Synopses & Reviews
Crusading was one of the most important features of medieval society. From 1095 until the end of the Middle Ages, military expeditions were launched to recover the Holy Land from the Turks. Those who took the cross did so in the expectation of eternal rewards ¿ but also in the hope that they might win glory and perhaps wealth in this world.
How did the crusades come about? This book explores how the idea of holy war emerged from the troubled Church of the 11th century, and why Jerusalem and the Holy Land were so important to Europeans. It follows the progress of the major crusading expeditions down to 1336, offers insights into their continuing failure, and charts the development of new attitudes toward Islam and the Muslims. The Crusades brought about the first European settlement in the Near East. In this book the hybrid society created by the Crusades in the East ¿ its art and architecture, legal systems, economy and political institutions ¿ are brought to life.
Crusading and the Crusader States
uses the most recent research to provide a broad-ranging account of a topic of vital importance for the study of the past and the understanding of the present.
Andrew Jotischky is Senior Lecturer, Lancaster University. His previous publications include `The Carmelites and Antiquity: Mendicants and their Pasts in the Middle Ages¿ (2002).
Review
'...a stout, reliable and substantial text.'
History Today
Synopsis
Crusading as a subject has expanded in recent years to include new fields of enquiry. This book examines how crusading historiography includes new areas and new definitions, focusing on two fundamental issues in current writing: why people went on crusades and what forms the western settlement in the Near East took.
Crusading and the Crusader States explains how the idea of holy wars came into being and why they took the form that they did ¿ a clash between western and Islamic societies that dominated the Middle Ages.
Synopsis
This book explores the causes of the Christian idea of holy war and the nature of the first European colonial settlement in the near east.
- Explores how the idea of holy war emerged from the troubled Church of the 11th century, and why Jerusalem and the Holy Land were so important to Europeans
- Follows the progress of the major crusading expeditions down to 1336, and offers insights into their continuing failure, charting the development of new attitudes towards Islam and the Muslims
- Covers the first European settlement in the Near East, looking at the hybrid society created by the Crusades in the East ¿ its art and architecture, legal systems, economy and political institutions
- Uses the most recent research to provide a broad-ranging account of a topic of vital importance for the study of the past and the understanding of the present
About the Author
Table of Contents
Contents
List of maps and genealogical tables
Chronology of main events
Preface
Publisher acknowledgements
1. Problems in crusading historiography
2. The papacy, the knighthood and the eastern Mediterranean
3. Crusade and settlement, 1095-c. 1118
4. Politics and war in the Crusader States, 1118-87
5. The Islamic reaction, 1097-1193
6. Crusader society
7. Recovery in the East, new challenges in Europe: crusading, 1187-1216
8. Varieties of crusading from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries
9. Crusading and the Crusader States in the thirteenth century, 1217-74
10. The later Crusades, 1274-1336
Brief biographies
Bibliography
Index