Jack Whyte's Knights of the Black and White: A Review
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- Опубліковано 15 вер 2024
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A review of historical novel "The Knights of the Black and White", written by Jack Whyte, about the Knights Templar.
A rant but an enjoyable one. It's good to encounter people like you on UA-cam, who actually understand history.
I blame Assassins Creed!
I love that game, but it is full of crap.
I blame Karl Marx
I'm so glad I found this channel. Very professional, very informative and interesting.
your channel is so addictive! will you do a segment about the contact between the crusaders and the mongol hordes?
I always argued that late Medieval period was more humane and just a nicer time for a common man (except for the plague of course) than the early modern period. In early modern period you have reformation triggering devastating religious wars in Europe, this is also the period of large-scale peasant rebellions usually resulting in just reatliation and more hardship for the lower classes, and then it all culminated in thirty years war between Catholics and Protestants that just wrecked central Europe.
Hearing this I would love for you to do a series on the medieval period in general (not just the crusade) and how life was for people in different countries and for different people because you really seem to know your stuff and truthful information about the medieval era would be most welcome. Not that I don't love the crusade stuff, I absolutely do.
I loved your point about how the medieval era allowed greater freedom in certain areas than subsequent eras. I always had that sense from the few books I read about the period. Also, some edu-tainment recently made that point: It can be a fascinating exercise to compare the politics in Paradox Interactive's medieval game Crusader Kings II to their renaissance/Age of Exploration game Europa Universalis 4. Getting anything done in CK2 is often a frustrating exercise of needing to work with vassals at multiple levels of authority, while in EU4 you say it as monarch and it almost always gets done without complaint. EU4 also shows how religion became far more intertwined with high-level politics than it was during the middle ages. Based on what you said in your excellent review, Paradox did justice to both periods with their great games.
I just got done playing that. LOL
Great game, right? :)
Scott T
Yea. Even though i like EU 4 better.
I'm torn between both. I find myself going from one to the other. I like the time period of CK2 better, but I love the exploration and colonization aspects of EU4. Too much of a good thing! LOL!
I think you're right indeed. Yes, the High Middle Ages were far less centralized. If you didn't like how things were in one city, just go to the next one. A lot of castles were like little governments in themselves. So I would say that game really did a good job of that.
I know I have three posts in a row and this is my forth. It's just when I listen to you I have to comment as you are making your points. My last comment is thank you for your thoughtful presentation. Please do more longer pieces like this. You are just terrific and god bless you and yours.
And don't forget Zoe Oldenbourg!
I think that she has the best single volume history of the Crusades - taught me most of what I know...
Agreed, she is massive. Have you read her novel about the poor in the First Crusade? Heirs to the Kingdom? It's intense.
Also one Catholic church!? There was the eastern orthodox church, Coptic Christians, other eastern catholic churches. And Europe Was filled catholics with very different traditions, ones that technically answered to the pope. But would have no contact. Like the Irish catholic church
They were still Catholic
By the way, the like 'it has served us well this myth of christ' is more usually attributed to the renaissance Pope Leo X. It is a disputed attribution, apparently coming from Protestant propaganda.
Oh that's right. I think I remember that now. I don't understand why he attributed it to Benedict VI, who is barely a footnote in history.
Whyte is a dreadful author. This is the worst book ever. Just unforgivably bad.
Real Crusades History
It was a very important thing that Pope John Paul II did in apologizing about the transgressions of his predecessors. He took the high road in doing so. I am not even Catholic, but i hate it when the office of the Papacy gets libeled. The world would be a much darker place without the Pope. We would have to redefine "dark ages" in our history books. We had best be careful about with-holding forgiveness from those who ask for it. Every last one of us have been in that position.
Too bad you wasted your time on such a bad book. But at least it's a warning to others.
I also felt the need to warn others off this book. I don't normally bother with negative reviews on Amazon, but that was all this waste of paper deserved.
What historical fiction book(s) on the knights templar or the teutonic knights do you recommend?
youtube "The Catholic Church Builder of Civilization. Check it out 13 episodes, talks about that period in Europe and cannon law and the rights of woman. It just dispels so many myths. Check it out you will enjoy it if you enjoy real crusades history.
