crusades-msg - 6/14/15 Crusades of the Middle Ages. NOTE: See also the files: religion-msg, heretics-msg, pilgrimages-msg, icons-msg, Icons-art, p-bibles-msg, med-charity-lnks, monks-msg, pilgrimages-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ From: "webersol at epix.net" Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Muslim name for the Crusades? Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 21:35:48 -0500 If you are really interested in the Arabic view of the crusades,There is a book called: Arab histories of the Crusades translated by Francesco Gabrielli . Published by dorset books in 1957. ibsn 0-88029-452-3 It has many accounts by various Arabic historians of the period and will give you a new view of the "barbarians from the west" the crusaders. The main purpose of the crusades was supposedly church supported to save the holy land but the real purpose was "LOOT" how much could they find and bring back . Tha Muslim population considered crusaders nothing but marauding killers and thieves.Uncouth uneducated in even the simplest things. If you can find this book, read it. Woody Ebersold webersol at epix.net From: Robert McCann Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Muslim name for the Crusades? Date: Sat, 24 Feb 1996 13:26:46 -0700 Organization: Mesa State College On 24 Feb 1996, Jeff Suzuki wrote: > But if memory serves correctly, the only Crusade that could truly be > called a Christian victory was the first, where the Franks swept down > upon Muslims who didn't even realize they were at war. Later on, they > had Saladin. > > (Quick trivia question: who established the most successful Christian > Kingdom during the Crusades, and which crusade was it? Hint: this is > a trick question) > > Jeffs OK, the trivia Question: There were NO successful (ie. still existant) kingdoms established during the Crusades! Other stuff: The Muslims called the Crusaders the Franj I am doing a book review for my History of the Islamic World class on a book entitled: The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by: Amin Maalouf Translated by Jon Rothschild Schocken Books / New York 1985 It's a good read that claims basically that the only reason that the Arabs (Muslims) didn't kick some serious Crusader ass right from the beginning was the fact that they (the Muslims) were too busy with their own squabbles and disputes to get their shit together. Once they did (Saladin, et. al.), history shows the result! Faelan MacFergus Bob McCann From: Doug Browne Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: REQUEST: 1st Crusades garb documentation Date: Fri, 05 Jul 1996 15:22:33 -0500 Organization: Indiana University Sadira bint Raya al-Asiri allegedly wrote: > I would daresay your French crusader could go one of two ways--either he would > go native and adopt the dress of the region (the intelligent thing to do) or > he would have been Franco-centric and stayed with his own native dress > (probably more likely but dumb). ... (Suggestions for sources deleted) Actually, many of the Crusaders who stayed adopted native garb and dress. William of Tyre's _A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea_ mentions many Crusaders, and especially their children, who adopted native garb. William was less than pleased with these 2nd generation immigrants, who adopted native dress and customs to a much larger degree than he was comfortable with. Usamah, in his _A History of Damascus_, writes of going to the house of a Frank and being told "You amy eat here. I have a Muslim cook and eat only what he prepares. No pig's flesh touches my table." Vladyslav de Jaffa dbrowne at indiana.edu Subject: ANST - Templars and the Crusades Date: Tue, 10 Mar 98 19:21:31 MST From: Rick Wynne To: Ulisse CC: ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG Unto the Good People of the Known World does Brother Richard de Tyre send his humble greetings, For those peope who are not familiar with me, allow me to introduce myself. I am Brother Richard de Tyre, of the Order of the Temple of Solomon, and I am pronouncing a new web site forum for research and discussion for those of interest in the historical order of the Templars and the Crusades. Our dream within the Dream is to recreate those noble brothers within the Society. I call on all those with Templar personas or anyone interested in learning more about them and the Crusades to see our web site and contact me. We have created a meeting place for all interested in the Templars and we are collecting links, graphics and text related to them. So far we have made contact with a couple of Templar "households" and scattered individuals from all across the globe. It is a new site and we seek suggestions, advice and other input to make it a better place