Medieval Christianity: Crusades

"This A-to-Z encyclopedia explores the phenomenon of the Crusades in all of its complexity, ranging from the classic numbered crusades in the Middle East to the Reconquista in Spain, and from the Baltic Crusades to the crusades against Albigensian heretics in France." "This is the most up-to-date reference source available, reflecting the most recent scholarship in the field. More than 200 entries are extensively cross-referenced, and many provide additional readings, including accessible primary sources. Nearly 100 photos and six maps accompany the text. A bibliographic essay leads readers to the most useful and important works in the field, while an appendix of major crusades, events, and figures helps readers put the era into perspective. This invaluable tool gives students, researchers, and general readers all they need to begin their own exploration of this fascinating time of intercultural conflict - one which continues to reverberate in today's world."--Jacket.

There is no shortage of stories about the crusades, or of biographies of those who played the leading roles in this, the greatest epic of the Middle Ages. But there has been no book in which we could find, recreated, the way of life, the world view, the everyday social organization of those who tempted adventure. They were kings and paupers, barons, clerks, women, and merchants. Some were driven by their faith, others by the spirit of conquest, and some by a hunger for greatness and wealth. Régine Pernoud presents for us a living picture in which we can view, first hand, the awe of the Christians as they beheld the Muslim world, the myriad ordeals they sustained while traveling for years in unknown lands, and the remarkable way in which they managed to adapt, to colonize, to erect churches and fortresses, and to abide for centuries in the face of an adversary far greater in number. Here, an unrecognized page in our history finally reveals itself. A great historian and writer brings this colorful period alive. Régine Pernoud, a renowned French archivist and historian, is among the greatest medievalists of our times, and the success of her books has helped to bring the Middle Ages closer to us. Among her numerous works are Those Terrible Middle Ages! and Women in the Days of the Cathedrals.

The twelve complete articles in this volume represent some of the best recent scholarship on the crusades. The collection introduces students to fundamental concepts of crusading, including the nature of the movement, the motivation of the participants, and the impact on the East. The focus is not on individual crusades but on the political, economic, spiritual, and demographic factors behind these medieval holy wars and on their consequences. A strong editorial structure guides students through the competing perspectives that have dominated scholarly discussion. An opening introduction summarizes relevant historical events and provides an overview of the historiography. Each article is then contextualized by the editor with a discussion of its significance to scholarship.

"Fighting Words is an innovative and accessible new military-history series, each title juxtaposing the voices of opposing combatants in a major historical conflict. Presented side by side are the testimonies of fighting men and women, the reportage of nations at war, and the immediate public responses of belligerent war leaders. Together, they offer strikingly different perspectives on the same events." "The extracts are short and snappy, complemented by brief introductions which set the scene. They vividly recreate the conflicts as they were experienced. At the same time, they open up new perspectives and challenge accepted assumptions. Readers will question the nature of primary sources, the motivations of the authors, the agendas that influence media reports and the omissions inherent in all of the sources. Ultimately, readers will be left to ponder the question: whose history is this?"--Jacket.

An important, richly illustrated account of the struggle between Christianity and Islam in the Near East, as well as the Church's campaigns in Europe against heretics and pagans, from southern France to the Baltic. Includes more than 150 magnificent photographs,maps and specially commissioned artworks all in full colour. The informative and authoritative guide to the major Crusades and their social, religious and cultural background. Includes special features on a variety of key topics, from The Shared Holy Land to The Glories of the Ottoman's. An essential guide to understanding many modern-day conflicts - from the Balkans and Lebanon to Palestine and the War on Terror.

A comprehensive history of the crusades ranges from the eleventh century to modern times and includes commentary on the art and architecture associated with the crusades and insights into the history of the knightly orders.

