Stephen J. Rivelle Ordre des livres

A Booke of Days is the captivating story of a young French nobleman, Roger, Duke of Lunel, who leaves his home in Provence in the 11th century to join the forces that will attempt to recapture Jerusalem from its Turkish occupiers. Forced to leave his new wife by the sacred commitment of an armed pilgrimage, he is plagued by guilt over a secret sin from his past and his own religious doubt that arises during his mission. The holy crusade on which Roger embarks soon degenerates into a savage campaign dogged by betrayal, deceit and greed. Yet this was the greatest adventure of its time, where a hundred thousand medieval men who had previously never traveled much beyond their own villages undertook a journey halfway across the known world for the promise of salvation. Most would never see their homelands again. And for Roger, this greatest of all spiritual undertakings is an intensely human quest: a war of new and old ideas, a collision of cultures, an awakening prompted as much by slaughter as sanctity, a battle of the flesh as well as the spirit.

Roman aus der zeit des 1. Kreuzzuges (1096-1099), in dem der französische Ritter Roger von Lunel von Leiden, Strapazen und Grausamkeiten auf dem Zug nach Jerusalem und bei der Erstürmung der Stadt berichtet. In seinem Tagebuch beschreibt er den rücksichtslosen Machtkampf unter den ächristlichenä Heerführern. Die Gewalttaten der Kreuzfahrer lassen seine Zweifel an der Rechtmässigkeit des Kampfes wachsen und rauben ihm jede Illusion