First Crusade And The Foundation Of The Kingdom Of Jerusalem

The first volume of Steven Runciman's classic, hugely influential trilogy on the history of the Crusades 'On a February day in the year AD 638 the Caliph Omar entered Jerusalem, riding upon a white camel' An enthralling work of grand historical narrative, Steven Runciman's A History of the Crusades overturned the traditional view of the Crusades as a romantic Christian adventure, and instead shifted the focus of the story to the East. With verve and drama, volume one of Runciman's trilogy tells the story of the First Crusade - from its unlikely beginnings in pilgrimage to the horrors of the siege of Jerusalem and the carving out of new territory on the edge of the eastern Mediterranean. 'Without question one of the major feats of contemporary historical writing' The New York Times 'The historian whose magisterial works transformed our understanding of Byzantium, the medieval church and the crusades' Guardian

Sir Steven Runciman explores the First Crusade and the foundation of the kingdom of Jerusalem.

The story of the First Crusade, as witnessed by contemporary writers 'O day so ardently desired! O time of times the most memorable! O deed before all other deeds!' The fall of Jerusalem in the summer of 1099 to an exhausted and starving army of western European soldiers was one of the most extraordinary events of the Middle Ages. It was both the climax of a great wave of visionary Christian fervour and the beginning of what proved to be a futile and abortive attempt to implant a new European kingdom of heaven in an overwhelmingly Muslim world. This remarkable collection brings together a wide variety of contemporary accounts of the First Crusade, including Pope Urban II's initial call to arms of 1095, as well as the first-hand writings of priests, knights, a Jewish pilgrim, a destitute noblewoman, an Iraqi poet and the historian Anna Comnena. Together they provide a vivid and nuanced picture of the First Crusade and the people who were swept up in it. Edited with an introduction and notes by Christopher Tyerman

Sir Steven Runciman's three volume A History of the Crusades, one of the great classics of English historical writing, is being reissued. This volume deals completely with the First Crusade and the foundation of the kingdom of Jerusalem. As Runciman says in his preface: 'Whether we regard the Crusades as the most tremendous and most romantic of Christian adventures, or as the last of the barbarian invasions, they form a central fact in medieval history. Before their inception the centre of our civilization was placed in Byzantium and in the lands of the Arab caliphate. Before they faded out the hegemony in civilization had passed to western Europe. Out of this transference modern history was born.'