I love you Real Crusades History!
I guess Jack Whyte thinks the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Church of the East never existed along with the Paulicians and Bogomils and Albigensians.
I can't imagine WHY this book is found in the FICTION section... :P
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I got this book from a garage sale (lol), read it, and came to the conclusion that this was the worst book on Catholicism that I've read since John Cornwall's abortion of a book, _Hitler's Pope_.
+Robert Freid (ComradeDimitri101) Yeah, Hitler's Pope is another load of frothing at the mouth anti-Catholicism with virtually no historical content.
Real Crusades History I know huh. Speaking of which, if you're interested, you should read Mark Riebling's _Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler_. It's a fascinating read, even convinced New Atheist author Sam Harris of changing his mind on Pope Pius the 12th during WWII (whom he believed was pro-Nazi up until he read that book).
By the way, love you Crusade lectures. Keep it up man!
+Robert Freid (ComradeDimitri101) Interesting I'll check that out. Thanks for the recommendation. Glad you like the videos my friend.
+Real Crusades History. You're welcome! I'd love to see more content on the Baltic (Northern) Crusades of the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries. I am actually writing a short story set during that historical era, because I love how it is the final clash between the Baltic European paganism of the Wends, Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians and Old Prussians and Roman Catholic Christianity of the central and northwestern European nations - the Holy Roman Empire (Germany), Poland, Denmark, Sweden and the Monastic State of the Teutonic Order. It's all really fascinating stuff to me, even though my main expertise is modern world history...
he has an Arthurian series starting in late 4th century Britain. the first book, "Skystone" starts with the Great Conspiracy", the characters understand that Roman rule won't last forever and begin to prepare. book was pretty enjoyable, seemed like he had a grasp on the time period but what do I know. I couldn't get through the second book though, boring
Bit of a shame, because the third book in the Camulod chronicles is where it really begins to pick up steam. The generational shift from Publius Varrus & Caius Brittanicus to Merlin and Uther (and eventually Arthur) begins.
Didn't the Templar become proto bankers or something?
this is my second request that you debunk the idea that the church organized the persecution of Jews during the crusades. I believe it was St Bernard that was sent t\by the church to stop the rabble from persecuting Jews. I am no expert but I am pretty sure I am right on this. I would love it if you would go into more depth on the subject.
Dude, Jack Whyte is brilliant.
I was hoping this was going to cover the "Knight of the Black and White Eagle" also known as "Knight Kadosh", it would be great if you had a video for the order.
So glad you found read, & warned the public about this book that should be used to start a fire of put in an outhouse. Thank You & GOD BLESS.
Go to youtube search. Type in; Billy Madison everyone is now dumber. Watch one of the 00:35 second long clips. Perfect review for this book. Enjoy the chuckle, you've earned it.
Its one of my favorite books. Great series. BUt to each their own. I wont dispute anything you say. I just personally enjoyed it. I admit the begining of the first one is pretty dull. But once you move on from there it picked up and for me it stays exciting.
NOO NOPE I also enjoy Jack's stories but I know they are very far from the truth. It is a fiction novel but some people try to pass it off as based in reality.
Can you do a review on Jack Whyts ‘Standard of Honor’, my favorite book of all time
also had it not been for Islam that flowering of civilization would have taken root centuries earlier. Islam brought on the dark ages and economic ruin. The barbarians had quickly been civilized and in eight century France there was a revival of roman civilization. Read Muhammad and Charlemagne, they are contemporaries. What stymied the revival of roman civilization was not the barbarians it was Islam. You could not launch a ship in the Mediterranean without your crew being captured and sold into slavery. Many of the coastal towns in Europe were abandoned due to Arab slaving.