Overview: 'God wills it!' With that cry of medieval knights a new era in European history began. Across Europe a wave of pious enthusiasm led many thousands to leave their homes, family, and friends to march to a distant land in a great struggle for Christ. Yet the crusades were more than simply a holy war. They represent a synthesis of attitudes and values that were uniquely medieval-so medieval, in fact, that the crusading movement is rarely understood today. This book places the crusades within the medieval social, economic, religious, and intellectual environments that gave birth to the movement and nurtured it for centuries. The events of the crusades to Palestine and Europe's periphery are narrated in a clear, concise, and compelling manner. Special attention is also given to the crusades' effects on the Islamic world and the Christian Byzantine East. Also included is a historiographical overview of the subject as well as an up-to-date select biography.

"Written by a team of leading scholars, this book presents an authoritative and comprehensive history of the Crusades from the preaching of the First Crusade in 1095 to the legacy of crusading ideas and imagery today."--Jacket.

The second edition of The Crusades, for long the standard work on the subject, has been extensively rewritten to take account of the latest research and new interpretations. Crusading was a central theme in early medieval European history, and the book covers all the expeditions which took place between the First Crusade in 1096 and the final retreat from Palestine in 1291. Certain aspects are examined in detail: the Crusading indulgence; the effect the Crusades had on the history of the participating states; the entanglement of the Crusades in European politics -- for example in the conflicts between Pope and Emperor, and between the kings of France and England; its role in moulding relations between Byzantium and Europe; and its misuse for an expansionist Italian and Catalan trade policy. In line with recent research, particular emphasis has been placed on the internal history of the Crusader states. This comprehensive account will be of value to undergraduates and general readers alike; it is also an excellent introduction to the subject for those who intend to move on to more detailed studies. - Back cover.

The six volumes of A History of the Crusades will stand as the definitive history of the Crusades, spanning five centuries, encompassing Jewish, Moslem, and Christian perspectives, and containing a wealth of information and analysis of the history, politics, economics, and culture of the medieval world.

The astonishing outbreak of religious fervour and military self confidence that led to the great Christian expeditions to invade the Holy Land during the twelfth century have become such an established part of European myth that it has become almost impossible to view these events as they were seen by contemporaries. The towering historical figures (Frederick Barbarossa, Count Bohemond of Tarento, Richard the Lionheart, Philip Augustus, Saladin) and the accompanying panoply of images (the great sermons of the popes and St.Bernard, the taking of the Cross, the horrors of the People's Crusade) make the First, Second and Third Crusades vivid and real in a way denied much of medieval history. However, were these in fact "Crusades" at all? The later Crusades, from the ignominious Fourth Crusade onwards, tend to attract less attention because of their diversity and general lack of success. However, in this radical and compelling new treatment, Christopher Tyerman questions the very nature of our belief in the Crusades, showing how historians writing in the century after the first Crusade and beyond retrospectively invented the idea of the "Crusade". Using these often later sources, subsequent historians up to the present day have often followed propaganda and partisan commentary to explain events that were understood quite differently by contemporaries. Put crudely, we know they were Crusades, but they did not. This short book will be invaluable for all those teaching the Crusades - suggesting a new and stimulating view of this popular topic and allowing students to learn more about the complex and fascinating way that history comes to be written.

Summoning to life the Crusader battalions that hewed out kingdoms in Christ's native land nearly a thousand years ago,Robert Payne has woven a glittering tapestry of a time when splendor vied with baseness,piety with greed,and courage with folly.This is an exquisitely wrought saga of the medieval world that is as knowing of the peasant's hovel as of the prince's palace.And it is he story of the clash and mingling of East and West, when religious faith and the possession of an ancient sepulcher were the things that mattered most in the life and death of men.-Flap cover.

"The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem" is a unique and comprehensive exploration of every aspect of crusader society in the Holy Land, from the indigenous Moslem, Christian and Jewish populations to systems of government and commerce, pilgrimages and popular beliefs, warfare and fortifications and crusader arts and architecture. The novelty of Professor Prawer's approach, however, lies in his treatment of crusader society in the East as the initial manifestation of European colonialism. The wide scope of his investigation, which draws upon a variety of disciplines, results in a major contribution to the fields of history, political science and sociology.

