The Conquest of the Holy Land by Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Anonymous Libellus de expugnatione terrae sanctae per Saladinum (original) (raw)
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History, 2017
Volumes such as this are all too rare in the present age, in which research assessments set the agenda and scholars are encouraged to prioritize their own 'original' research over service to the wider academic community. For this reason alone, we are all greatly indebted to Lynda Rollason and the contributors to this fine book. It contains not only the first scholarly edition and discussion of the Thorney Liber Vitae, but also colour and black-and-white plates of the entire manuscript (the latter annotated to show different hands). The reader is thus not only presented with an accurate text, but also has the ability to follow the arguments made by the commentators, palaeographical or otherwise. This makes the volume an invaluable research tool, one which will find a welcome place in all serious research libraries. The Thorney Liber Vitae is, of course, no stranger to scholarship. Its importance was already grasped by Dorothy Whitelock, who dedicated a typically insightful article to the subject in 1940, and the edition and discussion builds on preliminary work by no fewer than three scholars: Cecily Clark, Olof van Feilitzen and Neil Keir. Striking new findings are, therefore, not to be expected. Rather, the signal contribution of the volume lies in presenting and discussing this material in greater detail, revisiting old finds and situating lesser-known individuals and entries more firmly in their immediate textual and historical context. The volume opens with a detailed historical introduction by the editor, which is followed by an appraisal of the manuscript by Richard Gameson, an assessment of the personal names by Olof von Feilitzen and John Insley (the latter revising the former's unfinished work), and a prosopographical introduction by Katherine Keats-Rohan. These are not designed as exhaustive treatments, but rather as background to the critical edition, which then follows. The heart of the book, however, lies in the ensuing commentaries, which constitute some 180 pages. It is here that we find the minute palaeographical analysis which underpins Gameson's more general observations, and it is here too that we find a full onomasticon (by von Feilitzen, as revised and corrected by Insley) and prosopography (by Keats-Rohan). There are also shorter notes on matters of specific interest, such the entry for Thurstan the moneyer and the Thorney relic list. this subject should take steps to read this eminently readable book, which is well illustrated with maps and images of ecclesiastical artefacts.
This introductory article serves a number of purposes. It offers an abridged narrative of the scope of the Second Crusade and introduces the major debates associated with the venture. All the contributions to the present volume are introduced within this framework and, when applicable, their place in the current historiography is highlighted. While serving as a concise introduction to the multifaceted nature of the crusade and, for the first time, drawing attention to the main debates associated with it within a single article, the historiographical discussion of this remarkable mid-twelfth-century endeavour has necessarily proved to be a testing ground for a familiar although still unresolved debate: what do scholars mean when the employ the terms ‘crusading’, ‘crusade’ and ‘crusader’?
De Rei Militari, 2022
The crusades are a source of nearly constant and perennial fascination for scholars and a wide section of the public. The complex mixture of medieval politics, warfare, and religious idealism, coupled with debates over the relevance of medieval holy wars to modern conflicts, has effectively enshrined the crusades as an important fixture of medieval scholarship. Indeed, every year sees the publication of new books on the crusades, ranging from narrative histories aimed at popular audiences to specialist monographs for other scholars. By contrast, books specifically focused on the history of the Crusader States of Outremerthe Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch, the Counties of Edessa and Tripolitend to generate far less buzz and interest, particularly outside of academia, leaving the study of Frankish Outremer as the purview of specialized historians and archeologists. Helena P. Schrader's newly published The Holy Land in the Era of the Crusades: Kingdoms at the Crossroads of Civilizations, 1100-1300 aims to rectify this dearth of popular literature by writing an accessible book aimed at amateur hobbyists and college undergraduatesan admirable goal, considering the difficulty in accessing specialized academic studies on the history of Frankish Outremer. However, while the resulting work is not without merit, it unfortunately has significant flaws that prevent it from being easily recommended without substantial caveats and corrections. Schrader is not a crusades historian by profession; she earned her PhD in history at the University of Hamburg, where her research primarily focused on the life and career of Gen. Felix Olbricht (a participant within the July 20 th 1944 plot against Adolf Hitler). She has since written extensively about the crusades (among other historical topics) in the context of historical fiction, and this marks her first foray into writing a non-fiction book on either the Crusaders or the Crusader States. Her experience in writing historical fiction is evident in her prose, which is concise, elegant, and generally straightforwardall virtues when writing for a popular audience, although this can come at the cost of specificity and nuance. In terms of internal structure, the book is divided into ten chapters, not including the introduction, a small concluding chapter, end notes, and a bibliography of recommended readings; these are supported by some (truly excellent) maps, examples of period art, dynastic family trees, and artistic reconstructions of archeological findings, all of which contribute to the attractiveness of the work and provide useful assistance to an amateur or undergraduate reader.
Conference Report: 'Contextualising the Fifth Crusade'
The Fifth Crusade (c. 1217-1221) was undoubtedly an important episode in history, occurring during what was probably the most intensive period of crusading in both Europe and the Holy Land. But this event was much more than a military campaign and has been rather neglected in historiography. To contribute to recent directions in crusades studies, the colloquium organised at Canterbury brought together a group of 22 speakers from 11 countries to discuss a wide range of aspects related to the crusading movement around the time of the Fifth Crusade.
Crusade charters have proven one of the more popular types of sources in writing the history of the crusading movement. 2 Yet those for the Fifth Crusade have been much less studied than those for earlier crusades, which is surprising given the significance of the corpus. The Revised Regesta Regni Hieroslymitani Database lists 160 charters issued during the campaign of the Fifth Crusade. 3 This is a significant resource for the study of the Fifth Crusade, but it is one that far exceeds the scope of the present essay; the present chapter instead explores a collection of charters that is partially missing from the Revised Regesta Database. In his pioneering study and collection of sources on the Fifth Crusade, Studien zur Geschichte des fünften Kreuzzuges, published in 1891, Reinhold Röhricht gathered together a collection of 54 charters from the expedition. 4 Yet the entire corpus of charters he identified has hitherto not been subjected to detailed exploration, and some of the authentic documents 1 I am very grateful for the award of a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the University of Leeds (2017-20) which made this research, and attendance at the Haifa conference, possible. I am grateful to Karl Borchardt and Steven Tibble for their advice on this chapter in conversation.
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 thought-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.