holy blood holy grail is actually very good in some respects. In fact the authors sued Dan Brown because he basically plagiarized a lot of their research. I will say this as far as it goes HBHG establishes one important fact and that is that the people closest to Jesus, i.e. Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, the man born blind, fled the holy land with Joseph of Arimathea during the first persecution of Christians, which was not a roman persecution but a Jewish persecution of those closest to Christ. Where did they go according to all traditions they follow the tin trade rout into southern France and on to Britain. Joseph of Aramethia was the uncle of Jesus and was an official in the government of Pilate Eusebius refers to him as nobelus decorum (sorry my Latin is not so great), or minister of mines. Why do you think that joseph could beg the body of Jesus, because he was not some poor nobody. Jesus and his family were connected. Jesus may have loved the poor but he was not poor he was a tradesman. Anyway, my point is that HBHG is well researched, in that it establishes the first missionaries, those closest to Jesus went to the south of France and to Britain. As far as theology, the writers of holy blood holy grail are as dumb as Dan brown is in their conclusions. Jesus did not go to France and have babies with Mary Magdalene, but Mary did go to France as did the entire household of Bethany. Look it up Lazerus was the first bishop of Marseille.
I personally recommend you toss the thing into the ocean instead of just into the dumpster. Or maybe not, who knows what kind of pollution crisis it would cause.
"It has served us well..." first appears in an anti-catholic tract, falsely attributed to Leo X. He wasn't the best of Popes, and since he was a Medici, one might expect him to be a bit cynical. He did, in fact say, "God has given us the Papacy, so let us enjoy it," but there is no reliable record of him making the obviously heretical "myth" remark.
Out of his ass, and on to the front of his book!
Damn - should I even bother watching?
LMAO
Well, this is more for listening than watching... haha
10:35 oh my goodness. lol. That statement should make every Historian laugh out loud.
Seven nations army is alright
In ck2 you can set up an antipope, but well they have feudalism and the ortodox church in 770.
No middle class. Crap what the hell was a merchant or banker. What about the traders and the great trading cities that didn't even have kings. Like in Italy..
Reading was specialized b/c writing skills were so hard to read at the time.
So, not only does the book have a lot of exposition, but it is also wrong?
Man you are savage in this video.
Don't be shy about telling us what you think.
I don't think he has problem with Christians. More likely he simply using the same old tired bias against catholicism that permeated among the english speaking protestant novel authors since XIX century.
croatian pirates even captured one pope
How can anyone say that everything went according to plan with the first crusade (as Whyte does)? Wasn't it a poorly logistically organised armed pilgrimage to the Holy Land (mainly the Asia Minor route)? They ran into problems everywhere, ignorrant of the wider political situation in the Middle-East and a little beyond, thinking God's grace and overwhelming numbers would grant them victory against the infidels. The numbers were already greatly reduced upon their very arrival in the Holy Land, instead of swift victories sieges dragged on for months with little supplies, running out of food, experiencing famine and deseases. But sure, everything went according to plan.
All in all, I think Whyte wanted to cash in on the conspiracy a la DaVinci code bullshit type of thing. The book he cites as spiking his interest in the Templars is the very same book that inspired the DaVinci code. I don't think he has problems with Christians or Christianity, I'd say he wanted to cash in on the popular conspiratorial anti-Christian feel on the market. I think he did a rather poor job at that as well, since the book is so boring it's unreadable.
Although this is nothing more than blind speculation, I totally agree with you that Whyte probably wrote “Knights of the Black and White”, as well as the rest of his Templar novels, in order to exploit the Da Vinci code craze (his novel was published just three months after the Tom Hanks movie was released back in 2006). And I can’t fault him for that; writing is a business, after all. However, being a Catholic, the books’ premises bothered me a bit. Definitely a step down from his “Dream of Eagles” series (nine magnificent historical fiction novels that tell a believable version of the King Arthur legend).
Please watch Why We Are Afraid, A 1,400 Year Secret By Dr. Bill Warner. Powerful Stuff Man!
Yea I loved his Merlin/King Arthur series...then was terribly disappointed in his crap rhetoric.
Funny... I've been trying to struggle through it.. As bad as the history is, the writing is even worse.. Like swimming through lead
Your review is dead on..
Glad you found it useful. It really is a terrible book in so many ways.
@@RealCrusadesHistory.. I'd love to see you apply your medieval expertise to story that actually deserves it.. Have you ever considered doing an analysis of The Name Of The Rose.. The film, and the book especially, would be tremendous opportunity to explore the medieval European mind..
I accidentally bought it 🤦♂️ 📕 🗑️
Are you a Catholic?
I'm trying to find what books you have written about the crusades, what titles should I be looking for. Feel free to add whatever universities for degrees that you hold.