This study throws new light on both the history of the crusades and the mendicant orders in the thirteenth century. It describes the way in which the Franciscan and Dominican orders became involved in preaching the cross and examines their contribution to the crusading movement of the thirteenth century. The availability of a large number of trained preachers from the Franciscan and Dominican orders allowed the papacy to use them in order to provide the crusades with a well-organized and efficient propaganda back-up throughout Europe unknown before the thirteenth century. The book explains how the propaganda campaigns were organized and how the recruitment of crusaders took place. It shows that the mendicant friars became the most important group of crusade propagandists recruiting crusaders for virtually all thirteenth-century crusades. The book also shows that the friars were involved in providing finance for the crusades as part of their propaganda effort, despite their vows of absolute poverty. It also challenges the traditional pacifist view of the founder saints of the two orders by showing them to be supporters of the crusades themselves.

In 1095, Pope Urban II delivered an electrifying speech that launched the First Crusade. In the largest mobilization since the fall of the Roman Empire, some 100,000 men took up the call, driven on by intense religious devotion, convinced that their struggle would earn them the reward of eternal paradise in Heaven. This book recounts a three-year adventure filled with barbarity: from the mobilization in Europe, where great waves of anti-Semitism resulted in the deaths of thousands of Jews, through the arrival in Constantinople, an opulent city, ten times the size of any city in Europe, that bedazzled the Europeans; to the siege of Nicaea and the pivotal battle for Antioch, where the crusaders routed a larger and better-equipped Muslim army. When a hardened core finally reached Jerusalem in 1099, they brutally slaughtered thousands of Muslims--men, women, and children--in the name of Christianity. The First Crusade marked a watershed in relations between Islam and the West, a conflict that set these two religions on a course toward enduring enmity.--From publisher description.

The First Crusade deeply stirred the people of western Europe, yet there are no more than five Latin accounts by participants. Here, complete in English for the first time, is the eyewitness chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and his history of the formative years of the Latin states in the East. Fulcher's account is of exceptional value because his position enabled him to be near the center of events that he observed and reported, and because he observed and reported, and because he remained in the East and continued writing for a generation after the capture of Jerusalem in 1099. Further, his is the only contemporary Latin chronicle for the period 1120-27. Fulcher's history has a certain naive charm. He regarded the crusade as a pilgrimage and the crusaders as pilgrims and martyrs. He preached martyrdom, but once faced with this privilege - during an ambush of Baldwin's forces near Beirut - he honestly admitted that he wished he were back home in France. He gloried in bloody victories but sometimes recoiled from the horrors of battle. He preached Jesus Christ but did not recognize that Christian charity might also extend to the Moslems. Fulcher had some pretensions to erudition; he frequently quoted classical Latin authors as well as passages from the Bible, yet he modestly plead guilty to rudeness of style. His chronicle does, however, give a straightforward account of such political and military events as he felt would inspire enthusiasm and manpower support among the people of western Europe, and the accuracy of his reporting compares favorably with that of other chroniclers, both Christian and Moslem.

To its contemporaries, the First Crusade was a journey and the men who took part in it pilgrims. Only later were those participants dubbed Crusaders. In this greatly expanded second edition to his classic work, Edward Peters brings together the essential Christian, Hebrew, and Arabic Sources that document the events of 1095-1099.

In this work Michael Foss casts light on the reality of and motives behind the Crusades in general, and in particular the First Crusade, which set the tone for all those that followed. As the eleventh century came to an end, the Christian lands of Western Europe were in trouble. Afflicted by repeated invasions from the north, by the collapse of internal order and safety, by the increasing laxity and ignorance of the clergy, and by the unrestrained tyranny of the feudal lords, life in the West was, as one philosopher described it, "nasty, brutish, and short." To make matters worse, the Seljuk Turks, recently converted to Islam, had overrun the Holy Land. Pope Urban II, searching for a way out of the increasing anarchy and to rid himself of unruly, marauding knights, exhorted the faithful, at the Council of Clermont in 1095, to free Jerusalem from the Infidels. The response was immediate and enthusiastic. Proud knights, poor peasants, artisans armed with pikes and bows and arrows - and often only sticks or clubs - set out on the great adventure, fighting or negotiating their way through strange, exotic lands, until, four long years later, the ragged remnants of the once proud army stood below the forbidding walls of Jerusalem. Michael Foss tells the stories of these men and women of the First Crusade, often in their own words, bringing the time and events to life. --From publisher's description.

