The First Crusade

[sknox]

My account of the events of the First Crusade. This is as part of my ongoing series of essays on medieval history. These essays provide more depth than most online resources, and will always include a list of supplemental reading for those who wish to dig deeper.

Knox, First Crusade

In coming months I'll be covering all the main crusades plus a number of related topics, in addition to other medieval subjects.

 

[Hugh]

Many years ago (the mid sixties) I truly enjoyed Steven Runciman's three volume "History of the Crusades". Some of it is still there in the back of beyond of my brain's storage cabinets.

 

[Cathbad]

my brain's storage cabinets

My brain storage is full of cobwebs!!

 

[sknox]

Many years ago (the mid sixties) I truly enjoyed Steven Runciman's three volume "History of the Crusades". Some of it is still there in the back of beyond of my brain's storage cabinets.

Yup. It's sitting on my shelves, among the few survivors of the Great Book Purge of 2015. I've read any number of other histories of the crusades, but his remains my favorite, though there are some excellent specialty books.

 

[Anthoney]

Went to take a look and spent an hour paging through. Nice work.

 

[Hugh]

I’ve read your account of the Black Death now. That’s some schedule of articles that you have planned.

 

[sknox]

They are all mostly written. I have four college courses worth. I taught history online starting in 1993--I was among the first to do so (that sound you hear is my own horn). Hundreds of pages worth.

Moving them over to europeanmiddleages.info has been more work that I thought. I was at least smart enough to use stylesheets and server-side includes, so I don't have to re-code everything. More of a surprise is the amount of editing the prose needs (like going back to read that novel you wrote ten years ago), and how many more images I want now to include. The audience is different, you see. So I can't just toss everything online, but at the same time, I do have quite a long list of essays in the queue. Enough to keep going for a few years.

The really big project is the virtual pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This was something I simply did--not in connection with any of my courses. It's going to require rather more writing because I haven't settled on the narrative voice. But it is nearly a hundred pages long with tons of images. Other people have Jerusalem pilgrimage sites but they're all modern. Mine is set in the 15th century.

Anyway, I'm delighted folks are looking at the essays. When I retired, my university forced me to remove everything. It's taken me this long to hit on a way to put them back online.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Right up my street but I wanted a bit of time to check things out hence not reading/skimming this earlier.

I like the division you've split up. Was expecting one enormous slab of text, but the various parts make it rather easier to read.

Minor point: I wouldn't dispute the Alexius founding the Comneni dynasty line, but a footnote about Isaac Comnenus (his uncle, I think) who had been an earlier emperor, albeit only for two years, could be worth considering. He's easily forgotten, alas, given the longevity of the reigns of Alexius, John, and Manuel.

 

[sknox]

Quite right, but it's all about focus. These are the essays I used when I was teaching. I may edit a bit. I've added more pictures. But I'm not writing history in the sense of a journal article or monograph. I'm specifically not after balance. So I will omit stuff here and there, I'm afraid.

I hope you enjoyed the read. The Second Crusade will go up in a month or two--I'm trying to mix up the topics. Somewhere down the road I'll post a short one on the crusade of 1101. A challenge I have for myself is figuring out a decently navigable table of contents once I have a score or two of these essays posted. Every approach has its drawbacks, so far.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Must admit, the 1101 one (assuming that wasn't the Second) is one I've not heard of before.

I only know the basics of the Second (Barbarossa popping his clogs), so that'd be interesting to read.

 

[sknox]

#2 was Conrad of Germany and Louis of France, to go recover Edessa, but the wound up besieging Damascus. Unsuccessfully. A botch job from beginning to end, and it led to a lot of questioning about why it failed.

The 1101 crusade was the "hey we missed the bus" crusade. People who would have gone on crusade (no seriously, we really meant to!) but the darn thing left without them. Three separate armies and not a one of them got out of Anatolia.

Fred bought the farm (had to look up popping his clogs) on the Third Crusade.