As the other reviewer has noted, this was not a very well put together programme. The visuals are weak, relying heavily on footage of modern Turkey. At times this is ludicrous, as when the great Muslim relief army sent to Antioch is represented by images of three scrawny Turks hanging off a rusty tractor. The music is desperate to be epic but is merely pounding and annoying. The presenter, another bland subaltern type with an open shirt collar, can't write for toffee (laboured points, repetition, lack of colour and detail) and isn't helped by the directors love of lens flare. The editing is choppy and the frequent shifts in locations are insufficiently labelled.
All of which would be fine if the history was good - especially as the Crusades are such a topical subject, with plenty of fresh scholarship to bring to the public - but the history is terrible. For the sake of brevity I'll only use examples from the first episode, on the First Crusade.
Pope Urban's call to Crusade (a word not actually invented until after the events we associate them with) is explained using management speak and bereft of context. No mention of the requests for aid from the Roman Empire (Byzantium), of the recent depredations of the Seljuk Turks, no explanation of the state of the Muslim world (fractured - here it is all lumped together), of the surge of religious fervour and power in the West (the Peace of God movement, the homage of the Holy Roman Emperor to the Pope at Canossa), or of the new strength of the West (with the conversions of the Magyars and Vikings, and the expulsion of Muslim invaders from France and Italy).
The tale of the Crusade itself, one of the most astonishing epics in history, is reduced to a long walk. Little detail is given, there is no explanation of the problems of leadership (the Pope failed to appoint a commander, because he only expected a few knights to go help the Romans as mercenaries, as usual, rather than the huge numbers that did, which led to internal conflict between the great nobles), the existence of Christians in the Middle East (the pre-Muslim peoples: the Armenians and those conquered by the Arabs) is glossed over, and the important tactics (the wheeling horse- archers of the Turks, the invincible charge of the Frankish mailed knights) aren't even detailed.
It isn't that he says anything factually incorrect (although points could be debated) but that he leaves out so much context that the result is a very misleading picture of what really happened. You're much better off with the novels of Alfred Duggan (Count Bohemund, The Lady for Ransom, Knight with Armour, Lord Geoffrey's Fancy) or the relevant episodes of the wonderful 'Europe from its Origins' by Joseph Hogarty, which the author has made available for free (use Google).
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