The Era of the Crusades

By: Kenneth W. Harl, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Kenneth W. Harl

What were the forces that led to one of history's most protracted and legendary periods of conflict? How did they affect the three great civilizations that participated in them? And, ultimately, why did they end and what did they accomplish?

In these 36 lectures, you'll look at the "big picture" of the Crusades as an ongoing period of conflict involving Western Christendom (we would now call it Western Europe), the Byzantine Empire, and the Muslim world. From this perspective, you'll study the complex but absorbing causes of the Crusades, which include the many political, cultural, and economic changes in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. You'll examine the Crusades in terms of the specific military campaigns-the eight "canonical" Crusades that took place from 1095-1291-proclaimed to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslim hands and return them to Christendom. You'll consider the immediate circumstances-the leaders, purposes, key battles, and degrees of success or failure-surrounding these often-monumental expeditions.

You'll also explore a wide variety of misperceptions and long-debated questions about the Crusades:

• Did the popes preach the Crusades as a way to increase their personal power and authority?
• Why did the members of the Fourth Crusade decide to sack Constantinople, turning the Crusades from Christian against "infidel" to Christian against Christian?

Taken together, these historically rich lectures are an opportunity to appreciate fully how Western Civilization changed in many profound ways during the Crusading era.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2003 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2003 The Great Courses

Educational

I learned a great deal, but would have liked more information on the lives of commoners. His voice is not pleasant.

Good, but Not Great

I am a huge Great Courses fan. I've listened to well-over a hundred of them, many by Professor Harl. Unfortunately, this course does not quite live-up to what I've come to expect from Professor Harl and the Great Courses. That being said, it's still a very good course--just not as great as some others. This course does a very good job of covering the era of the crusades, as the title promises. However, the flow was a bit choppy, and I wish more detail had been given about the actual battles fought during the crusades. While this course does touch on some of the battles, it could have been given more emphasis to improve the course. This is still worth listening to, it's just not as great as some others.

I've listened to most of Dr Harl's lecture series.

Love a guy who is so excited about his work even after decades of teaching. Even his comic asides are informative! Can't wait to buy more of his lectures.

How the Crusades Changed Three Great Civilizations

Any additional comments?

This lecture series is an excellent overview of the crusades. The lecturer, Professor Kenneth W. Harl, is an excellent teacher and I can highly recommended anything produced by him. If you are a lover of history he offers traditional history teaching at its best.

This series covers the era of the crusades from their origins to the ending of the era of the "canonical" crusades after the 8th crusade of King Louis of France in North Africa. One strength of this lecture series is that the author does a great job looking at the crusades from the perspectives of all of the three great civilizations involved, Western Europe, the Byzantine (Or East Roman) Empire, and Islamic Civilization. This series gives you and incredible sense of how all three civilizations interacted during this era and were influenced and changed by the crusades.

I had a few small disappointments in this series. The author does a very thorough job covering the first four of the eight canonical crusades and their surrounding events. He only really gives an overview by comparison of the last four crusades. As far as other crusading movements, he does give some treatment on the "children's crusades" and the crusade against the Cathars/The Albigensian crusade in Southern France but other crusading events such as the Reconquista of Spain and the conquests of the Germanic peoples and Teutonic knights in Northeastern Europe are given very little if any real treatment. I also think he could have drawn out some of the longterm implications of the crusades a little better. So this series will not offer the comprehensive overview that some might want, but for anyone interested in the topic it will definitely offer an amazing supplement in helping you understand this era in world history. He pulls out details and sides to the topic that probably many other authors miss.

Overall I highly recommend this for anyone interested in the topic. Enjoy your travels in "outremer"!

Much better at 80% speed

Absolutely fascinating lectures. Unfortunately, the delivery is so fast with annoying pronunciation issues that it was only tolerable at 80 percent speed. Slowing it down made it much better although his pronunciation/accent was more pronounced at that speed.

This is one of several courses Ive listened to on this period and I found it enlightening.

You get everything you need from this lecture

A pretty good lecture, all encompassing. BUT SOMEONE TELL THIS MAN its allies, NOT AH-LIES. Didn't really care for the way he framed El Cid.

Excellent Course and Lecturer

This course was an excellent in depth look at the Crusades. Dr. Harl is also an excellent lecturer who is clearly deeply familiar with the topic time period.

Awesome

This course like all Kenneth Harl courses be Awesome will change your dreary life into Awesome life

There’s a lot here!!

If you thought Game of Thrones had a lot of characters, Martin’s got nothing on this guy. It’s information overload in a good way. The nature of it will leave you brain dead. Thankfully you can listen to it again & again. It’s presented very well

I wish he went into a little bit more details

I wish he went into a little bit more details about the battles that happened in the crusades but other than that it's a really great course full of information