The Crusades: The Essential Readings

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.

Acknowledgments. Editor′s Introduction. Part I What Were the Crusades?. 1. Pope Urban II′s Preaching of the First Crusade. (H. E. J. Cowdrey). 2. Crusading as an Act of Love. (Jonathan Riley–Smith). 3. Reconquest and Crusade in Spain, c. 1050–1150. (R. A. Fletcher). 4. Crusades Against Christians. (Norman Housley). 5. Were There Any Crusades in the Twelfth Century? (Christopher J. Tyerman). Part II Who Were the Crusaders?. 6. Medieval Charters as a Source for the History of the Crusades. (Giles Constable). 7. Early Crusaders to the East and the Costs of Crusading, 1095–1130. (Jonathan Riley–Smith). 8. The Roots of Lay Enthusiasm for the First Crusade. (Marcus Bull). 9. Patronage and the Appeal of the First Crusade. (John France). Part III Impact of the Crusades on the East. 10. Byzantium and the Crusades. (Steven Runciman). 11. The Reaction of Syrian Muslims after the Foundation of the First Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. (Nikita Elisséeff). 12. The Subjected Muslims of the Frankish Levant. (Benjamin Z. Kedar). Index.

Thomas F. Madden is Associate Professor of History and Chair at Saint Louis University. He has published numerous studies on the crusades including The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople (1997) and A Concise History of the Crusades (1999).

“Madden′s new book seeks to bridge the gap between popular caricatures of the crusades and the more balanced picture of the movement that historians have been producing for more than a generation. The dozen specimens of lively recent scholarship on the crusades that Madden has assembled here are shrewdly calculated to provoke students into rethinking what they thought they knew about the crusading movement.” James A. Brundage, University of Kansas <!––end––>