Robert Irwin
Onward Christian Administrators
How to Plan a Crusade: Reason and Religious War in the Middle Ages
By Christopher Tyerman
Allen Lane 400pp £25
Anyone who has put launching a crusade on their bucket list should read this book first. Having read it, they may well give up on the idea, for there is more to crusading than one might have imagined: propaganda, recruitment, finance, logistics, health and safety, supplies and strategy. In the film King Richard and the Crusaders, released in 1954, Virginia Mayo, playing Lady Edith Plantagenet, got to mouth the immortal line, ‘War! War! That’s all you ever think about, Dick Plantagenet!’ Well, there was a lot to think about, and in fact Richard I comes out surprisingly well in Christopher Tyerman’s expansive and penetrating account of the complexities of going on crusade. Richard’s expedition in the 1190s was exceptionally well funded, through the sale of offices, the extortion of money from Jews and, later, money taken from the king of Sicily, as well as plunder from Cyprus. Richard set up a forward mustering point at Messina. The sailings of his ships were carefully coordinated and he arrived at Acre in June 1191 on schedule. His ships carried siege engines and a prefabricated castle. Their cargoes also included foodstuffs, hay, horseshoes, nails, crossbow bolts and much else. Richard’s wealth enabled him to bail out and draw into his service other crusaders who had exhausted their resources in Palestine. Louis IX’s crusade of 1248–54 was similarly well funded and carefully planned. Yet there is a glum paradox in the fact that the crusades of Richard and Louis were both failures, whereas the First Crusade, which had many leaders who constantly quarrelled with one another and which relied more on improvisation than on planning, was
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm