History

The Crusader World is a multidisciplinary survey of the current state of research in the field of crusader studies, an area of study which has become increasingly popular in recent years. In this volume Adrian Boas draws together an impressive range of academics, including work from renowned scholars as well as a number of though-provoking pieces from emerging researchers, in order to provide broad coverage of the major aspects of the period. This authoritative work will play an important role in the future direction of crusading studies.   This volume enriches present knowledge of the crusades, addressing such wide-ranging subjects as: intelligence and espionage, gender issues, religious celebrations in crusader Jerusalem, political struggles in crusader Antioch, the archaeological study of battle sites and fortifications, diseases suffered by the crusaders, crusading in northern Europe and Spain and the impact of Crusader art. The relationship between Crusaders and Muslims, two distinct and in many way opposing cultures, is also examined in depth, including a discussion of how the Franks perceived their enemies.   Arranged into eight thematic sections, The Crusader World considers many central issues as well as a large number of less familiar topics of the crusades, crusader society, history and culture. With over 100 photographs, line drawings and maps, this impressive collection of essays is a key resource for students and scholars alike.

A comprehensive and timely exploration of the key role Jerusalem played in shaping the art and culture of the Middle Ages Medieval Jerusalem was a vibrant international center and home to multiple cultures, faiths, and languages.  Harmonious and dissonant influences from Persian, Turkish, Greek, Syrian, Armenian, Georgian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Indian, and European traditions invested Jerusalem with a key role in shaping the art of the Middle Ages.  Through compelling essays by international and interdisciplinary experts and detailed discussions of more than 200 works of art, this beautiful, authoritative volume breaks new ground in exploring the relationship between the historical and the archetypal city of Jerusalem, uncovering the ways in which the aesthetic achievements it inspired enhanced and enlivened the medieval world.   Patrons and artists from Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions alike focused their attention on the Holy City, endowing and enriching its sacred buildings and creating luxury goods for its residents.  This artistic fertility was particularly in evidence between the 11th and the 14th centuries, notwithstanding often devastating circumstances--from the earthquake of 1033 to the fierce battles of the Crusades.  Dazzling illustrations featuring new photography complement this unprecedented, panoptic story of Jerusalem in the Middle Ages.  

The Knights of St John evolved during the Crusades from a monastic order providing hostels for Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land. The need to provide armed escorts to the pilgrims began their transformation into a Military Order. Their fervour and discipline made them an elite component of most Crusader armies and Hospitaller Knights (as they were also known) took part in most of the major engagements, including Hattin, Acre and Arsuf. After the Muslims had reconquered the Crusader Kingdoms, the Order continued to fight from a new base, first in Rhodes and then in Malta. Taking to the sea, the Hospitallers became one of the major naval powers in the Mediterranean, defending Christian shipping from the Barbary Pirates (and increasingly turning to piracy themselves as funding from their estates in Europe dried up). They provided a crucial bulwark against Islamic expansion in the Mediterranean, obstinately resisting a massive siege of Malta by the Ottoman Turks in 1565. The Order remained a significant power in the Mediterranean until their defeat by Napoleon in 1798.

A compilation of facts, figures, maps, family trees, summaries of the major crusades and their historiography, the Routledge Companion to the Crusades spans a broad chronological range from the eleventh to the eighteenth century, and gives a chronological framework and context for modern research on the crusading movement. Not just a history of the Crusades, but an overview of the logistical, economic, social and biographical history, this is a core text for students of history and religious studies.

This book tells the story of the Architecture and the Figural Art produced for the Crusaders after the battle of Hattin and the fall of Jerusalem in 1187, during the one hundred years that Acre was the capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1191-1291. It is an art sponsored by kings and queens, patriarchs and bishops, clergy, monks, friars, knights and soldiers, aristocrats and merchants, all men and women of means, who came as pilgrims, Crusaders, settlers, and men of commerce to the Holy Land. The artists are Franks and Italians born and/or resident in the Holy Land, Westerners who traveled to the Latin East, Eastern Christians, and even Muslims, who worked for Crusader patrons.

This book presents as many aspects as possible of warfare during the period of the crusades within all the cultures most directly involved. To a large extent the current interest in the Crusades reflects the perceived threat of a so-called "clash of civilisations". While warnings of such a supposed clash in our own times are based upon a misunderstanding of the natures of both "Western" and "Islamic" civilisations, some commentators have looked to the medieval Crusades as an earlier example of such a clash. In reality they were no such thing. Instead the Crusades resulted from a remarkable variety of political, economic, cultural and religious factors. The Crusades, even excluding the Northern or Baltic Crusades, also involved an extraordinary array of states, ruling dynasties, ethnic or linguistic groups and the fighting forces associated with these disparate participants. This volume focuses on Western Europe and the Byzantium Crusades. Latin or Catholic Europe certainly had an "eastern front". Medieval Europeans, and certainly the knightly class which came to bear the brunt of Crusading warfare, would have seen all these fronts as part of Latin Christendom's struggle against outsiders. The latter ranged from infidels to schismatics, to pagans and other "enemies of God". Excluding Crusading or Christian frontier warfare north of the Carpathian Mountains did not reflect any real military or even political factors on the Latin side of the "front". It is based upon which enemies were to be included and which excluded. This study looks at Christian and in a few cases "pagan" armies whose actions or mere existence in sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, had a bearing upon military, political and economic relations between Christendom and Islam within the Mediterranean world.

Gateway to the Heavenly City presents a penetrating analysis of the attitudes of Latin Christendom towards Jerusalem in the period from the First Crusade to the Muslim capture of the city in 1187. Sylvia Schein starts by exploring the changes in the Western image of Jerusalem, first as the goal of the crusade, then after its conquest. She examines the theories used to justify the conquest and rule of the Holy City and the attitudes of the papacy towards this new rival centre of sanctity. Subsequent chapters describe the new character of Jerusalem's sanctity as the city of the Old and New Testaments, as the earthly gateway to the heavenly city, and in apocalyptic terms as the centre of the world and the place where the events of the end of the world would unroll. The reaction to the fall of crusader Jerusalem in 1187 is the subject of the final chapter. Based on a detailed examination of the source materials, from poetry and song to chronicles and charters, this book paints a clear picture of the place of the Earthly and the Heavenly Jerusalem in Latin Christendom.

The book will be welcome for tackling the Crusades from a fresh but important angle; the relations of the Crusader states with their neighbours, both Christian (the Byzantines) and, especially, Islamic âe" the rulers of Damascus, Aleppo, Baghdad, Cairo etc. It contributes to the very fashionable approach of seeing the Crusades as a prime example of early European colonialism, and investigating them much more for their social, political and ethnic impact on the region than for their ostensible ideological and religious motives. Holt uses original Arabic sources, which are generally difficult for Western historians, and therefore this book is an important addition to literature about the Crusades.

According to tradition, the First Crusade began at the instigation of Pope Urban II and culminated in July 1099, when thousands of western European knights liberated Jerusalem from the rising menace of Islam. But what if the First Crusade’s real catalyst lay far to the east of Rome? In this groundbreaking book, countering nearly a millennium of scholarship, Peter Frankopan reveals the untold history of the First Crusade.

In 1202, zealous Western Christians gathered in Venice determined to liberate Jerusalem from the grip of Islam. But the crusaders never made it to the Holy Land. Steered forward by the shrewd Venetian doge, they descended instead on Constantinople, wreaking terrible devastation. The crusaders spared no one: They raped and massacred thousands, plundered churches, and torched the lavish city. By 1204, one of the great civilizations of history had been shattered. Here, on the eight hundredth anniversary of the sack, is the extraordinary story of this epic catastrophe, told for the first time outside of academia by Jonathan Phillips, a leading expert on the crusades. Knights and commoners, monastic chroniclers, courtly troubadours, survivors of the carnage, and even Pope Innocent III left vivid accounts detailing the events of those two fateful years. Using their remarkable letters, chronicles, and speeches, Phillips traces the way in which any region steeped in religious fanaticism, in this case Christian Europe, might succumb to holy war.

Sir Steven Runciman's three volume A History of the Crusades, one of the great classics of English historical writing, is being reissued. This volume deals completely with the First Crusade and the foundation of the kingdom of Jerusalem. As Runciman says in his preface: 'Whether we regard the Crusades as the most tremendous and most romantic of Christian adventures, or as the last of the barbarian invasions, they form a central fact in medieval history. Before their inception the centre of our civilization was placed in Byzantium and in the lands of the Arab caliphate. Before they faded out the hegemony in civilization had passed to western Europe. Out of this transference modern history was born.'

This book sheds light on the first three Crusades (1097-1191) by introducing material from several medieval Syriac and Arabic sources and reconciling their accounts with those provided by Western sources. It presents the Crusades as an extension of the conflict between Christianity and Islam, which began with the Arabs' first incursions into Christian territory in the seventh century and continued with their conquest of the Iberian peninsula.

This volume presents translations of a selection of the letters sent by crusaders and pilgrims from Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine. There are accounts of all the great events from the triumph of the capture of Jerusalem in 1099 to the disasters of Hattin in 1187 and the loss of Acre in 1291.