The call to crusade in 1145 prompted a movement fueled not only by religious writings and sermons, but by calls to arms in secular song. During the mid-twelfth to thirteenth centuries, French Trouvères and Occitan Troubadours wrote over one hundred crusade songs, the majority of which are rife with propaganda and support for the crusades and the attacks against the Saracens and the East. The crusade song corpus not only deals with sacred motivations to go overseas, such as the crusade indulgence present in papal bulls, but also summons biblical figures and epic persons as motivation to crusade.Previous scholars have not adequately defined the genre of a crusade song, and have overlooked connections to the crusading rhetoric of the genre of crusade literature. I offer a precise definition of crusade song and examine commonalities between crusade literature and song. During the crusades, troubadours and trouvères wrote crusade songs to draw support for the campaigns. The propaganda in these songs demonstrates that the authors had an understanding of current events and may have had some knowledge of other crusading literature, such as papal calls to crusade, crusade sermons, the Old French Crusade Cycle, and various crusade chronicles. These documents show how the themes and allusions present in crusade song have broader connotations and connections to crusade culture in Medieval Europe. (less)

No subject in medieval history is changing as rapidly as crusade studies. Even so, the Second Crusade has been oddly neglected. The present volume is the first ever to have been devoted to it in English and one of the few which has appeared in any language. Particular attention is paid to the key role played by St.Bernard and the Cistercians in this crusade and their relations with the Military Orders. An interdisciplinary approach is taken, incorporating history, art and music. The Volume contains unparalleled bibliography, listing over 700 primary and secondary sources.

The legacy of Islam seeks to give an account of those elements in the culture of Europe which are derived from the Islamic world. It was under the patronage of the Islamic Empire that the arts and sciences which this book descirbes flourished.

The first dictionary of medieval terms intended for the non-specialist with an interest in the medieval world.

The twenty-seven papers published here represent a selection of those delivered at the Fourth International Conference on the Military Orders in 2005. Architecture, archaeology and the part which the orders played in Europe are well represented, along with work on northern and eastern Europe. Four papers deal specifically with military or naval matters, while another four deal with the spiritual life of the brothers and sisters. Family relationships represent a growing field of interest.

Medieval music in its cultural, social, and intellectual contexts. Margot Fassler's Music in the Medieval West imaginatively reconstructs the repertoire of the Middle Ages by drawing on a wide range of sources. In addition to highlighting the ceremonial and dramatic functions of medieval music (both sacred and secular), she pays special attention to the exchange of musical ideas, the development of musical notation and other methods of transmission, and the role of women in musical culture. Western Music in Context: A Norton History comprises six volumes of moderate length, each written in an engaging style by a recognized expert. Authoritative and current, the series examines music in the broadest sense—as sounds notated, performed, and heard—focusing not only on composers and works, but also on broader social and intellectual currents.