The First Crusade: The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and Other Source Materials (Middle Ages Series)

Rating:
Summary: Book organization and content not for general reader.
Review: Having read Penguin's very good "Chronicles of the Crusades" (covering the 4th and 7th Crusades) I ran across this book and thought it would provide some intersting stories from the 1st Crusade. But it has taken me months to get through it, in large part because it seems to have been organized principally to suit a scholar of the Crusades and not the general reader. Book I of the Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres is fine enough, but hardly stirring. While the rest of the book then assembles other sources by subject. The chapters follow on "Peter the Hermet", "Journey to Constantinople", "At Constantinople", "Siege of Nicea", "Siege of Antioch", and "Siege of Jerusalem", where in each chapter the sources are broken up so you read each version of the same event one after the other. It is really just a collection of translations with minimal explanation, no extras (such as maps), and does not seem suited for the general reader. It is for this reason that I rate it lower. If the sources were presented in full and not broken up by subject, I would have given it an extra star. Although as the content goes it seems thorough to me (including parts from the accounts of Raymond d'Aguilers, Peter Tudebode, The Gesta Version, and Anna Comnena), even including a few Arabic sources. However, only buy this if you are a Crusade scholar, for the general reader it does get tedious very quickly.

Rating:
Summary: Peter's Collection of Primary Sources Only Partial
Review: While this collection of chronicles of the First Crusade from primary sources is certainly valuable, it is limited by the fact that the editor has chosen to include only those sources that have already been translated, thus leaving many other valuable and informative accounts absent. As many of the chroniclers' accounts possess bias and errors, or were written secondhand or after events had taken place, only a reading of all the primary sources offers the reader the chance to sift and attempt to reassemble events through comparison. In this regard John France's book "Victory in the East," while a secondary retelling from a largely military perspective, perhaps offers greater value.

Certainly a must for any scholar of the period, but likely to tire the ordinary or casual reader. This printing is further marred by a flimsy binding that falls apart before one can complete the reading.