The Second Crusade (1145-1149) was an extraordinarily bold attempt to overcome unbelievers on no less than three fronts. Crusader armies set out to defeat Muslims in the Holy Land and in Iberia as well as pagans in northeastern Europe. But, to the shock and dismay of a society raised on the triumphant legacy of the First Crusade, only in Iberia did they achieve any success. This book, the first in 140 years devoted to the Second Crusade, fills a major gap in our understanding of the Crusades and their importance in medieval European history. The author draws on the latest developments in Crusade studies to cast new light on the origins, planning, and execution of the Second Crusade, some of its more radical intentions, and its unprecedented ambition. With original insights into the legacy of the First Crusade and the roles of Pope Eugenius III and King Conrad III of Germany, he offers the definitive work on this neglected Crusade that, despite its failed objectives, exerted a profound impact across Europe and the eastern Mediterranean.

A collection in modern English of the key texts describing Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem in 1187 and the Third Crusade. The largest text in the book is a translation of the Old French "Continuation of William Tyre". Introductory notes and maps help interpret each of the texts.

"This volume presents English translations, with introductions and notes, of Latin sources for the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204)." "The sources consist of forty-one letters from the registers of Pope Innocent III; the three extant versions of the letter of 1203 that Count Hugh of Saint Pol dispatched to the West; The Devastation of Constantinople (DC); the account of the Anonymous of Soissons; passages from the Deeds of the Bishops of Halberstadt; and the chronicle accounts of Raalph of Coggeshall and Alberic of the Trois Fontaines.Critical editions of the DC and the Anonymous of Soisons appear in appendices. By virtue of the different perspectives through which they viewed the crusade,these sources combine to deepen our understanding of this complex and controversial moment in Western-Byzantine relations.-Flap cover.

Originally published in 1977,"The Fourth Crusade" now appears in a geatly revised and expanded edition.Placing the Crusade within the larger context of Venetian history and Veneto-Byzantine relations,Donald Queller and his new coauthor,Thomas Madden,give fresh emphasis throughout to events in Byzantium and the Byzantine response to the actions of the Crusaders.Completely new to this edition is a chapter on the sack of Constantinople and the election of its Latin emperor.- Flap cover.

The personalities of the Crusade itself-Innocent,Dandolo the Doge of Venice,Fulk of Neuilly,Count Balwin and Boniface of Montserrat-are vivid,and the book follows the lurching course of their expedition from its penurious and quarrelsome assembly in Venice to its unholy,greedy,and destructive finale.The importance of the cult of relics as a crusading motive,the reactions of Western Europe to the conquest,a brief account of the short-lived Latin Empire of Constantinople,and of the eventual reconquest of their capital by the Greeks,are all examined at the end of the story of a Crusade unique both in its execution and its outcome.-Flap cover

The Seventh Crusade, led by King Louis IX of France, was the last major expedition for the recovery of the Holy Land actually to reach the Near East. The failure of his invasion of Egypt (1249-50), followed by his four-year stay in Palestine in order to retrieve the disaster, had a profound impact on the Latin West. In addition, Louis's operations in the Nile delta indirectly precipitated the Mamluk coup d'etat, which ended the rule of the Ayyubids (Saladin's dynasty) in Egypt. This volume comprises translations of the principal documents and of extracts from narrative sources - both Muslim and Christian - relating to the crusade, and provides many texts, notably the account of Ibn Wasil, not previously available in English. The themes covered include: the preparations for the crusade; the campaign in the Nile delta; the impact of the simultaneous crusade against the emperor Frederick II; the Mamluk coup and its immediate consequences in the Near East; Western reactions to the failure in Egypt; and the popular crusade of the Pastoureaux in France (1251), which aimed originally to help the absent king, but which degenerated into violence against the clergy and the Jews and had to be suppressed by force.

