# The Crusades, etc.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 28, 2003, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377 "2003-12-28T04:20:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2003, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377/1 "2003-12-28T04:20:23Z")
Can someone recommend a good, easy to read book about the dark side of the Catholic church. It’s a popular subject in fiction, and there were (are) some pretty outrageous shenanigans afoot, but I’d like some facts.
Nothing that’s gonna get me shot, mind you. But some dirt would be cool. 🆒
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### Author:  [@Eternal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eternal)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2003, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377/2 "2003-12-28T05:56:09Z")
I am familiar with a book called _The Bad Popes_ by a Chamberlin, a book that apparently is good enough to still be in print… Look it up on Amazon and then follow the “if you like this” links and you’ll probably find a few more things like it.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2003, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377/3 "2003-12-28T07:07:18Z")
[The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679768173/qid=1072594538//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i0_xgl14/002-8233950-0472821?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by David Kertzer (who also wrote [this](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0375706054/ref=pd_sim_books_1/002-8233950-0472821?v=glance&s=books) ) received many bad reviews by Catholic readers, though none that I’ve read could show clear evidence that Kertzer’s research was shoddy. It’s about a nasty incident in Bologna in 1858 when a 6 year old Jewish boy was removed from his family on direct orders from of the church because his nurse had baptized him as a Catholic. Pope Pius IX (the same pope who declared the papacy infallible in ex cathedra matters as well as the first to condemn first trimester abortions as murder) became the boy’s legal guardian; he became a priest, lived to be a very old man, refused to see his birth family, and ironically had been marked for deportation when he died in 1940 because the Nazis who were exerting pressure on Italy considered him a Jew.
For **real** controversy (I have literally known fanatical Catholic apologists to begin screaming when this book is mentioned), there’s [Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pope Pius XII](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0140296271/qid=1072595071/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-8233950-0472821?v=glance&s=books) . It actually isn’t quite as vitriolic as its title implies, ultimately concluding more that the Vatican could have done a whole lot more to help the Jews/afflict the Nazis that proving any intentional complicitness.
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### Author:  [@Nichol\_storm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nichol_storm)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2003, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377/4 "2003-12-28T11:38:14Z")
For a good book on the Crusades (all of the Crusades) I reccomend Robert Payne’s _Dream and the Tomb_. It’s not fiction, but he has a novelist’s touch when it comes to detail and really brings a personal feel for the period.
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### Author:  [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2003, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377/5 "2003-12-28T13:42:17Z")
well, there are the comic book revelations of “former Jesuit priest Alberto Rivera” written by one Jack T. Chick _L_
also, 50 YEARS IN THE CHURCH OF ROME by Charles Chiniquy and THE AWFUL DISCLOSURES OF MARIA MONK
I DON’T REALLY ENDORSE ANY OF THESE _G_
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### Author:  [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2003, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377/6 "2003-12-28T21:52:25Z")
Thanks, all. That should keep me going for a while.
First, I think, it’ll be _The Bad Popes_.
Ain’t amazon a wonderful thing?
Peace,
mangeorge
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### Author:  [@Tallayan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tallayan)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2003, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377/7 "2003-12-29T00:41:55Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by FriarTed \*
> \*\*well, there are the comic book revelations of “former Jesuit priest Alberto Rivera” written by one Jack T. Chick _L_
> \*\*
Wait, Jack Chick as in the demented evil vitrolic cartoonist? He wrote a book? You’d think all the concentrated bile would melt it.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2003, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377/8 "2003-12-29T03:31:31Z")
A long section in Barbara Tuchman’s _March of Folly_ deals with the Renaissance Popes.
If you can find a copy, check out _The Crusade Through Arab Eyes_ which is a history of the Crusades told from the Arab point of view.
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### Author:  [@First\_Amongst\_Daves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/First_Amongst_Daves)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2003, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377/9 "2003-12-29T03:42:48Z")
Was it Michael Palin of Monty Python fame who wrote a very easy to read book on the Crusades? I have a copy in a box somewhere.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2003, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377/10 "2003-12-29T04:28:23Z")
I’m not sure about Palin, but Terry Jones of Monty Python (who is also an expert in medeival literature and a very good amateur historian) produced an excellent 4 part documentary of the Crusades. It’s accurate, has a good deal of humor, and some really cool special effects (including Byzantine mosaics coming to life and an 11th century movie theater showing newsreels of the Crusades.) It’s available through Netflix and many video stores, or at
[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005U8F3/qid=1072672199/sr=1-1/ref=sr\_1\_1/002-8233950-0472821?v=glance&s=dvd](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005U8F3/qid=1072672199/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-8233950-0472821?v=glance&s=dvd)
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### Author:  [@First\_Amongst\_Daves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/First_Amongst_Daves)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2003, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377/11 "2003-12-29T05:12:21Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Sampiro \*
> \*\*I’m not sure about Palin, but Terry Jones of Monty Python (who is also an expert in medeival literature and a very good amateur historian) produced an excellent 4 part documentary of the Crusades. It’s accurate, has a good deal of humor, and some really cool special effects (including Byzantine mosaics coming to life and an 11th century movie theater showing newsreels of the Crusades.) It’s available through Netflix and many video stores, or at
> [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005U8F3/qid=1072672199/sr=1-1/ref=sr\_1\_1/002-8233950-0472821?v=glance&s=dvd](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005U8F3/qid=1072672199/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-8233950-0472821?v=glance&s=dvd) \*\*
Sorry, it was Jones: the book I have accompanies the documentary.
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### Author:  [@Foolonthehill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foolonthehill)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2003, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377/12 "2003-12-29T16:23:50Z")
“Eleanor of Aquitaine” (The Biography, not the bodice-ripper), sorry can’t remember the author. Her first husband was St. Louis, her uncle was Raymond of Antioch, her son was Richard Lion-heart. She even goes to the Holyland with Louis. She is all over the Crusades.
For fiction that reads ‘real’; “Deus Lo Volt” by Connell. First person account of the second Crusade.
For a worse period of RC history, “M; The Man who would become Caravaggio” about the Counter-Reformation. Maybe the most repressive regime in history.
I second Nemo’s recommendation of Tuchman’s “The March of Folly” The Renaissance Popes are among the stupidest people that will ever be allowed to rule.
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### Author:  [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2003, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377/13 "2003-12-29T16:36:30Z")
Tallyan- the Alberto Rivera series is in five comics which supposedly chronicles his career as a Jesuit priest who infiltrates & destroys fundy Protestant churches until he converts & then relates how the Catholic Church is Mystery Babylon of the Book of Revelation & is the root of every evil in the past 1700 years (Islam AND the Inquisition, Communism AND Naziism, Freemasonry AND KuKluxKlannery, and on & on),
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### Author:  [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2003, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-crusades-etc/221377/14 "2003-12-29T22:07:38Z")
“Dungeon, Fire and Sword” by John J. Robinson deals with the Knights Templar during the crusades.
This knightly order (the first non-secular order of knights) was both sponsored by HMC, and later, destroyed by the same.