The book will be welcome for tackling the Crusades from a fresh but important angle; the relations of the Crusader states with their neighbours, both Christian (the Byzantines) and, especially, Islamic – the rulers of Damascus, Aleppo, Baghdad, Cairo etc. It contributes to the very fashionable approach of seeing the Crusades as a prime example of early European colonialism, and investigating them much more for their social, political and ethnic impact on the region than for their ostensible ideological and religious motives. Holt uses original Arabic sources, which are generally difficult for Western historians, and therefore this book is an important addition to literature about the Crusades.

In Plain Sight draws from a wide array of interdisciplinary sources to show how Muslims, seemingly hostile to the entire crusading enterprise, integrated themselves into the kingdom founded in the wake of the First Crusade. The book examines how Muslims, whether Sunni or Shi‘a or Druze, fit into society in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, uncovering the daily reality of their experience. Exploring how and to what extent Muslims interacted with the Frankish ruling elite, historian Ann E. Zimo presents a new vantage point from which to reconsider the popularly accepted notion that the crusades, and by extension the crusader states, were a locus of a monolithic clash between West and East or between Christianity and Islam. By untangling the relations between the Muslim communities and their rulers, Zimo offers a more fully realized image of a society too multifaceted to be reasonably reduced to a black-and-white binary opposition. Zimo not only re-reads the well-known Frankish sources, including narrative chronicles, letters, charters, and legal treatises, but combines them with an investigation of the Arabic documentary base, including chronicles, biographies, fatwa literature, pilgrimage guides, and treaties which are not translated and largely inaccessible to most historians of the crusades. She also draws from the enormous and growing body of scholarship generated by archaeologists whose work can often provide insights into the aspects of the past not recorded in the historical record. By casting such a wide evidentiary net, In Plain Sight sheds new light on Frankish society and how Muslims fit into it, offering major revisions to the current conception of population distribution within the kingdom and the nature of the Frankish polity itself.

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.

This fully updated and expanded edition of The Crusades: A History provides an authoritative exploration of one of the most significant topics in medieval and religious history. From the First Crusade right up to the present day, Jonathan Riley-Smith and Susanna Throop investigate the phenomenon of crusading and the crusaders themselves. Now in its 4th edition, this landmark text includes: - A new and more balanced book structure with updated terminology designed to help instructors and students alike - Deliberate incorporation of a wider range of historical perspectives, including Byzantine and Islamic historiographies, crusading against Christians and within Europe, women and gender, and the crusades in the context of Afro-Eurasian history - A dramatically expanded discussion of crusading from the sixteenth through twenty-first centuries - A fully up-to-date bibliographic essay - Additional textboxes, maps, and images The Crusades: A History is the definitive text on the subject for students and scholars alike.

In Alliances and Treaties between Frankish and Muslim Rulers Michael Köhler presents a ground-breaking study of Frankish-Muslim diplomacy in the period from the First Crusade through to the thirteenth century.

An in-depth portrait of the Crusades-era Mediterranean world, and a new understanding of the forces that shaped it In Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors, the award-winning scholar Brian Catlos puts us on the ground in the Mediterranean world of 1050–1200. We experience the sights and sounds of the region just as enlightened Islamic empires and primitive Christendom began to contest it. We learn about the siege tactics, theological disputes, and poetry of this enthralling time. And we see that people of different faiths coexisted far more frequently than we are commonly told. Catlos's meticulous reconstruction of the era allows him to stunningly overturn our most basic assumption about it: that it was defined by religious extremism. He brings to light many figures who were accepted as rulers by their ostensible foes. Samuel B. Naghrilla, a self-proclaimed Jewish messiah, became the force behind Muslim Granada. Bahram Pahlavuni, an Armenian Christian, wielded power in an Islamic caliphate. And Philip of Mahdia, a Muslim eunuch, rose to admiral in the service of Roger II, the Christian "King of Africa." What their lives reveal is that, then as now, politics were driven by a mix of self-interest, personality, and ideology. Catlos draws a similar lesson from his stirring chapters on the early Crusades, arguing that the notions of crusade and jihad were not causes of war but justifications. He imparts a crucial insight: the violence of the past cannot be blamed primarily on religion.

"A trailblazer in the field of premodern global history, Andrea here guides readers through the medieval expansion of the 'first Europe' from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries. Ranging from Ireland to Ethiopia, from the Mongol Empire to the so-called New World, Expanding Horizons demolishes any lingering sense that European societies remained isolated from the wider world before the modern age. Complete with maps, excerpts from primary source documents, and suggestions for further reading, this book will be an ideal resource for anyone planning to build a course around themes of global travel, exploration, and colonialism." —Brett E. Whalen, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Poetic elegies for lost or fallen cities are seemingly as old as cities themselves. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, this genre finds its purest expression in the book of Lamentations, which mourns the destruction of Jerusalem; in Arabic, this genre is known as the ritha al-mudun. In The City Lament, Tamar M. Boyadjian traces the trajectory of the genre across the Mediterranean world during the period commonly referred to as the early Crusades (1095–1191), focusing on elegies and other expressions of loss that address the spiritual and strategic objective of those wars: Jerusalem. Through readings of city laments in English, French, Latin, Arabic, and Armenian literary traditions, Boyadjian challenges hegemonic and entrenched approaches to the study of medieval literature and the Crusades. The City Lament exposes significant literary intersections between Latin Christendom, the Islamic caliphates of the Middle East, and the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, arguing for shared poetic and rhetorical modes. Reframing our understanding of literary sources produced across the medieval Mediterranean from an antagonistic, orientalist model to an analogous one, Boyadjian demonstrates how lamentations about the loss of Jerusalem, whether to Muslim or Christian forces, reveal fascinating parallels and rich, cross-cultural exchanges.

This book is a study of architecture and urban design across the Mediterranean Sea from the 12th to the 14th Century, a time when there was no single, hegemonic power dominating the area. The focus of the study--four cities on the Italian peninsula, and four in Syria and Egypt--is the interconnectedness of the design and use of urban structures, streets and open space. Each chapter offers an historical analysis of the buildings and spaces used for trade, education, political display and public action. The work includes historical and social analyses of the mercantile, social, political and educational cultures of the eight cities, highlighting similarities and differences between Christian and Islamic practices. Sixteen new maps drawn specifically for this book are based on the writings of medieval travelers.

By the turn of the millennium, the East Mediterranean region had become a place of foreigners to Latin Christians living in Western Europe. Nevertheless, in the eleventh century numerous Latin Christian pilgrims streamed toward the East and Jerusalem in anticipation of the end times. The Apocalypse did not materialize as some had anticipated, but instead over the course of the next few centuries an expansion of Latin Christendom did. This expansion would transform the political, economic, and cultural landscape of both East and West and alter the course of Mediterranean history. This volume presents 22 critical studies on this crucial period (1000-1500) in the development of the Western expansion into the Eastern Mediterranean. These works deal with economy and trade, migration and colonization, crusade and conquest, military orders, as well as religious diversity and cross-cultural interaction. It includes a bibliography of important works published in Western languages together with an introduction by the editor.