100 Books Like Crusade

I enjoyed this comparatively short book as it portrays Medieval England from an unusual perspective – that of a young apprentice to a midwife in a small village.

The main character, a young girl named “Brat” (rechristened “Beetle”), serves as an apprentice to Jane the Midwife, and the book is remarkable for its incorporation of lots of fascinating detail about medieval medicine and herbal remedies associated with childbirth – a world rarely seen in children’s books.

The great thing about this book is that it combines fast-paced adventure with authentic historical detail – particularly relating to the “classic” medieval themes of castles, battles, and sieges.

It’s a time-travel children’s book that was originally published in 1951 but was republished in 2015, and features as its main character a “contemporary” boy named Peter who, wandering around the ruins of a Welsh castle, finds himself transported back to the 1300s when his Norman ancestors held the castle and he was none other than the oldest son of Sir Roger de Blois.

As the inhabitants of the castle face a rebellion, Peter must learn how to hawk, fight, and shoot a longbow; fascinating aspects of medieval life that come alive on the page thanks to vivid writing by the author.

This book is written by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame – and as you might expect from the co-director of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, medieval-related jokes, absurd situations, and witty one-liners abound!

I am a Monty Python fan and this is very much “Python for children,” as a young boy named Tom in late medieval England runs away from his village and gets involved in all sorts of “medieval” trouble involving wolves in the forest, fierce battles, and burning cities.

It’s a refreshing read too as although there are plenty of funny books for children, very few are set during the Middle Ages.

I am a travel writer as well as a children’s author and the Polish city of Kraków (or Cracow) is one of my favourite destinations in Europe, and one I have written about too.

Its ancient buildings mean that it’s a place where the medieval era comes alive, and that’s why I loved this book, which is written by an American professor of English who had a life-long love of Poland and its people.

Set in 1461 it tells the story of a boy named Joseph Charnetski who is thrillingly caught up in plots and intrigue (featuring alchemists and hypnotists along the way) when his family seeks sanctuary in the city.

A great insight informs every aspect of this excellent book. While few historians today would put the crusades down to mere fanaticism, too many uninformed people still think of the crusades in absurdly simplistic terms of clashing civilizations, cultures, and religions. This book takes aim at that sort of ignorance by telling the history of one of the world’s great historical phenomena in a very accessible way from the perspective with which most readers will be least familiar.

There are numerous excellent books of every length (one runs more than 900 pages) that survey the crusades across the centuries and in their multiple theaters of operation. And several books are more recent, but this little book of fewer than two hundred pages is a gem. Written in clear prose and incorporating biographies of important individuals, key documents, and a glossary, it is tailor-made for students and general readers, and its price is modest. 

If, as Napoleon once quipped, an army indeed marches on its stomach, then surely military historians should work from a firm understanding of logistics and sustainment. Conceived during a 2002 workshop on the subject held in Sydney, Australia, this volume includes fourteen substantive chapters authored by some of the foremost historians in the field, as well as one specialist in game theory! The covered subjects are impressive in scope: provisioning, finance, rates of march, supply and resupply, cartography, roads, and communications (for both Christian armies and their Muslim foes), with due attention given not only to land warfare but also naval affairs. Fourteen maps, seven figures, and sixteen data tables complete what is currently the best available book on medieval logistics.

A solid grasp of crusading geography is essential for anyone who wishes to understand these complex holy wars, and this book is unsurpassed in providing such information in a clear and comprehensible manner. Its many maps and charts, each beautifully drawn and accompanied by insightful commentary and, in most cases, relevant illustrations and excerpts from primary sources, make this an indispensable resource that belongs in every crusade historian’s library. If you can find a used copy of this out-of-print treasure, buy it without hesitation. Be careful, there is another so-called atlas of the crusades out there by someone who is not a crusade historian, and it is filled with numerous errors.   

A classic. Originally published in 1956, it was one of the first retorts to the dominant strain of military history that emphasized decisive battle, as seen through the eyes of 19th-century theory. Instead, Smail advances the notion—now widely held—that medieval warfare deemphasized risky battles and instead utilized a range of effective operational approaches (raiding, ravaging, sieging, and skirmishing) in a coherent, positional fashion. Similarly in opposition to older approaches, Smail examines not only western warfare through the activities of crusader and crusader-state armies but also how Muslim forces were organized, sustained, and fought. While his sections on military organization, fortifications, and technology have been greatly updated by newer studies, this remains a standard text for anyone interested in the general subject.

I stumbled on this book in Raven secondhand bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I was researching for my 12th-century trilogy, Conquest, and this book is a brilliant critical study of the Anglo-Norman chronicler, Orderic Vitalis. The book is wonderfully written and conveys the astonishing beauty of Orderic’s own work.

Orderic, as he writes, ranged far and wide across the Anglo-Norman kingdom in his imagination and then returned to his ‘black-clad life’ as a monk.

Raven and Shakespeare and Co. Bookshop in Paris are amongst my top favourites. I love to visit Shakespeare for its cramped unevenly floored labyrinth and intelligent array of books.

I greatly enjoy a bookshop – these two and Victoria Bookshop in Haverfordwest spring to mind – where the staff is obviously as lovestruck by books as I am.