THE BLIND CROSS: A Novel of the Children's Crusade

by Michael Mott ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 16, 1970

Less a novel of the Children's Crusade than a 13th century panorama, less the implied crusade of a single child--fourteen-year-old orphan Alan Fitzalan, should-be heir to Arney--than his coming into his own. While seeking support for his claim and proving his natural right to it, he becomes embroiled in the Albigensian dispute rending Montdore in Languedoc, seat of his mother's family, and there first hears, bafflingly, of the Blind Cross. Coexisting are (as the indispensable historical overview explains) two crusading movements, the larger one against the ""infidels"" in Jerusalem, temporarily thwarted, and the local one against the ""heretics"" in Southern France. Despite some quite sophisticated religious disputation between Alan and his twelve-year-old brother Mat, striking in itself, the nature of the Albigensian heresy remains cloudy. So, because it figures only briefly and personally, does the character of the Children's Crusade. Trailing impressionable Mat who's joined, Alan is seized and sold to Arab scholar Ibn Aziz, accompanies him to Mecca (completing the dying man's pilgrimage at great risk) and comes upon Mat in Jerusalem--also upon a blind Greek priest who was present when the Cross was stolen in Constantinople. Then it's back to where it all began unbeknownst--the Red Swan Inn at Wapping--to retrieve the jewels wrested from the Cross. More eventful than adventurous, arresting in some of its particulars but indeterminate re the pivotal Albigensians.

Pub Date: Feb. 16, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1970

Categories: FICTION