The novel “The High Crusade” by Poul Anderson was published for the first time in 1960, first serialized in the magazine “Astounding” then as a book.

In 1345, Sir Roger, Baron de Tourneville, is preparing to join his king in his war against France when near the English village of Ansby an alien spaceship lands. That’s a Wersgorix scout ship whose crew expects to terrorize the primitive Earthlings. Actually, fear pushes humans to attack the aliens, killing most of them.

The English take possession of the starship and force Branithar, a Wersgor alien they spared, to reveal how it works. Sir Roger thinks he can fight the French and in the Crusade with the alien weapons but when Branithar programs the starship to return to its base the English have to fight an entire Wersgorix garrison.

Poul Anderson started his writing career in the late ’40s and then became full time writer at the beginning of the ’50s. He experimented with various genres and subgenres and “The High Crusade” put together a number of typical elements of his stories.

For economic reasons, Poul Anderson abandoned fantasy, which at the time paid little money, but in many science fiction stories included medieval settlements. The author had a curious fondness for the feudal system, which associated to a stable and more natural society. It was closer to his conservative vision more than modern societies.

In “The High Crusade” the Wersgorix civilization appears, very advanced and powerful enough to subdue many planets and species. For centuries, the Wersgorix spaceships have explored new star systems in search of new planets. Thanks to their superior technology, they have terrorized the natives of primitive planets easily obtaining their surrender.

Over time, however, the Wersgorix civilization started declining: the ease of their expansion and the absence of real enemies led to complacency. This is another theme that Anderson has explored several times during his career, especially with regard to human civilizations.

In “The High Crusade” it’s an alien civilization which is decadent and Poul Anderson inserted the theme of the challenge, which he sees as a need for humans. To really make progress, you must take action facing the challenge and accepting the consequences. In this novel, the English face more advanced aliens but instead of submitting to them they attack.

The English are armed only with medieval weapons but they are used to hand-to-hand combat while the aliens no longer know how to fight that way so they get defeated. Arriving on the Earth, they expected another easy victory against the humans, who are just superstitious savages to them, instead the aliens are the ones easily defeated.

The English manage to capture the Wersgorix spaceship but, because of a trick of an alien, it returns to a planet controlled by its species. Once again, however, humans manage to confuse and surprise their enemies. The message in “The High Crusade” is that the ability to fight with a good strategy and the right attitude is more important than any technology.

“The High Crusade” is narrated as a first-person report written by Brother Parvus except for the prologue and epilogue, set nearly a millennium after the main story events. The style reproduces the medieval one to bring the reader to live as much as possible the points of view of the medieval English.

In the works of Poul Anderson there’s often an element of humor and “The High Crusade” is full of irony. The story is told with great seriousness and Brother Parvus often emphasizes how dramatic the situation is for the English but exactly for this reason it turns out totally unlikely.

“The High Crusade” is a novel that has a standard length for the time when it was written, therefore certain editions may be under two hundred pages. Often in the stories told in first person only the character who acts as narrator is developed but in this case Brother Parvus also talks about the most important among his people so they too are well developed.

In 1994, “The High Crusade” was adapted into a movie with the same title but with many differences from the book.

“The High Crusade” is a funny novel that behind a lot of action hides deeper issues. Not accidentally, it’s become a classic and for these reasons I recommend reading it.