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First Crusade Archive
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The Author and the Hierosolimitanus: Reading the Gesta Francorum as a Pilgrim Narrative
Posted on June 4, 2013 | No CommentsOften cited as the only crusade which succeeded in its purpose, this groundswell of fervor throughout all ranks of Christendom’s population, and the subsequent military campaign which placed the holy city in Christian hands and established the Latin Crusader States in the Levant, has raised quite a few historiographical and even ethical questions for historians. -
The Jerusalem Conquest of 492/1099 in the Medieval Arabic Historiography of the Crusades: From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative
Posted on May 14, 2013 | No CommentsA number of contemporary or near-contemporary Arabic texts leave no doubt that a massacre did take place, but they contain no evidence of large-scale carnage of the town’s population that was any greater than that which took place in cities and towns such as Antioch, Caesarea or Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān. -
Peter the Hermit: Straddling the boundaries of lordship, millennialism, and heresy
Posted on April 2, 2013 | No CommentsHe preached Pope Urban II’s call to crusade against the Muslims of the Holy Land. He raised an army of paupers with the goal of marching from northern France to conquer Jerusalem. These hosts never reached their destination. -
Essential and despised: Images of women in the First and Second Crusades, 1095-1148
Posted on April 2, 2013 | No CommentsThe image of women in the First and Second Crusades was inherently dualistic and oppositional. The evidence shows women who were vigorous and active participants in the crusades. -
Great Battles: The First Crusade
Posted on February 1, 2013 | No CommentsIt really seemed like the final bitter and wretched end to an endlessly long and brutal march and an endless horrific siege. -
Salutare Animas Nostras: The Ideologies Behind the Foundation of the Templars
Posted on November 18, 2012 | No CommentsThe meteoric rise of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon (more commonly known as the Knights Templar) and their equally swift fall has fueled fanciful tales and scholarly research. The order promoted their mythological origins and the extreme charges leveled against them by Philip IV of France (1285-1314) created an atmosphere of speculation. -
The Preaching of the First Crusade and the Persecutions of the Jews
Posted on October 26, 2012 | No CommentsIn the spring and summer of 1096, bands of crusaders, at times with the help of the local population, destroyed Jewish life and property before leaving for the East. -
Crusaders in Crisis: Towards the Re-assessment of the Origins and Nature of the “People’s Crusade” of 1095-1096
Posted on October 15, 2012 | No CommentsIn his Historia Ierosolymitana, completed within one generation of the First Crusade, Albert of Aachen tells a curious story about some rustics, guided by divinely inspired goose and a she-goat to take the holy path to Jerusalem. -
Tolerance for the People of Antichrist: Life on the Frontiers of Twelfth-Century Outremer
Posted on October 6, 2012 | No CommentsProfessor Jay Rubenstein deals with a fascinating aspect of the early Crusaders - how these Western European holy warriors quickly adopted the lifestyles and practices of the East, just within a few years of conquering the area. -
God, Gold, or Glory: Norman Piety and the First Crusade
Posted on September 18, 2012 | No CommentsThe Normans remain as the standard bearer of the pre-revisionist interpretation of crusader motives - for gold and glory, but not for God. However, examination of the evidence does not bear this distinction out. -
Fear and its Representation in the First Crusade
Posted on April 4, 2012 | No CommentsIn preaching the First Crusade, Pope Urban II created a synthesis of holy war and pilgrimage, but, by analysing the depiction of fear in histories of the First Crusade, this article supports the position that it was only after the success of the Crusade that a coherent and internally consistent body of thought on crusading developed. -
The Medieval Horse Harness: Revolution or Evolution? A Case Study in Technological Change
