“The greatest achievement of the chroniclers [of the First Crusade] was to demonstrate that contemporary wars, and not just biblical ones, could also be ‘holy’” (143). So argues Elizabeth Lapina, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Following a recent trajectory in Crusades Studies, Lapina sets out to analyze the major chronicles of the First Crusade, including the chronicles of Fulcher of Chartres, Raymond of Aguiliers, Baldric of Bourgueil, Guibert of Nogent, and Robert the Monk, as well as the anonymous Gesta Francorum, not as sources for the history of the First Crusade but as windows into how contemporaries were responding to the burgeoning crusade movement. Over the book's six chapters, she discusses the status of eyewitnesses, the history of miraculous saintly interventions in war, the problematic nature of the Maccabees as biblical antecedents for the crusaders, and the incorporation of the Crusades into sacred history. Demonstrating a command of a wide array of earlier primary sources and the attendant scholarship, she presents the compelling idea that the chronicles were the field upon which the battle over the meaning of the First Crusade was waged.

The first chapter traces the change in attitude toward eyewitness testimony in First Crusade chronicles, particularly concerning miracles, which allows Lapina to set aside the issue of the veracity of the miraculous events in favor of demonstrating what work they do in the texts. Aligning herself with Bernard Guenée, who disputed the idea that medieval historians were incapable of criticizing their sources, Lapina argues that chroniclers believed that understanding of the true meaning of events was more important than having seen them. She focuses on how different chroniclers described the miraculous finding of the Holy Lance and the intervention of heavenly troops at Antioch in 1098. Unsurprisingly, she finds that especially in chronicles like Guibert of Nogent's (who did not go on crusade), there is an emphasis on the need to properly interpret events over merely seeing them. Lapina demonstrates that chroniclers saw themselves as interpreting sacred history and deployed miraculous events in their narratives in such ways that revealed the crusade to have been holy—a revolutionary concept at the time.

Chapters 2–4 are a sequence of discussions centering on the account of the miraculous intervention of a white-clad host led by eastern warrior saints at the Battle of Antioch in June 1098. Chapter 2 provides the deep historical background to this type of battlefield miracle, which is very rare according to Lapina, starting with Homer's Iliad and moving through the Roman traditions of Castor and Pollux before ending with the early Christian tradition. Chapters 3 and 4 advance the argument that the details and existence of the miraculous appearance of saints on the battlefield were due to the Normans specifically. Chapter 3 takes as a point of departure the particular saints invoked in the miracle—George, Demetrius, Mercurius, or Theodore—who were more popular in Eastern Christianity than in Western. Lapina finds it difficult to believe that the crusaders would have quickly absorbed such foreign saints on their way through Byzantine lands and looks instead to the Normans of Italy and Sicily as vehicles of transmission. Building upon the work of Carl Erdmann and Huguette Taviani-Carozzi, Lapina posits that over the course of the eleventh century one can detect a pattern of “hostile imitation” of Byzantine culture by the Normans. In contemporary narratives produced by the Norman Geoffrey of Malaterra or the princess Anna Comnena, Lapina argues, we see the Normans appropriate Eastern saints to show that they were the new recipients of their patronage at the expense of the Byzantines. She concludes: “It is probable that the narratives of the Eastern saints intervening in the battle of Antioch originated in the Norman camp in the context of Bohemond's struggle to have Antioch recognized as his by right and to refute Alexius's claim to the city” (64). Chapter 4 mines further into the relationship between the Normans and saintly battlefield interventions. She notes that recognizably similar accounts clustered around the Viking invasions of the ninth and tenth centuries and the First Crusade. Lapina seeks to connect these two groupings of miracle narratives through the Normans. She argues that the Normans understood themselves to be the descendants of the Vikings, who were the objects of saintly intervention and defense, and sought to transform themselves into the beneficiaries of such intercession in battles against the Muslims in Italy and later Syria.

The last two chapters explore different aspects of the miraculous battlefield interventions of the First Crusade connected to their place in medieval Christian historical thinking. Chapter 5 specifically discusses the Old Testament precedents of the miracles and the problems some narrative writers, especially Guibert of Nogent, had comparing the crusaders with the Jews. Chapter 6 looks at miraculous celestial phenomena from the First Crusade narratives. Lapina highlights that, unlike other accounts, these narratives often note that the phenomena moved from west to east. From here stems a wide-ranging discussion of the history of the attitudes and meanings attributed to the cardinal directions and the understanding of the trajectory of Christian history. She ends by arguing that First Crusade narrative writers used the direction of celestial phenomena to signal divine support for the conquest of the East by the West.

This is a book that reflects a broad reading of primary and secondary sources and which offers many important insights into the rationale behind the miracles in First Crusade narratives. Although each chapter offers valuable contributions, they do not form a clear unity. Chapters 5 and 6 especially do not quite fit with the rest and seem better suited as standalone articles (which chapter 5 originally was). Also, certain discussions (e.g., divine appearances in Classical literature) come across as tangential and distract from larger points Lapina makes. The heavy discussion of historiography and occasional use of untranslated quotes make this work best suited to graduate students or scholars interested in the intellectual underpinnings of First Crusade narratives or those wishing to deepen their knowledge of the intellectual history behind the use of miracles in medieval narrative sources as a whole.