Got this from the library and it's taken me a while to get through it but I surprisingly really enjoyed it. It was a bit like reading A Game of Thrones set in the 1190s but without the dragons or any women.
(I googled 'life of women in the 12th century' and got nothing much apart from poor women got up at 3am, fed the family and the chickens, worked on the land, made candles out of animal fat and died at around age 35!) Life really was so grim on this Earth that the symbolic heavenly paradise of Jerusalem was political and religious gold for the people who controlled it.
The book kicks of with the life of Saladin. A man of culture and learning who was able to unite most Muslims from Egypt to Iraq and organise an attack on the foreign invader expansion in his lands. He also had the respect of the local Syrian Christians who liked his fair minded and pragmatic approach to life. He begins the conquest by killing off the evil corrupt Christian knights who control the trade routes. This took me back to his adventures in Karak and Shobak castles in Jordan. He then had an amazing victory at Hattin where he killed off thousands of Christians by simply blocking off their access to fresh water. Genius.
Richard I , King of England, (who much preferred living in France to the grim lands of England.) heard about the advances of this mighty leader and he decided it was time to reclaim the Holy Land back.
Richard I comes across as a great warrior and logistics manager but someone who could also behave like a 5 year old whenever he wanted to. He was good with money and spent the cash that he gained /stole/bribed through his travels through France, Italy and Cyprus really well .Even though most 'Christians' in Europe were at war with each other, he managed to get everyone behind the greater cause of regaining the holy land back off the Muslims. Richard I was like a self publishing brand. I see him as a Simon Cowell/Mountbatten character.Weird but true.
Richard's travels across Europe are a joke. Every leader hates him, but he has money, vision and strategy plus he's canny enough to treat his soldiers well. I love the way he gets his 'Iron Army' of thousands down the cost from Acre to Jaffa. He organises the boats with supplies. He has the guys on their days off safely walking on the beach completely exhausted carrying all the equipment. The knights are protected by the longbow men , foot soldiers and the highly organised Hospitallers and Templars at the rear. It's a perfect example of team work but the irony was that Muslim attack was less of a worry than the tarantulas, mosquitos, thirst and heat.
Reading this makes you aware of the long standing political and emotional reasons behind the tensions in the middle East. What I didn' trealise was how strongly Europeans hated each other. After his experiences in the Middle East Richard decided it was finally time to travel home to sort out problems back in England. Unfortunately Richard suffered from extreme sea sickness, so travelled back by land. This resulted in him being locked up in a German jail for 4 more years. Bad luck! That guy sure would have a few tales to tell!
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