An Analysis of Jonathan Riley-Smith's The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading

Damien Peters

• Publisher: Macat Library
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351353106
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Perhaps no work of history written in the 20th century has done more to undermine an existing consensus and cause its readers to re-evaluate their own preconceptions than has Jonathan Riley-Smith's revisionist account of the motives of the first crusaders.

Riley-Smith's thesis – based on extensive original research and firmly rooted in his refusal to uncritically accept the evidence or reasoning of earlier historians – is that the majority of the men who travelled to the east on crusade in the years 1098-1100 were primarily motivated by faith. This finding, which ran directly counter to at least four centuries of consensus that other motives, not least greed for land, were more important, has helped to stimulate exciting reappraisals of the whole crusading movement. Riley-Smith backed it up with forensic examination of the key crusader-inspiring speech delivered by Pope Urban II, looking to clarify the meanings of five competing contemporary accounts in order to understand how an initially simple, and rather confused, appeal for help became a sophisticated rationale for the concept of 'just war.'

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half title
• Titlepage
• Copyright
• Contents
• The Macat Library
• Critical Thinking and The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading
• About the Author of the Original Work
• Ways in to the Text
• 1 Influences
• 1 The Author and the Historical Context
• 2 Academic Context
• 3 The Problem
• 4 The Author’s Contribution
• Section 2 Ideas
• 5 Main Ideas
• 6 Secondary Ideas
• 7 Achievement
• 8 Place in the Author’S Work
• Section 3 Impact
• 9 The First Responses
• 10 The Evolving Debate
• 11 Impact and Influence Today
• 12 Where Next?
• Glossary