This volume has been created by scholars from a range of disciplines who wish to show their appreciation for Professor John France and to celebrate his career and achievements. For many decades, Professor France’s work has been instrumental in many of the advances made in the fields of crusader studies and medieval warfare. He has published widely on these topics including major publications such as: Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (1994) and Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades (1999). This present volume mirrors his interests, offering studies upon both areas. The fifteen essays cover a wide variety of topics, spanning chronologically from the Carolingian period through to the early fourteenth century. Some offer new insights upon long-contested issues, such as the question of whether a new form of cavalry was created by Charles Martel and his successors or the implications of the Mongol defeat at Ayn Jalut. Others use innovative methodologies to unlock the potential of various types of source material including: manuscript illuminations depicting warfare, Templar graffiti, German crusading songs, and crusading charters. Several of the articles open up new areas of debate connected to the history of crusading. Malcolm Barber discusses why Christendom did not react decisively to the fall of Acre in 1291. Bernard Hamilton explores how the rising Frankish presence in the Eastern Mediterranean during the central medieval period reshaped Christendom’s knowledge and understanding of the North African cultures they encountered. In this way, this work seeks both to advance debate in core areas whilst opening new vistas for future research.

This volume brings together a series of articles by John France, published over a span of more than forty years, covering a number of aspects of the military and crusading history of the Middle Ages, both in Europe and the Near East. An interest in understanding how war worked and why informs a first group of articles, ranging from Carolingian armies to the organisation of war in the 13th century. The focus then turns to the Crusades, the most ambitious conquests of the era, with a set of studies on the First Crusade and others on the manner and conduct of warfare in the territories of the Latin East. The volume also includes a major unpublished analysis, co-authored with Nicholas Morton, of the problems faced by the local Islamic powers in the early Crusading period, reminding us that an army is only as strong as its enemies permit, and suggesting that the crusaders should be seen in this light.

This text examines the nature of war in the period 1000-1300 A.D. and argues that is was primarily shaped by the people who conducted war - the landowners.

The story of the wars and conquests initiated by the First Crusade and its successors is itself so compelling that most accounts move quickly from describing the Pope's calls to arms to the battlefield. In this highly original and enjoyable new book, Christopher Tyerman focuses on something obvious but overlooked: the massive, all-encompassing, and hugely costly business of actually preparing a crusade. The efforts of many thousands of men and women, who left their lands and families in Western Europe, and marched off to a highly uncertain future in the Holy Land and elsewhere have never been sufficiently understood. Their actions raise a host of compelling questions about the nature of medieval society.How to Plan a Crusade is remarkably illuminating on the diplomacy, communications, propaganda, use of mass media, medical care, equipment, voyages, money, weapons, wills, ransoms, animals, and the power of prayer during this dynamic era. It brings to life an extraordinary period of history in a new and surprising way.

Proceedings of a conference on a theme, the 34 essays by specialists from 15 countries prevent various facets of the struggles waged for the possession of the Holy Land between the 10th and 13th centuries, and of the activities of the military orders elsewhere in Europe.

This analysis of the ships of the Byzantine navy from the sixth to twelfth centuries is a fascinating, and totally original discussion of the surviving texts which record and report them and the relationship of those texts to the physical reality of the ships themselves.