This is the first detailed account in any language of crusades launched by the popes against their political opponents in the West. They have usually been regarded as a debasement of the crusade ideal which offended public opinion and harmed both the popularity of Christian Holy War and the moral authority of the papacy. Dr. Housley challenges such views, attempting an of their place in the crusading movement. Dr. Housley concludes that there is little evidence that the Italian crusades aroused widespread criticism or discontent; on the contrary, the large numbers who took the cross to fight against the Christian enemies of the pope testify to the popularity of such enterprises. Crusades against Christian lay powers must be ranked alongside expeditions against the Muslims as an integral and important part of the crusading movement.

These essays relate to two major aspects of the reforms that radically changed the Western Church during the 11th and 12th centuries. The first is the emergence of the Crusades in so far as they developed under papal direction. Secondly, they discuss developments in the monastic order.

In 1095 with the launching of the First Crusade,Europeans established a great military endeavour to save the Holy Land, an undertaking that remained a central preoccupation until the end of the thirteenth century.While the expeditions that went forth to fight the Muslims involved armies of exceptional size,much of the warfare within western Europe itself was conducted by small armies on behalf of landowners who were often neighbours and kin.This authoritative and concise work surveys the range of warfare in the Middle Ages while reflecting on the society that produced these military struggles.The book brings together for the first time a wealth of information on such topics as knighthood,military organization,weaponry and fortifications,and warfare in the East.-Back cover.

The crusades to the Holy Land are well known, or ,at least,widely heard of.The crusades against the Albigensian heretics,and against the Muslims of Spain,are familiar to students of medieval history.But the crusades of North-East Europe remain outside the scope of most English readers,and are remembered,if at all,as the subject of Eisenstein's haunting essay in nationalist propaganda,the film "Alexander Nevsky".He is said to have chosen the subject because so little was known about it that the facts were unlikely to interfere with his fictions.
This book is an attempt to describe the struggles waged round the Baltic from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries in the name of Christianity,and to explain the part they played in the transformation of Northern societies which took place at the same time.There is no room for more.The general history of the Baltic world will only be referred to in so far as it directly concerns the crusades,and the reader will have to look elsewhere for a proper account of the rise and fall of the Scandinavian kingdoms,the East European principalities,the Hanseatic League,the fish trade,the German colonisation of the East,the development of cities,churches and shipping.-Introduction.

During the thirteenth century, the widespread conviction that the Christian lands in Syria and Palestine were of utmost importance to Christendom, and that their loss was a sure sign of God's displeasure with Christian society, pervaded nearly all levels of thought. Yet this same society faced other crises: religious dissent and unorthodox beliefs were proliferating in western Europe, and the powers exercised, or claimed, by the kings of Europe were growing rapidly. The sources presented here illustrate the rising criticism of the changing Crusade idea. They reflect a sharpened awareness among Europeans of themselves as a community of Christians and the slow beginnings of the secular culture and political organization of Europe.

The absence of contemporary Arabic records of the First Crusade and its immediate sequel has been generally remarked by historians,though it is recognized hat Ibn al-Athir and the subsequent Arabic compilers must have utilized contemporary materials for their work.Some years ago,however,one of the Arabic manuscripts preserved in the Bodleian Library (Hunt.125) was found to contain the supposedly lost "Continuation of the Chronicle of Damascus" of Ibn al-Qalanisi, a work which is frequently quoted by later writers,but which was thought to deal with a period posterior to the Second Crusade.Examination of the manuscript showed that more than two-thirds of the book was devoted to the history of the first sixty years of the Crusades,and the late H.F. Amedroz,recognizing its importance,edited and published the text in 1908,together with a summary of contents,notes,and extracts from other unpublished sources.Owing to lack of a translation the recovery of this chronicle seems to have passed unnoticed by European historians,and the extracts contained in the present volume constitute the first attempt to make it accessible to Western scholarship.-Introduction

In this comprehensive exploration of every aspect of Crusader society in the Holy Land, Professor Prawer focuses on the principal achievement of the crusaders - the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. In so doing he presents in-depth descriptions of what a twelfth and thirteenth century colony looked like and shows how it functioned and developed as a colonial establishment. He identifies the ideological premises of the Crusades and the organization and achievements of the European establishments in the Levant. In considering all aspects of the social and political organisation, economic and cultural developments, the arts, religion, the role of the military and the impact of the Crusades on the conquered peoples, Joshua Prawer throws new light on the origins of colonialism and the nature of a colonial empire.