for all. Some of you reading this missive have already run across me spreading the news and I apologize for what may seem a shameless advertising campaign but I seek to reach all people, far and wide. Order of the Temple of Solomon http://www.speakeasy.org/~richard I would like to thank you all for taking the time to read this missive and encourage you to come by and take a look at our work. Safe journeys! Non Nobis, Domine, Non Nobis Sed Nomini Tuo Da Gloriam (Not to us, Lord, not to us but to Thy name give the Glory) In Service to the Temple, Brother Richard de Tyre Order of the Temple of Solomon http://www.speakeasy.org/~richard Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 14:07:19 MST From: "Mark.S Harris (rsve60)" Subject: Re: Pincushions (was RE: ANST - Slings) To: ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG Tomonaga wrote: > > > Agreed. In fact there was a "game" amongst Crusader knights to see > > > who could come back with the most arrows stuck in their armor. > > > Until the advent of the longbow the arrow was not a major factor > > > against the heavily armored knights. > > I remember hearing some time in the past, that Richard and some other Crusade > leaders made special efforts to make sure their knights and men at arms were > equipped with very thick felt underclothes. Most likely, mail by itself, > lying close to the body, did not offer enough resistance to arrows to keep > them from digging in deep. But with the felt under the mail, the combination > of that dense fiber mat, with the friction between the arrow shaft and > adjacent links, slowed the arrow enough to keep it from pentrating flesh. But "very thick felt underclothes" I can see working in say, France, since it is such a cold, dreary country. :-) But in the Middle East and Palestine, I would think you'd get yourself dry roasted. Stefan li Rous Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 22:46:57 MST From: "H.L. Agnarr Thorvaldsson" Subject: Pincushions (was RE: ANST - Slings) To: >But "very thick felt underclothes" I can see working in say, France, since it >is such a cold, dreary country. :-) But in the Middle East and Palestine, >I would think you'd get yourself dry roasted. > >Stefan li Rous This was one of the main problems the Crusaders had to deal with. The = desert heat and having to wear their armor whenever the many different = roaming bands of locals were in the area and playing their games of hit = and run. (A Common type of attack by the Muslims because in a fixed = battle the heavy cavalry charge was a major winning point for the = Crusaders.) This forced the Crusaders to either wear their armor and = roasting or no armor and being attacked. The ability of the locals = using their recurve bows not to mention their fine Damascene Blades made = wearing the heavier European style of armor with the heavy felt = gambesons underneath pretty much a requirement for the crusading knight. = Of course no armor made you lighter and not as hot but then you did not = have any personal protection. And since the majority of the crusading = knights were used to this type of protection when they were in battle. I = bet most of them were very uncomfortable most of the time. Agnarr Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 01:22:42 -0700 From: "Laura C. Minnick" Subject: Re: SC - Holy Feast and Holy Fast LrdRas at aol.com wrote: > CBlackwill at aol.com writes: > << Would the three (or more) Christian Crusades shed any light on the > pervasiveness of the Christian Church in medieval life? > > Balthazar of Blackmoor >> > > Probably, although the crusaders were for the most part members of noble > households. It does not shed any light on the food aspect that the original > poster queried. Sorry Ras, this is not true. The majority of the crusaders were not nobles or directly affiliated with noble households. Like any war, most of those involved were poor. Including but not limited to crusades known as the Children's Crusade and the Peasant's Crusades- both huge movements of the underclass that were not only apart from any 'oppressive' nobility or clergy but in some places actively discouraged by them. This was not for purposes of keeping them 'down', but a protective measure- most of these peasants left their homes with no provisions, no weapons or armor, many brought families with them- and then they attempted thousands of miles on foot. This is not a movement of people who are bullied by an oppressive master who forces them to defend the Cross- these are the actions of fervent people- fanatics even- motivated by their visions of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints. 