Further Reading
Rather than include a comprehensive bibliography stretching to well over 2,000 books and articles, I thought it more useful to give some suggestions for starting points for the reader who would like to read more about the First Crusade in general, or about individual aspects of the expedition. Where possible, I have tried to list secondary works in English, though there are occasions when books and articles in other languages are unavoidable.
The Crusades have received a great deal of attention from historians, not least in recent years. Major volumes by Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (London, 2006), Jonathan Phillips, Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades (London, 2009), and Thomas Asbridge, The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land (London, 2010) take different approaches to the Crusades. Each provides a compelling overview and demonstrates that scholarship about the subject is in robust health. The doyen of Crusade historians is Jonathan Riley-Smith, whose The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (London, 1986) is still indispensable. His many other works about the Crusades in general and about the first expedition to Jerusalem in particular are invaluable – not least The First Crusaders 1095–1131 (Cambridge, 1997). John France’s Victory in the East (Cambridge, 1994) provides a fine military history of the expedition to Jerusalem. Also see Thomas Asbridge’s very readable The First Crusade: A New History (London, 2005).