"The twenty-one studies that comprise this collection appeared between 1974 and 1997. All are concerned with the history and institutions of the kingdoms founded by the crusaders in the East: the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem and Lusignan kingdom of Cyprus. Some of the earliest (III, VI, XII, XIII, XXI) draw on work that formed part of my doctoral dissertation, "The Feudal Nobility of Cyprus,1192-1400" (St. Andrews,1975). "William of Tyre and the Patriarchal Election of 1180" (II) was written jointly with Professor John Gordon Rowe of the University of Western Ontario, and I am very grateful to John for generously agreeing to allow me to include it here. This paper marked the start of a fruitful collaboration that culminated in the appearance of our of our "William Tyre: Historian of the Latin East" (C.U.P.,1988). The first paper in this volume was originally conceived as a response to a reviewer who pointed out that we could have said more in our book about William of Tyre and the politics of the Baldwin IV's reign. The other major project which occupied me for much of the late 1970's and 1980's centered on the island of Cyprus and eventually saw light of day as "The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades" (C.U.P.,1991). Most of the papers in the sections on Cyprus represent work done in connection with that book, either as pilot studies or by way of tying up loose ends after it was published. In recent years my interests have become increasingly concentrated on the legal texts from the Latin East. The papers in the section entitled "Lawyers and Legal Texts" reflect this current concern and also serve to demonstrate that my investigations into this field in fact go back a long way. Inevitably in a collection of studies spanning almost a quarter of a century, there are mistakes and places where I now no longer hold to the views I once had. Some of the more significant of these points are touched on in the "addenda et corrigenda" at the end of this volume." -Preface.

Collective religious enthusiasm was a many-sided, influential and widespread phenomenon in medieval Europe. This book focuses on particular 13th-century revivals and popular crusades, but does so in order to illuminate the nature of medieval western enthusiasm.

Although the Crusades are generally thought of in terms of the European attempt to conquer and colonize the Holy Land,from the twelfth century onward crusading also involved the "reconquest" of the Iberian peninsula from the Muslims.This eyewitness account of the capture of Lisbon in 1147 by the combined forces of King Alfonso Henriques of Portugal and a fleet of crusaders from the Anglo-Norman realm,Flanders, and the Rhineland is one of the richest and most exciting sources to survive from this period.Far more than just a narrative,"De expugnatione Lyxbonensi" vividly conveys the tensions between the secular and spiritual motives ofa crusading army,as well as revealing a wealth of information on medieval warfare,the development of crusading ideology and holy war, and Muslim views of the crusaders.-Back cover.

This is the third volume of the acta of a series of symposia held in Hernen Caste (Netherlands). Two earlier volumes were published under the same title East and West in the Crusader States: Context - Contacts - Confrontations (I and II, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 78 and 92). Cultural, social and religious contacts took place in the multi-ethnic society in Outremer. The various articles deal with religious and cultural encounters in the Crusader States where Byzantines, Syrian Orthodox, Georgians, Muslims, the Military Orders and many others met almost daily. Ethnographic attitudes, money changing hands, pilgrims' accommodation, icons and other forms of religious art are discussed here. Confrontation took place when new expeditions were organized (Alexandrian Crusade). The history of the Latin States is discussed in the context of Byzantine and Western sources. The first English translation of Constantine Manasses' Hodoiporikon is published in this volume.-Amazon.