Posted on March 4, 2012 | No CommentsMedieval historians have considered the role of technology for some time; it is perhaps now appropriate to reexamine conclusions reached by early historians of technology. -
Remembering the First Crusade: Latin Narrative Histories 1099-c.1300
Posted on December 28, 2011 | No CommentsThe success of the First Crusade by the Christian armies caught the interest and arrested the imagination of contemporaries, stimulating the production of a large number of historical narratives. Four eyewitness accounts, as well as letters written by the crusaders to the West, were taken up by later authors, re-worked and re-fashioned into new narratives; a process which continued throughout the twelfth century and beyond. -
Anna Comnena, the Alexiad and the First Crusade
Posted on December 18, 2011 | No CommentsBy her own account Anna Comnena began to write the Alexiad shortly after the death of her husband, Nicephorus Bryennios, in 1137. -
Radicalism and Rationalism: The Changing Conditions of Frankish Rule for the Native Peoples in the First Kingdom of Jerusalem
Posted on October 16, 2011 | No CommentsRadicalism and Rationalism: The Changing Conditions of Frankish Rule for the Native Peoples in the First Kingdom of Jerusalem By Spencer Zakarin The Yale Historical Review, Vol.1:3 (2010) Introduction: Under... -
First Crusade
Posted on July 30, 2011 | No CommentsArticles on the First Crusade: A Greek Source on the Origin of the First Crusade, by Peter Charanis The Historiography of the Crusades, by Giles Constable God wills it: communitas,... -
Men, Women, and Beasts at Clermont, 1095
Posted on July 29, 2011 | No CommentsMen, Women, and Beasts at Clermont, 1095 Gerish, Deborah (Emporia State University) Middlebury College, Working Paper, Series 20 (2005) Abstract Gender, Identity, and Religion in Medieval Europe When Pope Urban... -
Ideology and Motivations in the First Crusade
Posted on July 28, 2011 | No CommentsIdeology and Motivations in the First Crusade By Jean Flori Palgrave Advances in the Crusades, ed. Helen J. Nicholson (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) Introduction: The ideology of crusade did not... -
Crusades and Jihads: A Long-Run Economic Perspective
Posted on July 28, 2011 | No CommentsCrusades and Jihads: A Long-Run Economic Perspective Heston, Alan Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 588, Islam: Enduring Myths and Changing Realities. (Jul., 2003) Abstract... -
The Political Crusades – A useful historiographical concept?
Posted on July 28, 2011 | No CommentsThe Political Crusades – A useful historiographical concept? Følner, Bjarke MA. Honours, University of Edinburgh (2001) Abstract This paper deals with the modern historiographical concept of the “political crusades”. The... -
Saint Peter and Paul Church (Sinan Pasha Mosque), Famagusta: A Forgotten Gothic Moment in Northern Cyprus
Posted on July 27, 2011 | No CommentsSaint Peter and Paul Church (Sinan Pasha Mosque), Famagusta: A Forgotten Gothic Moment in Northern Cyprus Walsh, Michael Inferno, Volume IX, 2004 Abstract When Pope Urban II called the Council... -
FROM THE STATELY TO THE SMUTTY: SHIFTING PERCEPTIONS OF THE CRUSADES IN AN ILLUMINATED CHRONICLE
Posted on July 27, 2011 | No CommentsFROM THE STATELY TO THE SMUTTY: SHIFTING PERCEPTIONS OF THE CRUSADES IN AN ILLUMINATED CHRONICLE Leson, Robert Oeuvre, Newsletter of the Department of Art History, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Spring (2009)... -
Exempla and lineage: Motives for crusading, 900-1150
Posted on July 25, 2011 | No CommentsExempla and lineage: Motives for crusading, 900-1150 Robert H. Bouskill (McGill University, Montréal) M.A. Thesis, History, McGill University (1996) Abstract From 900 to 1150, major institutional and political changes took... -
The Secular Motivations of the First Crusade
Posted on July 25, 2011 | No CommentsThe Secular Motivations of the First Crusade Vicari,George Jr., Major, USAF Research Report, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, April (2002) Abstract The 11th Century Roman Catholic Church claimed that its... -
We’re on a Mission from God: A Translation, Commentary, and Essay Concerning The Hierosolymita by Ekkehard of Aura
Posted on July 25, 2011 | No CommentsWe’re on a Mission from God: A Translation, Commentary, and Essay Concerning The Hierosolymita by Ekkehard of Aura King, Matthew LaBarge (University of Washington) History Honours Thesis, University of Washington,...