors and the lack of a glossary of 180 Reviews unfamdiar terms which would have made some portions more understandable to the general reader. Nevertheless, it is both innovative in its point of view and immensely readable. Anne Gdmour-Bryson Department of History University of Melbourne Vitto, Cindy L., The virtuous pagan in Middle English literature (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 79, part 5) Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1989; paper; pp. ii, 100; R. R. P. US$15.00. This monograph is concerned with the theme of possible salvation for those outside the Church. It oudines: the succession of perceptions on solutions to the problem of the virtuous pagans evolved from the first to the fourteenth centuries; views on Christ's descent into Hell to convert the souls H e found there; the concept of Limbo as an intermediate state between bliss and punishment, an idea sanctioned by Aquinas; and Dante's elaborate and schematized cosmological framework in which most of the classical pagans resided. The prerequisites for salvation were deemed by many to be concerned with reason (this allowing salvation for the classical philosophers), or held by others to be concerned with faith alone (so effectively excluding non-Christians). The author stresses the fact that to...