The expulsion of the Christians from the Holy Land in 1291 was far from being the end of the crusading movement. Crusades continued for three centuries over a vast area stretching from Morocco to Russia, and played an important role in the politics and society of late medieval Europe. This comprehensive survey is the first to focus in depth on the later crusades, exploring developments in all the areas touched by crusading activity and examining the evolution of the international Military Orders and the Christian 'frontier states' associated with crusading, especially Greece and Cyprus. Dr. Housley illuminates the massive range and energy of the crusading movement in the late middle ages. He reveals the formidable problems which, as the period progressed, increasingly doomed crusades to failure; and shows how practical crusading was in a condition of decay even before the Reformation destroyed the religious framework in which it had once flourished.

In this comprehensive ecclesiastical,social,economic,and administrative history,based on years of work in European archives,Father Burns examines the Valencian church,and relates the dramatic,turbulent,sometimes tragic, story of the painful advance of the medieval frontier.-Flap cover.

Through a detailed examination of canon law and commentary,of legal texts and personal narratives,"Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader" explores the increasingly sophisticated theoretical rationale and organizational structure of the crusades.Neither the canon law itself,nor its interpretation and application,was static, but changed from generation to generation as the crusades developed from loosely organized mass pilgrimages into controlled instruments of the political policies of the papacy.As the crusades lost the character of a pilgrimage,to take on increasingly the nature of a holy war against the evildoer,whoever or wherever he might be,so did the theories and vocabularies of canonists and commentators alter.Professor Brundage examines in detail the widely differing theories concerning the nature and importance of the crusade vow, and the obligations that the crusader thereby undertook.He shows that for much of this period the crusader was considered by the law simply as a pilgrim-though one of a rather special kind-subject to the same laws, and enjoying the same protection as other pilgrims.He discusses the Church's efforts to ensure that men who had taken the crusade oath did not renege on their vows,and the increasing ease with which such vows could be commuted into monetary payments.He shows how there developed a body of law which increasingly emphasized the privileges-as opposed to the obligations-of crusaders in an effort to provide the financial,legal,and spiritual inducements needed to keep crusading alive in a society where its original spiritual impulse was rapidly weakening.-Flap cover.

Moses tells the dramatic, intriguing story of the extraordinary, and little-known, meeting between St. Francis of Assisi and Islamic leader Sultan Malik al-Kamil--and its significance in today's divided world.

The recapture of Jerusalem,the siege of Acre,the fall of tripoli,the effect in Baghdad of events in Syria; these and other happenings were faithfully recorded by Arab historians during the two centuries of the Crusades.For the first time contemporary accounts of the fighting between Muslim and Christian have been translated into English,and the Western reader can learn"the other side" of the Holy War.-Flap cover.

Romance and history, from the troubadours and the "Novelle Antiche" to Sir Walter Scott, from chronicles of his time to a late number of Speculum, have given us so many versions of Saladin that the reader is perplexed. Even the student, with all the sources at his disposal, finds it difficult to evaluate conflicting accounts. Arabic writers differ, sometimes fundamentally, according to the time, the place, and the bias of the narrator. Fortunately, however, the different pieces of evidence may now be sifted and compared. By making allowance for a prejudice on one side or the other and trusting those statements that are corroborated most often, and by considering the chance of the author to know whereof he speaks, it is possible to know him as he was, even though every detail of his life may not be crystal-clear. The purpose of his story of his life is not to analyze his role in the drama of history, but to show him as a human being with emotions, desires, hopes, and fears like our own and with many ideals and motives as remote from our own as his time and place differ from ours. Following his career, seeing him in his surroundings, watching his development, and thus gaining insight into his character, the lover of romance will not be disillusioned, while the realist, in the light of the facts, will enjoy his companionship as did those who knew him in the flesh. One need not accept the adulation of his friends or the worst accusations of his enemies. Doing neither, one cannot fail to admire the man. His virtues and his failings make a consistent, whole, which is comprehensible even to the western mind.

