The Crusades Chapter Summary

When discussing religion, conflict, and the nature of man, President Richard Nixon has been quoted as saying, “In the long term, we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious war.” When examining the countless massacres and other acts of man’s inhumanity to man that occurred during the Crusades, Nixon’s statement undoubtedly rings true. Occurring from 1095 to 1272, the Crusades triggered a progression of conflicts in which European Christians sought to regain control of the Levant from Muslim control, in addition to Europe’s response to the threatening expansion of Islam. It was during the Crusades that both groups

The first half of the book examines the practical features of the Crusades. In the first chapter, Finucane offers a concise overview of the numerous crusades and goes into details with the more notable crusades. This summary certainly presents the background information needed to better understand the remaining chapters, which focus on individual themes. In Chapter 2, Finucane provides excellent depictions of the ways preachers recruited the men for crusade and their motivations for doing so, as well as accounts of the methods that both royalty and the clergy used to finance the expeditions. With Chapter 3, Finucane offers enlightening accounts of the difficulties and dangers that crusaders experienced journeying to the Holy Land. He discusses the crusaders’ travels, both on sea and land, with all the problems that crusaders encountered. Chapter 4, entitled “God’s Armies” discusses the composition of both armies, yet it is very limited in its scope. In his analysis, he provides significant detail to crusaders, yet Finucane does not provide adequate information on the Muslim soldier in comparison to the Christian soldier. In the last chapter of the first section, Finucane provides elements of three types of warfare engaged during the Crusades and detailed information on various massacres and atrocities committed by both Christians and Muslims. For

When utilizing his secondary sources, Finucane employs information from other leading Crusader historians, such as Hans Eberhard Mayer and Steven Runciman, to lay the foundation of historical facts with which to add his well-chosen narratives and quotation from the collection of primary sources. His use of primary sources is seen throughout the text to either provide detailed explanations or meaningful narratives to the material from the secondary sources. Finucane’s uses of passages from Anna Comnena’s The Alexiad provides some of the most detailed accounts in various chapters that many may not expect from the daughter of the Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I Comnenus, yet general readers may not know that she was also a scholar and a historian. In the Chapter 4, entitled “God’s Armies,” Finucane cites Anna Comnena when discussing the use of horses as a weapon used during the Crusaders’ massed charges, which she saw as both an advantage and disadvantage against Muslim forces. Finucane states, “Even Anna Comnena, who hardly qualifies as an admirer of the Latins, had to admire at least twice that the Franks were unbeatable when charging down upon the enemy.” Anna also recognized the disadvantage in that when the charge was completed, the knights were seldom able to