The First Crusade

by Peter Frankopan

Overview

According to tradition, the First Crusade began at Pope Urban II’s instigation and culminated in July 1099, when western European knights liberated Jerusalem. But what if the First Crusade’s real catalyst lay far to the east of Rome? Countering nearly a millennium of scholarship, Peter Frankopan reveals the First Crusade’s untold history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674069022
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	04/15/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	379,415
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Peter Frankopan is Director of the Center for Byzantine Research at the University of Oxford.

Table of Contents

Contents Illustrations Maps Preface and Acknowledgements Author’s Note Introduction 1. Europe in Crisis 2. The Recovery of Constantinople 3. Stability in the East 4. The Collapse of Asia Minor 5. On the Brink of Disaster 6. The Call from the East 7. The Response of the West 8. To the Imperial City 9. First Encounters with the Enemy 10. The Struggle for the Soul of the Crusade 11. The Crusade Unravels 12. The Consequences of the First Crusade Abbreviations Notes Further Reading Index

What People are Saying About This

Jonathan Phillips

In this fluent and dramatic account, Peter Frankopan rightly places the Emperor Alexios at the heart of the First Crusade and in doing so skillfully adds a dimension frequently missing from our understanding of this seminal event. Frankopan illuminates the complex challenges that faced Alexios and deftly depicts the boldness and finesse needed to survive in the dangerous world of medieval Byzantium.
— Jonathan Phillips, author of Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades

John Julius Norwich

A dazzling book, perfectly combining deep scholarship and easy readability. The most important addition to Crusading literature since Steven Runciman.
— John Julius Norwich, author of Byzantium

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Filled with Byzantine intrigue in every sense, this book is important, compellingly revisionist and impressive in its scholarly use of totally fresh sources. It refocuses the familiar western story through the eyes of the emperor of the east and fills in the missing piece of the puzzle of the Crusades.
— Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem: The Biography

Christopher Tyerman

Peter Frankopan's reassessment of the Byzantine contribution to the origins and course of the First Crusade offers a compelling and challenging balance to traditional accounts. Based on fresh interpretations of primary sources, lucidly written and forcefully argued, The First Crusade: The Call from the East will demand attention from scholars while providing an enjoyable and accessible narrative for the general reader.
— Christopher Tyerman, author of God's War: A New History of the Crusades

Editorial Reviews

In a field near Clermont, France, on November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II issued a rousing call to arms, a march to Jerusalem to retake the Holy City from the infidel Muslims who for more than 20 years had been invading and conquering lands belonging to Christians. Four years later, European armies arrived in Jerusalem and drove out the Muslims, retaking the city for Christendom. Yet, as historian Frankopan, a fellow at Oxford, so forcefully reminds us in this cracking good story of political and religious intrigue, the real reason that Urban II rallied the forces that day was an urgent message from Alexios I Komnenos, emperor of Byzantium, whose political authority had begun to decline and whose empire was under attack on all sides by Muslim forces. Alexios called upon Urban, who sent troops immediately. Frankopan draws deeply upon the Alexiad, written several decades later by Komnenos’s daughter, Anna, and he presents a vivid portrait of a man whose early political ineptness created division in his empire, but whose boldness launched the Crusades and changed the shape of the medieval world by expanding the geographic, cultural, and political horizons of Europe. 2 maps. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly