Alexander Marx’s book is an important contribution which considerably enhances our representations about possible sources to be used to study crusade preaching. To date, scholars working on this issue have used more or less the same ‘canonical’ corpus of texts quoted in the fundamental works by Penny Cole and Jean Flori. However, Marx demonstrates that this list is far from being exhaustive if we reconsider the definition of the crusade sermon.

Scholars generally considered a sermon to be a crusade sermon either if it is titled somehow in this way or if it is clearly devoted to crusading. Doing so, it was generally accepted that the twelfth century is very poor for such texts. Marx’s book is groundbreaking in that he suggests the definition of ‘crusade sermon’ be fundamentally reconsidered: the crusades were not deemed by those who preached them as something separate from other issues; on the contrary, they were tightly connected to many other elements of spirituality so that some references to crusading, the ‘crusade potential’, could be found in many texts that can seem to be not crusade-related. In order to demonstrate that there is no clear distinction between ‘crusade’ and ‘non-crusade’ sermons, Marx publishes four complete sermon texts provided with descriptions indicating possible or certain connections to crusading. Even though some examples of crusading references cited by Marx may seem at least debatable, in many cases he seems to be right. As the author points out, sometimes one needs to read these sermons in their entirety and probably more than once to discern such connections.

The method suggested by Marx considerably raises the number of sources that are relevant to crusade preaching studies. That is the reason why, in order that the task be realistic, he limits his study to the preaching of the Third Crusade, focusing on nine preachers involved in the church reform movement (Garnerius of Clairvaux, Henry of Albano, Hélinard of Froidmont, Baldwin of Canterbury, Peter of Blois, Ralph Ardens, Alan of Lille, Prevostin of Cremona and Martin of León). Even so, as he points out, there may well be others who are still to be discovered.

The texts analysed by Marx are mainly known and published in Patrologia Latina, but there are some that have never been edited. Furthermore, Marx uses manuscript witnesses for texts that are not edited according to modern standards. Two of four sermons edited in Marx’s book had already been published in the PL, but are amended with some manuscript readings; the other two are unpublished. There is a specific chapter with numerous examples of the context of the placement of crusade-related sermons in the codices, sometimes providing very curious details that shed light on their use. At the end of the book there is an appendix, where there are several tables on sources used in the study. Above all, there is a complete list of sermons examined in the book and the manuscripts that contain them. In these tables we can see that Marx recognises that not all the sermons chosen are certainly related to the crusading, and there are some which may only allegedly belong to them as well. Probably it would be even more helpful if there were also information on dating the sermons and the proofs for these alleged dates – information which is not gathered together, but may be found in various passages of the book.

The book analyses a lot of text fragments related to the relic of the Holy Cross lost in the Battle of Hattin and to the cross in general, as well as everything related to Jerusalem, conquered in 1187 by the army of Saladin, and the Holy Land in general. Furthermore, there is an entire chapter dedicated to eschatological elements. It is to be noted that there is an interesting part of the book dealing with terminology used to denote the Holy Land. An extremely curious observation is that the famous Psalm lxviii (lxix) Deus venerunt gentes, traditionally associated with crusading and generally deemed to be omnipresent above all in the context of the loss of Jerusalem in 1187, was not so frequently used as it is usually supposed, and it is completely absent from sermons. There is a chapter where Marx addresses the question of how the crusade preaching-related sources explain the fall of Jerusalem: it is ascribed to sinfulness, but sources hesitate to say who precisely the sinners are, and whose sins are punished by God. Here my article in the this Journal lxx (2019), absent from the bibliography of the book, would also be useful: the issue of crusaders’ sinfulness is discussed there in detail.

Extremely interesting and innovative are comments in the last chapter of the book on the historical context of sermons. There is a series of commented tables where Marx tries to sum up available data on who, where and when the Third Crusade was preached, and to whom it was actually preached. Among other things, there is a table which sums up available data on surviving letters related to crusade mobilisation. Marx points out that very few sermon texts survived from episcopal pens: bishops were likely to use material composed for them by others. There is an interesting analysis of social networking indicating connections between preachers and bishops. Then, available data on when and under what circumstances sermons were preached. Marx points out that some sermons with high crusade potential were formally ascribed to certain feasts not accidentally, but because their authors were likely to deliver them precisely at that time.