'Lainie Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 07:31:11 -0400 From: "Siegfried Heydrich" Subject: Re: SC - Holy Feast and Holy Fast > << Would the three (or more) Christian Crusades shed any light on the > pervasiveness of the Christian Church in medieval life? > > Balthazar of Blackmoor >> > > Probably, although the crusaders were for the most part members of noble > households. It does not shed any light on the food aspect that the original > poster queried. > > Ras No, the Crusaders that made into the history books were members of Noble households. There were a huge number of camp followers, support personnel, and others who went along for the ride as well. Consider the number of administrators, servants, and teamsters that had to go along with the boss just to make sure they all got there! There were irregulars like the Tafur, who were the absolute dregs of society, seeking salvation in a crusade. These were used as urban assault troops; the Crusaders would breach a city wall, withdraw, and let the Tafurs loose. They had the advantage of being expendable, as well as the peculiar fact that they wouldn't do any looting. They would, however, rape and murder to an extraordinary degree, which relieved the Nobles of the necessity for that. Besides, there was no glory in slaughtering civilians . . . There were actually several children's crusades, all of which ended up with them being sold into slavery. It was a way for a peasant to get off the farm and see the world, all for the glory of god, and the salvation of his soul. In short, while there many have been other contributing motives, the primary inspiration was religious in nature, and it covered the entire social spectrum. The Crusades were not just a glorified Pennsic for the Nobles - it touched virtually every aspect of life. An amazing amount of wealth got shifted around because of it. Not just what was spent in the effort, or the treasure sent back, but the inheritances that wound up being bestowed upon those who didn't go, and never really expected to get the family fortune. The ones who got stuck staying at home while the older brothers went off to war . . . . And the number of wealthy widows who were remarrying. The social after effects of the Crusades make a fascinating study! Sieggy From: "j'lynn yeates" To: Subject: ANST - Deus lo volt ... was: Courtesy Crusade Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 08:27:56 -0500 what with the thread on "courtesy crusasdes" (imnsho: bad idea) and the folk bringing up the negative issues connected to any "crusade", thoght i would share a new book that i just discovered (synchronicity) ... Deus lo volt! Chronicle of the Crusades" by Evan S. Connell "A masterly novelist re-creates the medieval campaigns in all their depravity, faith and gore. ..." "... Why is it that new centuries and millenniums seem to bring out a thirst for moral certitudes, for struggles to the death between the forces of good and evil? ... " "... "Deus lo volt!" almost spookily reproduces, from within, the particular sensibility -- spiritual, cognitive, literary -- of a particular moment in history. In this case, the events unfold starting in 1096, when Pope Urban launches the crusades to free Jerusalem from the "infidels, ... " " ... The result is something of a tour de force: a meticulous re-creation of the style and technique of medieval chronicles that speaks powerfully to the contemporary new historicist creed that fictions can be archives -- and archives, fiction. That said, "Deus lo volt!" is also one seriously tough read. The Reading Group Guide for the book -- available at bookstores or by phoning (800) 242-7737 - -- includes maps, genealogies and a timeline, which are sure to come in handy for those readers not gifted with a superhuman memory for seemingly countless names, battles, itineraries and intricate, shifting alliances. The book is likewise crammed with material best avoided over one's morning latte and scone: vanquished fighters being led about by their intestines, roasted on spits and splattered with various manner of bodily effluvia ..." By Marion Lignana Rosenberg, Salon EZine http://www.salon.com/books/review/2000/06/07/connell/index.html ... all in all sounds like a good read for the historically inclined. from the initial description, just the "readers guide" to the book sounds like something any medieval scholor could use in their library ---- Deus Lo Volt!: A Chronicle of the Crusades by Evan S. Connell Hardcover - 480 pages (April 4, 2000) Counterpoint; ISBN: 1582430659 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.46 x 9.35 x 6.42 available online at amazon and/or barnes and noble for $19.60'ish plus shipping 'wolf From: "j'lynn yeates" To: Subject: ANST - re - Courtesy Crusade ... response and some related links Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 12:15:15 -0500 ... a good thread from a medieval history point of view [mailto:owner-ansteorra at ansteorra.org]On Behalf Of Dale, Richard N > I think many people are reading to much into the word "crusade". In > a medieval context a crusade is wonderful thing that motivates > children and adults and moves whole nations in a good cause. not necessarily, especially in a organization focused on *historical* research (and a lot of literary fiction and idealogy ... but that's another thread topic). if someone wants to publically "raise a crusade", they they should be aware that they are also going to raise the historical aspects along with the ideological. good cause? crusades a wonderful thing? are we reading the same european and islamic histories here? how can one equate the albigensian crusade, the sack of belgrade (chistian sacked by christain), the sieges and eventual sacks of constantiople (wealthiest christian city in europe, sacked by the crusdaers) and jerusalem ... as "good" in any/way/shape/form ??? while i find such (crusades) historically interesting, personally i find *nothing* wonderful about five centuries of chaos created primarily by the church political propaganda machine .. a machine that led to the slaughter of an untold number of christians and moslems (mostly non-combatant civilians), cities and villages destroyed, rape, pillage, theft ... and the attendent political posturing, religious expansion, mercantile maneuvering ... all in all, they (crusades) brought out the *worst* of europe and not it's best. for several (here and offline), the most chilling parallel that this thread brings up is the "albigensian crusade" ... in that it was raised against a populations subset that was deemed as "heretical" and therefore worthy of isolation, designation, later persecution, and eventual extermination. it started at one level and ended up as a civil war waged against ones own populations. their real crime? they thought and believed differently from those in power. basic lesson of these five centuries - all in all, no matter the origin or ideals involved, holy war is not a good thing ... > ... The word crusade also brings to mind a extremely > motivated, narrow minded, preacher on some ideology. > While all the above descriptions are true, I do not believe > this to be the case in what Her Grace Duchess Larissa is trying to > convey. i'm sure that is the case (the later statement), but we are a historically centric group (supposidly) so you can't "sanitize" concepts of their inconvenient negative contexts. like history, you have have to take it as a whole, positive and negative or not at all. 'wolf some historical links that might be of interest: The Crusades: Five Centuries of Holy War http://intranet.ca/~magicworks/knights/overview.html Chronology of the Crusades (sub page of above) http://intranet.ca/~magicworks/knights/overview.html The Crusades (Course centering on First through Seventh) http://historymedren.miningco.com/homework/historymedren/gi/dynamic/of fsite.htm?site=http://crusades.boisestate.edu/contents.html Albigensian Crusade http://historymedren.miningco.com/homework/historymedren/gi/dynamic/of fsite.htm?site=http://crusades.boisestate.edu/contents.html Crusade of 1101 http://historymedren.miningco.com/homework/historymedren/gi/dynamic/of fsite.htm?site=http://crusades.boisestate.edu/contents.html Crusade Links http://historymedren.miningco.com/homework/historymedren/msubcrus.htm http://historymedren.miningco.com/homework/historymedren/msubmenucrus. htm Date: 15 Jun 00 11:23:51 EDT From: Nora Siri Bock To: Subject: New book - has anyone read this? To the list - Knights of the Holy Land The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem This detailed and beautifully illustrated book, containing essays by leading scholars in different fields, comprehensively covers the history and social concept of the Crusades. ISBN 965 278 234 3 327pp. 204 illustrations 171 color Retail price $49.00 Has anyone read this and would they recommend? It's a hefty price and I'm not wont to purchase a pig in a poke. Nora Siri bint Saadia Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 15:21:03 +0100 (MET) From: "agora at algonet.se" Subject: Ang: [Sca-cooks] A history of the Crusades To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org >>> A friend wants to know: > Now I have a question that you people will be the experts on--what's the > best history of the Crusades? Runciman's classic is way out of date but > nobody seems to have had the courage to redo it-- > best--Gene Anderson Opinions, and your reasoning are quite welcome. Saint Phlip, CoD <<< Amin Malouf "The Crusades from the Arabs view" is a terrific good book, a tale of the tales of the "defeated". How the Arabs saw the Crusades, how they dealt with the Europeans. Anna Commenas book "The Alexiad" is also a very good reading. She was the oldest daughter of the emperor Alexis, founder of the dynasty Commeno. She tells the history of the Crusades from the point of Byzantium. Well written and full of wit too... Ana, on holiday on my old country, Uruguay. When I amback to Stockholm and reach my library, with several titles about the Crusades, can answer more properly. Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 21:29:03 +0100 From: agora at algonet.se Subject: [Sca-cooks] www.crusading.se To: Cooks within the SCA By the way, I launched the last week a site around a project me and a group of colleagues started two years ago, about the Crusades. We are going to research about Art, politics and history related to the Crusades. One important issue will be the encounter and the clash between different food traditions and spices and methods to cook. Please feel free to send to me suggestions or interesting links! Ana http://www.crusading.se PS: we are going to work about the Crusade as historical proyect and todays confrontations between Islam and West and the rethoric of the Crusades. The Israelian architect Eyal Weizman wrote a great essay called "The Politics of Verticality" and I wrote about him, he is going to be a part of our discussion team, http://www.netartreview.net/weeklyFeatures/Weizman_English.html Skarpnäcks Allé 45 Sweden Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 08:46:47 -0500 (CDT) From: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net Subject: [SCA-AS] [Fwd: TMR 07.10.31 Madden, New Concise History of the Crusades (Khanmohamadi)] To: jheise at drew.edu, "Arts and Sciences in the SCA" , "East Kingdom A&S List" ---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: TMR 07.10.31 Madden, New Concise History of the Crusades (Khanmohamadi) From: "The Medieval Review" Date: Mon, October 29, 2007 9:09 am To: tmr-l at indiana.edu bmr-l at brynmawr.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Madden, Thomas F. "The New Concise History of the Crusades: Updated Student Edition". Oxford, UK and Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2006. Pp. xi, 261. $23.95 (pb). ISBN-13: 978-0742538221. Reviewed by Shirin A. Khanmohamadi San Francisco State University shirin1 at sfsu.edu If recent years reflect a boom in specialized scholarly treatments of the European Crusades, such specialized studies are matched by a parallel boom in narrative introductions to the Crusades aimed at the general reader. Having written two scholarly monographs on the Fourth Crusade, Thomas F. Madden turns his attention to more popular readerly interests in his "The New Concise History of the Crusades: Updated Student Edition" (2006), updated from its first edition in 1999. By Madden's account, "the heightened public interest in the crusades since 9/11 has created a market for popular histories" but "an interested person who simply strolls into a bookstore looking for a history of the crusades is much more likely to walk out with a book written by a novelist, journalist, or ex-nun than one written by a professional historian and based on the best research available" (viii). As is made clear in his preface and his final chapter, "The Legacy of the Crusades," Madden has a post-9/11 general audience in mind even as his book announces itself as an Updated Student Edition; the possible contradiction or divergent needs of these dual audiences is not addressed. Structured chronologically according to the "numbered" Crusades, The New Concise History of the Crusades follows a mainly traditionalist account of the crusades, i.e. of the crusades as being tied to Jerusalem as destination, though his added chapters on "Crusading at Home" (chapter 5) and his chapter on crusades post-1291, "The Later Crusades" (chapter 9), revise and expand this traditional account along the lines of new "pluralist" approaches defining the crusades more broadly as penitential war irrespective of theater. In the main body of the text, Madden, a historian in command of the major scholarship in the field, offers coherent, clear and economical prose that is rich with historical detail. Students and general readers interested in further reading are provided a good bibliographic survey in the "Select Bibliography" at the end of the book, as well as a useful selection of "Sources in Translation" on each of the major crusades treated in the book. These critical apparatuses, appearing along with a Glossary and set of "Discussion Questions" at the book's end, lend the book utility as the "student edition" it aims to be. Unfortunately, as is too often the case with text-book style histories, in the narrative body chapters few citations direct interested students