Narrating The Crusades

The first study to demonstrate how English literature continued to engage with crusading from medieval romances right through to Shakespeare.

"In Narrating the Crusades, Lee Manion examines crusading's narrative-generating power as it is reflected in English literature from c.1300 to 1604. By synthesizing key features of crusade discourse into one paradigm, this book identifies and analyzes the kinds of stories crusading produced in England, uncovering new evidence for literary and historical research as well as genre studies. Surveying medieval romances including Richard Coeur de Lion, Sir Isumbras, Octavian, and The Sowdone of Babylone alongside historical practices, chronicles, and treatises, this study shows how different forms of crusading literature address cultural concerns about collective and private action. These insights extend to early modern writing, including Spenser's Faerie Queene, Marlowe's Tamburlaine, and Shakespeare's Othello, providing a richer understanding of how crusading's narrative shaped the beginning of the modern era. This first full-length examination of English crusading literature will be an essential resource for the study of crusading in literary and historical contexts"--

Eyewitness" is a familiar label that historians apply to numerous pieces of evidence. It carries compelling connotations of trustworthiness and particular proximity to the lived experience of historical actors. But it is a surprisingly little studied category of analysis. This book seeks to open up discussion of what we mean when we label a historical source in this way. Using as case studies histories about the Second, Third and Fourth Crusades, all of which were written by people caught up in the events they describe, it draws upon some of the lessons of narratology to argue that the most significant determinant of the eyewitness quality of texts such as these does not reside in what the authors as historical actors may or may not have seen, but in the terms in which they situate their narratorial personas within the storyworlds that their narratives call forth. Ultimately, historians must recognize that the eyewitness quality of histories such as these is a function of their textual effects, not the extra-textual circumstances of their authors.

First study to demonstrate how English literature continued to engage with crusading from medieval romances right through to Shakespeare.

First comprehensive study of miracles in Crusade narrative, showing how and why they were deployed by their authors.

Remembering the Crusades and Crusading examines the diverse contexts in which crusading was memorialised and commemorated in the medieval world and beyond. The collection not only shows how the crusades were commemorated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but also considers the longer-term remembrance of the crusades into the modern era. This collection is divided into three sections, the first of which deals with the textual, material and visual sources used to remember. Each contributor introduces a particular body of source material and presents case studies using those sources in their own research. The second section contains four chapters examining specific communities active in commemorating the crusades, including religious communities, family groups and royal courts. Finally, the third section examines the cultural memory of crusading in the Byzantine, Iberian and Baltic regions beyond the early years, as well as the trajectory of crusading memory in the Muslim Middle East. This book draws together and extends the current debates in the history of the crusades and the history of memory and in so doing offers a fresh synthesis of material in both fields. It will be essential reading for students of the crusades and memory.

Preaching was an integral part of the crusade movement. This book focuses on the efforts of the first four Avignon popes to organize crusade preaching campaigns to the Eastern Mediterranean and on the role of the secular and regular clergy in their implementation. Historians have treated the fall of Acre in 1291 as an arbitrary boundary in crusader studies for far too long. The period 1305–1352 was particularly significant for crusade preaching, yet it has not been studied in detail. This volume thus constitutes an important addition to the flourishing field of late medieval crusade historiography. The core of the book deals with two interlocking themes: the liturgy for the Holy Land and the popular response to crusade preaching between the papacies of Clement V and Clement VI. The book analyses the evolving use of the liturgy for the crusade in combination with preaching and it illustrates the catalytic role of these measures in driving popular pro-crusade sentiments. A key theme in the account is the analysis of the surviving crusade sermons of the Parisian theologians from the era. Critical editions of these previously neglected propagandistic texts are a valuable addition to our corpus of papal correspondence relating to the crusades in the later Middle Ages. This book will be of interest both to specialized historians and to students of late medieval crusading.

Engaging the Crusades is a series of volumes which offer windows into a newly emerging field of historical study: the memory and legacy of the crusades. Together these volumes examine the reasons behind the enduring resonance of the crusades and present the memory of crusading in the modern period as a productive, exciting, and much needed area of investigation. Crusading was a part of the rich tapestry of family history, with tales of crusading developed as evidence of heroic endeavour to enhance family prestige. Lists of crusaders were published to satisfy this market and heraldry was a visible means of displaying such lineage. Drawing on extensive research and previously untapped sources, this book charts continuing British interest in the crusades, focusing on the nineteenth century. The volume discusses what was available to read on the subject and how this was discussed in numerous journals. Set in the British context of growing local and regional interest in history and archaeology, the study also considers the physical artefacts associated with the crusades. Tales of the Crusaders – Remembering the Crusades in Britain is the ideal resource for students and scholars of the history of memory and crusades history in a British context.