Here, Professor Udovitch explores some of the important qualitative aspects of medieval Near Eastern economic life from the point of view of both legal and economic history. Concentrating on partnership and commenda, the major institutions of commercial association in medieval Islam through which merchants and others could combine their resources and skills for commercial purposes, he demonstrates that these two techniques were versatile legal-commercial instruments capable of fulfilling a variety of functions in the economic life of the medieval Muslim world.-Flap cover.

Middle Ages:Primary Sources offers nineteen full or excerpted documents written during the middle Ages.Entries include excerpts from Augustine's Confessions and Dante's "Inferno";Marco Polo's description of his travels in China;"The Thousand and One Nights";and Japan's "Seventeen-Article Constitution",written by Prince Shotoku Taishi.Each entry is accompanied by introductory and historical information to place the document in context as well as a document-specific glossary and a list of books and Web sites for more information.The volume is illustrated with more than thirty images and includes a timeline of events and an index offering easy access to the people,places,and subjects discussed throughout "Middle Ages:Primary Sources".-Back cover.

From the fall of Rome to the beginning of the Renaissance,this comprehensive work presents the full pageant of medieval times across the entire Old World-with articles on the New World,Africa,and the Far East as well.Twenty major essays anchor the text while more than 600 entries written bya coterie of the world's best medieval historians and writers provide specific information on everything from the Abbadid Dynasty to the Seal of Zug.Intersped throughout are maps,diagrams,and more than 250 color and black-and-white illustrations detailing all the elements of everyday life: dress,locales,edifices,ceremonies,customs,military tactics,travel,home life,commerce,religion,and royalty.Generous helpings of sidebar material complement the text with chronologies of important lives and events,glossaries of medieval terminology and jargon-excerpts from the great documents of the times and from writings of the great personages,genealogical charts-even recipes for classical dishes and instruction on medieval skills and practices.And at every opportunity,material is compared with modern life through "then and now' images,an ingenious tool that sheds new light on the origins of modern social and political phenomena.-Flap cover.

The first of "The New Cambridge Medieval History"covers transitional period between the later Roman world and the early middle ages,c.500 to c.700.This was an era of developing consciousness and profound change in Europe,Byzantium and the Arab world,an era in which the foundations of medieval society were laid and to which many of our modern myths of national and religious identity can be traced.This book offers a comprehensive regional survey of the sixth and seventh centuries,from Ireland in the west to the rise of Islam in the Middle East,and from Scandinavia in the north to the Mediterranean south.It explorers the key themes pinning together the history of this period,From kingship,trade and the church,to art,architecture and education.It represents both an invaluable conspectus of current scholarship and an expert introduction to the period.-Flap cover.

This wide-ranging study of medieval Europe's response to the challenge of Islam examines the relationship between ideas of crusade and mission, between European projects for military conquest and those for the conversion of Muslims to Christianity. Covering the years from the emergence of Islam to the fourteenth century, Benjamin Z. Kedar discusses not only the crusades and the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem but also the confrontation of Catholics and Muslims in Sicily and Spain.-Amazon

"Few historical periods of comparable interest and importance have been so neglected by English scholars as the seven centuries of Muslim rule in Spain. The only full-length study that I have been able to trace is James Cavanagh Murphy's "The History of the Mahometan Empire in Spain", which was published in 1816. The "Cambridge Medieval History" so artfully conceals its chapter on the Western Caliphate that it eluded me the last time I was at the British Museum Reading Room: I have since learned from a Spanish bibliography that it occupies pages 400 to 442 in the third volume, and is signed "R.Altamira", though written by Angel Gonzalez Palencia. In Previte Orton's summary of the C.M.H., which runs to twelve hundred odd pages, rather less than seven are allotted to those seven centuries. In other countries the subject has been treated more worthily: first by a Dutchman, Reinhart Dozy, who wrote all but a hundred years ago; in Spain by a dynasty of Arabists, the "banu Codera", Ribera, Asin, Garcia Gomez and others; in France Peres and Levi-Provencal. These were my guides in that unfamiliar but fascinating country, and my aim in this book is to lure the English reader along the same paths and pass on to him some of the pleasure and interest I have myself derived from the study." -Preface.