to primary sources, and even fewer direct quotations are offered from these inimitably complex medieval voices. More bibliographic citation is particularly needful when Madden is treating an especially controversial topic in broad strokes, as when he writes about the massacre of the local population of Jerusalem upon its conquest in 1099. The historiography of this event is highly divergent, and readers interested in its treatment may consult Benjamin Kedar's "The Jerusalem massacre of 1099 in the western historiography of the crusades," Crusades 3 (2004): 15-75. Here Madden alludes to reports of whole-scale massacre of the citizens thus: "By the standards of the time, adhered to by both Christians and Muslims, the crusaders would have been justified in putting the entire population of Jerusalem to the sword. Despite later highly exaggerated reports, however, that is not what happened... Later stories of the streets of Jerusalem coursing with knee-high rivers of blood were never meant to be taken seriously. Medieval people knew such a thing to be an impossibility. Modern people, unfortunately, do not" (34). Madden thus seems to put the controversy to rest, without providing the reader access to any of the documentary evidence from the many available First Crusade sources in translation, Christian and Muslim. By admonishing interpretation to the contrary as misguidedly "modern," Madden does not encourage investigation into the subject. Other lively scholarly debates, such as the question of the motivations of the Crusaders, are similarly put to rest: Madden adheres to the theory of the pious idealism of most crusader participants--"Christians saw crusades to the east as acts of love and charity" (222)--and dismisses economic theories of motivations as deriving from a "post-Enlightenment" view of religiosity (11). (For a survey of recent theories of crusader motivations, see Giles Constable, "The Historiography of the Crusades," in The Crusades from the Perspective of the Byzantium and the Muslim World, ed. A Laiou and R. Mottahadeh, Dumbarton Oaks, 2001, pp. 17-19). Such defense of crusader motivations and war-time behavior fits within the polemical frame of The New Concise History of the Crusades, whose jacket cover promises answers to the question, "How have the crusades contributed to Islamist rage and terrorism today?" Madden addresses the question most directly in his final chapter, "The Legacy of the Crusades," in which in the course of reviewing Crusader historiography, he defends the Crusades against their misappropriation equally by European and Arabs for various anti-colonialist, nationalist, and, more recently, Islamist arguments. The polemical defense of the crusading endeavor is not confined to the final chapter of The New Concise History, parts of which operate within an identifiably contemporary, post-9/11 view of east-west rivalry if not the outright "clash of civilizations." In his discussion of the origins of holy war, for instance, Madden begins by noting that, "Unlike Islam, Christianity had no well-defined concept of holy war before the middle ages" (1), an unlikely comparative assertion given Islam's origins in the medieval period. Although Madden notes that it is in western Europe rather than Byzantium that "the concept of Christian holy war took root and grew" (4), most of Madden's discussion of Christian holy war is in fact devoted to the rise of Islam rather than to the usual discussion of developments within western Christianity that led to the striking notion of penitential war in the crusader period (the Peace of God movement; previous papal sanctions of campaigns; the Battle of Manzikert, etc). Though Madden stops short of causality--"It would be too strong to say that it was the idea of jihad that later led to Christianity's own concept of holy war" (3)--his text yokes the hot-button terms together without elucidating their relationship or interaction. As scholars of the crusades from the Islamic perspective like Carol Hillenbrand, whom Madden cites, have shown, Muslim jihad or religious struggle, far from being a perennial motivating force in the Muslim Middle East, waxes and wanes in the medieval period, experiencing a downturn after the initial Islamic conquests, then a gradual resurgence with the Second Crusade and Salahadin's rise, another dying down in the post-Salahadin Ayyubid period, and a final rise from 1260 on in the Mamluk period (The Crusades: Islamic Perspective, London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999, pp. 89-255 and especially 246-250). The long periods between jihadist revivals, including the first 50 years of the Latin Kingdom and the some 70 years between Salahadin's death and the rise of the Mamluks--much of the duration of the