Professor Carr is concerned here with the devotional arts of the Byzantine world in the period from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. The first set of studies deals with groups of illuminated manuscripts of the twelfth century, mostly connected with the Eastern Mediterranean, while the second focuses directly on Cyprus and its rich Orthodox visual heritage in the later Middle Ages. As Byzantium's strongest bridgehead to the Crusades and its heir in the Levantine balance of power, the island of Cyprus retains an exceptionally rich legacy of Byzantine culture and artifacts. At the same time, as the seat of the most enduring Crusader state, it offers unparalleled testimony to the interplay of Greek and Latin cultural traditions as they accommodated and resisted one another under the pressure of Mamluk, Mongol, and Ottoman expansion.

This volume is the only scholarly work in English examining the multicultural society of the Lusignan Kingdom of Cyprus during the first two centuries of Frankish rule following the conquest of the Byzantine island during the Third Crusade. In this global synthesis based on original research, often in manuscripts, six chapters by acknowledged experts treat the main ethnic groups – Greeks and Franks – and the economy, religion, literature, and art of a frontier society between Byzantium, the papacy, the Crusader States, and the Islamic world. Cyprus, also home to Armenians, Syrians (Maronites, Melkites, Jacobites, Nestorians), Jews, Muslims, and others, offers an excellent opportunity to study the fascinating issues of identity construction, acculturation, and assimilation in a ethnically and religiously diverse society.

The studies in this volume all deal with images and texts that relate to the veneration of the saints in Byzantium after the 9th century. Some papers are devoted to the church calendar and the annual commemorations of hundreds of saints through liturgical poetry and sequences of isolated images in fresco, icon painting and illuminated manuscripts. Others are concerned with the longer and rarer, narrative cycles devoted to the life of a single saint, cycles found mainly in fresco and on the so-called vita icons that first appear in the East in the late 12th century. Additional studies deal with the developing role of icons in liturgical ceremonies, and with images of a saint being approached by a supplicant or patron. A final section is devoted to places made holy by the saints, and to their holy relics.

Mamluks and Crusaders: Men of the Sword and Men of the Pen brings together a series of studies, based mainly on medieval Arabic sources, of Middle Eastern history and society in the late Middle Ages. Several of these studies deal with the confrontation between the Mamluks and the Crusaders. Others deal with aspects of Mamluk society and culture in Egypt and Syria from the 13th to the early 16th centuries. There are articles on such matters as Crusader feudalism and Mamluk iqta', Crusader and Mamluk currency, the last years of the Crusader states, Mamluk faction fighting, the size of the Mamluk army, the image of the Crusaders and other Europeans in Arabic popular literature, a neglected source on the sex life of the Mamluks, the ritual consumption of horse meat by Mamluks and Mongols, the table talk of the Mamluk Sultan Qansuh al-Ghawri, the deployment of gunpowder and firearms in the Middle East, gangsterism in Cairo and the shared interest of Ibn Khaldun and al-Maqrizi in the occult. Finally, several studies deal with questions of historiography, in both Crusader and Mamluk studies.

Medieval and Renaissance Cyprus was a fascinating place of ethnic, cultural, and religious encounters. Following almost nine centuries of Byzantine rule, Cyprus was conquered by the Crusaders in 1191, becoming (until 1571) the most important stronghold of Latin Christianity in the Eastern Mediterranean—first under the Frankish dynasty of the Lusignans, and later under the Venetians. Modern historiographical readings of Cypriot identity in medieval and early modern times have been colored by British colonialism, Greek nationalism, and Cyprocentric revisionism. Although these perspectives have offered valuable insights into the historical experience of Latin-ruled Cypriots, they have partially failed to capture the dynamics of noncoercive resistance to domination, and of identity preservation and adaptation. Orthodox Cyprus under the Latins, 1191–1571 readdresses the question of Cypriot identity by focusing on the Greek Cypriots, the island’s largest community during the medieval and early modern period. By bringing together theories from the fields of psychology, social anthropology, and sociology, this study explores continuities and discontinuities in the Byzantine culture and religious tradition of Cyprus, proposing a new methodological framework for a more comprehensive understanding of Cypriot Orthodoxy under Crusader and Venetian rule. A discussion of fresh evidence from hitherto unpublished primary sources enriches this examination, stressing the role of medieval and Renaissance Cyprus as cultural and religious province of the Byzantine and post-Byzantine Orthodox world.

A fully updated and comprehensive companion to Romanesque and Gothic art history This definitive reference brings together cutting-edge scholarship devoted to the Romanesque and Gothic traditions in Northern Europe and provides a clear analytical survey of what is happening in this major area of Western art history. The volume comprises original theoretical, historical, and historiographic essays written by renowned and emergent scholars who discuss the vibrancy of medieval art from both thematic and sub-disciplinary perspectives. Part of the Blackwell Companions to Art History, A Companion to Medieval Art, Second Edition features an international and ambitious range of contributions covering reception, formalism, Gregory the Great, pilgrimage art, gender, patronage, marginalized images, the concept of spolia, manuscript illumination, stained glass, Cistercian architecture, art of the crusader states, and more. Newly revised edition of a highly successful companion, including 11 new articles Comprehensive coverage ranging from vision, materiality, and the artist through to architecture, sculpture, and painting Contains full-color illustrations throughout, plus notes on the book’s many distinguished contributors A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, Second Edition is an exciting and varied study that provides essential reading for students and teachers of Medieval art.

The first multivolume encyclopedia to document the history of one of the most influential religious movements of the Middle Ages—the Crusades. The Crusades: An Encyclopedia surveys all aspects of the crusading movement from its origins in the 11th century to its decline in the 16th century. Unlike other works, which focus on the eastern Mediterranean region, this expansive four-volume encyclopedia also includes the struggle of Christendom against its enemies in Iberia, Eastern Europe, and the Baltic region, and also covers the military orders, crusades against fellow Christians, heretics, and more. This work includes comprehensive entries on personalities such as Godfrey of Bouillon, who refused the title "King of Jerusalem," and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who tore up his own clothing to make symbols of the cross for crusaders, as well as key events, countries, places, and themes that shed light on everything from the propaganda that inspired crusading warriors to the ways in which they fought. Special coverage of topics such as taxation, pilgrimage, warfare, chivalry, and religious orders give readers an appreciation of the multifaceted nature of these "holy wars."