Oh What A Holy War

Ex-Python Terry Jones takes us on an entertaining crusade following the medieval pilgrims in armour. And as it is all in English this review is in English too (Sat., 2:40 and 9:10 p.m., BBC World)

Ever since Terry Jones left the Monty Python boys, he has been in an uphill struggle to do something equally rewarding. „Crusades“, currently shown on BBC World, might be just the thing. Meant as a semi-authorative history of those pilgrims in arms and their raids on the Holy Land from around 1096 AD, Jones takes us on a tour littered with papal power struggles, divine visions – and human remains. And yes, this weekend’s third episode features a full-blown sketch from Monty Python’s Flying Circus itself.

It is of course the one about the Kamikaze Highlanders and parallels nicely with the real Assassins, a tribe in today’s Syria who in the twelfth century took to guerilla tactics against their Christian oppressors, introducing suicide attacks into warfare.

„Crusades“, however, is a far cry from mere anecdotal gossip. The executive producer of the series is the BBC’s top brass in history programming, Lawrence Rees, and his research has been extensive. Jones as on-the-scene narrator mingles with the crowds in today’s bazaars of Damascus and climbs the ruins of Aleppo, where in 1144 the Emir Senghi began the Herculean task of uniting the various Muslim fiefdoms in their own holy war against the Christian invaders. The Crusaders’ state and Jerusalem eventually fell to Sultan Saladin in 1187, but the Christian knights still managed to keep a foothold on the Mediterranean coast.

Although today’s episode relies perhaps too heavily on Youssef Chahine’s 1963 epic „Saladin“, presumably to make up for (understandably lacking) archival footage, the BBC’s playful creativity puts German documentaries to shame. Ancient statues, pictures and murals suddenly come to life as digitally animated Popes and Bishops speak to the crowds. This serves to highlight Jones’ claims that the initial appeal to join the Crusade was little more than „medieval tabloid journalism“, constituting the first concerted propaganda drive in Europe and establishing a very early form of mass communication throughout the continent. It’s striking to see how entertaining church windows can be when placed in a dramatic historical context. As Terry Jones likes dressing up a lot, he gets his fair bit of re-enactment scenes in the „Crusades“, but this tongue-in-cheek approach is cleverly juxtaposed with expert commentary from Cambridge dons. The scholarship is balanced, as Arabian historians have their say too.

All the scholars agree that the first and second Crusades were little more than an ill-disguised attempt of the not yet established papacy to secure and increase its worldly power and become a major political force in medieval Europe. What followed was a supposedly holy war which in the end turned against the Christians in armour. Richard the Lionheart will find this out when he returns next week with the third Crusade.

STEFFEN GRIMBERG