Latin Kingdom, then--detente, realpolitik, local alliances and unsteady coexistence characterized the complex relations between the Latin East and local Levantine Muslims, Jews and Christians. These alliances are of course glimpsed equally in the western sources, and in Madden's account of them, including Richard I's treaty arrangements with Salahadin at the close of the 3rd Crusade, Frederick II's negotiation of a ten-year leased return of Jerusalem, and King Louis' complex post-crusade negotiations at the end of the 7th Crusade. Such treaties and alliances in effect constitute another way of telling the story of the Latin East and the crusades themselves, one highlighting the reality of frequent coalitions across religious lines when necessity or expedience required it; a less ideological and triumphalist, more gritty and gray, story to be sure. This is certainly the pious King Louis' experience in the Levant: the king, having begun his crusade by refusing to negotiate for Jerusalem with "the enemy" Ayyubids, ends by negotiating with the much harder-line Mamluks. King Louis' example shows the room for realpolitik in orthodox medieval minds; Frederick II's example is one of a medieval secularism. The notion of a single "medieval" religious perspective or approach to the East, then, something that Madden at times upholds, risks reducing the complexity of the historical record. In summary, while "The New Concise History of the Crusades" tells the story of the crusades as concisely as it promises and in admirable depth and detail, its overall objectivity and scholarly tone is offset by a self-ascribed goal of defending the holy wars from their would-be detractors, past and present. Madden closes his book by warning against the projection of modern values--by which he means Enlightenment, secular, Marxist, pluralist, or anti- imperialist values--upon the medieval actors and events of the crusades. But each age must guard against the danger of its own projections, and perhaps in our current cultural climate crusades historians find themselves in a position to guard against the attractions of a neo-"medieval" anti-modernism. -- -- Jenne Heise / Jadwiga Zajaczkowa jenne at fiedlerfamily.net Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:02:34 -0500 From: Johnna Holloway To: Cooks within the SCA Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Acre Ok, maybe these books might help---- Google books has in full view The crusade of Richard I, 1189-92 By Thomas Andrew Archer. You might find it interesting. You might also take a look at the 2007 book The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and Europe: festschrift for Anthony Luttrell By Anthony Luttrell, Karl Borchardt, Nikolas Jaspert, Helen J. Nicholson. A paper titled "Hospitaller ships and transportation across the Mediterranean" appears in the volume. http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780754662754 and food is mentioned in the volume Medicine in the Crusades: warfare, wounds, and the medieval surgeon By Piers D. Mitchell http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=052184455X -------- You might also try the pipe rolls. There's this reprint The Itinerary of King Richard I. : with studies on certain matters of interest connected with his reign Author: Lionel Landon Publisher: Nendeln/Liechtenstein : Kraus Repr., 1974. Series: The Publications of the Pipe Roll Society, 51 = N.S. 13 Johnnae Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 03:02:43 +1000 From: Raymond Wickham Subject: [Lochac] Crusade Texts in Translation series fyi To: lochac , Tim Jennings , wilhelmina Series Editors: Malcolm Barber, University of Reading, UK, Peter Edbury, University of Wales, Cardiff, UK, Bernard Hamilton, University of Nottingham, UK, Norman Housley, University of Leicester, UK and Peter Jackson, University of Keele, UK 'The series Crusade Texts in Translation goes from strength to strength, making rare and less rare sources available in scholarly and readable English versions. The books have already greatly increased the amount of material available to non-Latin readers, and even for those with the language, the series has often provided a more reliable witness than old editions.'on this site http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=2312 From: Edward Hauschild Date: July 31, 2011 9:43:36 PM CDT To: CALONTIR at listserv.unl.edu Subject: [CALONTIR] Crusades Primary source For those that might be interested http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Chronicle-Conquest-Constantinople-ebook/dp/B000JQUH5S/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312161784&sr=1-2 Primary source Memoirs of the 4th crusade Free on Amazon Kindle Edited by Mark S. Harris crusades-msg Page 14 of 14