Crusades covers seven hundred years from the First Crusade (1095-1102) to the fall of Malta (1798) and draws together scholars working on theatres of war, their home fronts and settlements from the Baltic to Africa and from Spain to the Near East and on theology, law, literature, art, numismatics and economic, social, political and military history. Routledge publishes this journal for The Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East. Particular attention is given to the publication of historical sources in all relevant languages - narrative, homiletic and documentary - in trustworthy editions, but studies and interpretative essays are welcomed too. Crusades appears in both print and online editions.

Written to celebrate the prestigious career of Professor Denys Pringle, this collection of articles produced by many of the leading archaeologists and historians in the field of crusades studies offers a compilation of pioneering scholarship on recent studies on the Latin East. The geographical breadth of topics discussed in each chapter reflects both Pringle’s international collaborations and research interests, and the wide development of scholarly interest in the subject. With a concentration on the areas corresponding to the crusader states during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the articles also offer research into the neighbouring areas of Cyprus, Anatolia, Greece and the West, and the legacy of the crusader period there, with results from recent archaeological fieldwork in the Middle East.

The First Crusade (1095-1101) was the stimulus for a substantial boom in Western historical writing in the first decades of the twelfth century, beginning with the so-called "eyewitness" accounts of the crusade and extending to numerous second-hand treatments in prose and verse. From the time when many of these accounts were first assembled in printed form by Jacques Bongars in the early seventeenth century, and even more so since their collective appearance in the great nineteenth-century compendium of crusade texts, the Recueil des historiens des croisades, narrative histories have come to be regarded as the single most important resource for the academic study of the early crusade movement. But our understanding of these texts is still far from satisfactory. This ground-breaking volume draws together the work of an international team of scholars. It tackles the disjuncture between the study of the crusades and the study of medieval history-writing, setting the agenda for future research into historical narratives about or inspired by crusading. The basic premise that informs all the papers is that narrative accounts of crusades and analogous texts should not be primarily understood as repositories of data that contribute to a reconstruction of events, but as cultural artefacts that can be interrogated from a wide range of theoretical, methodological and thematic perspectives. MARCUS BULL is Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor of Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; DAMIEN KEMPF is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Liverpool. Contributors: Laura Ashe, Steven Biddlecombe, Marcus Bull, Peter Frankopan, Damian Kempf, James Naus, L an N Chl irigh, Nicholas Paul, William J. Purkis, Luigi Russo, Jay Rubenstein, Carol Sweetenham,

The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources sets out to understand the ideology and spirituality of crusading by exploring the biblical imagery and exegetical interpretations which formed its philosophical basis. Medieval authors frequently drew upon scripture when seeking to justify, praise, or censure the deeds of crusading warriors on many frontiers. After all, as the fundamental written manifestation of God’s will for mankind, the Bible was the ultimate authority for contemporary writers when advancing their ideas and framing their world view. This volume explores a broad spectrum of biblically-derived themes surrounding crusading and, by doing so, seeks to better comprehend a thought world in which lethal violence could be deemed justifiable according to Christian theology. Contributors are: Jessalynn Bird, Adam M. Bishop, John D. Cotts, Sini Kangas, Thomas Lecaque, T. J. H. McCarthy, Nicholas Morton, Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen, Luigi Russo, Uri Shachar, Iris Shagrir, Kristin Skottki, Katherine Allen Smith, Thomas W. Smith, Carol Sweetenham, Miriam Rita Tessera, Jan Vandeburie, Julian J. T. Yolles, and Lydia Marie Walker.

The crusades are often seen as epitomising a period when hostility between Christian West and the Muslim Near East reached an all time high. This edited volume reveals a more complex story, exploring how the Holy Wars led on the one hand to a reinforcement of the beliefs and identities of each side, but on the other to a growing level of cultural exchange and interaction.

A new look at the crusaders, which shows how they pursued long-term plans and clear strategic goals Medieval states, and particularly crusader societies, often have been considered brutish and culturally isolated. It seems unlikely that they could develop "strategy" in any meaningful sense. However, the crusaders were actually highly organized in their thinking and their decision making was rarely random. In this lively account, Steve Tibble draws on a rich array of primary sources to reassess events on the ground and patterns of behavior over time. He shows how, from aggressive castle building to implementing a series of invasions of Egypt, crusader leaders tenaciously pursued long-term plans and devoted single-minded attention to clear strategic goals. Crusader states were permanently on the brink of destruction; resources were scarce and the penalties for failure severe. Intuitive strategic thinking, Tibble argues, was a necessity, not a luxury.