In November 1095, Pope Urban II launched from Clermont, France, an anguished war cry that would echo across the European continent for the next two centuries: Deus lo Vult — God wills it. And what did God want from those eleventh-century European Christians? He wanted them to recover the Holy City of Jerusalem, then in Muslim hands, by force of arms.
But before kings, counts, dukes and princes managed —a year later— to gather professional armies to fight in the Holy Land, an imposing mass of men and women composed mostly of peasants, serfs, second sons of wealthy families, lesser nobles and convicted criminals, all guided by the charismatic French friar Peter the Hermit, set out brandishing the cross on an incredible and suicidal adventure: to walk the 4,500 kilometers from France to Jerusalem and try, alone, to free the Holy City of Christ from the suffocating oppression of the Arab Muslims who then dominated that region of the world.
Italian historian and novelist David S. Matrecano rescues from the mists of time this dark and vibrant chapter of the Middle Ages in a unique edition, through a "contextual modernization" that takes the original chronicles of eyewitnesses of the era —Raymond of Aguilers, Fulcher of Chartres, William of Tyre, and modern voices like Sir Steven Runciman— and adapts them to today's language and taste, while correcting outdated data with the most recent historical and archaeological findings of the 21st century.
If you are looking for a historical novel with military rigor, or an essay that reads with the agility of a war chronicle, this book is for you. It is not just a precise description of our common European history: it is a total immersion into the mindset, beliefs and way of life of the men and women who marched into the unknown driven only by their faith in God.
Based on the original chronicles of eyewitnesses and updated with the latest archaeological findings. Absolute historical rigor. Narrative impossible to put down.
