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In this episode Ellen and Richard talk about what a "crusade" was in the Middle Ages. Richard explains what modern historians mean by the term "crusade"--and why there is so little agreement. He also offers a response to a question posed by Nicholas Morton in the previous episode: How did the medieval Church reconcile its doctrine of love of enemy and its pacifistic underpinnings with papal sponsorship of crusades?


Recommended reading:

Western Historiography of the Crusades 

Riley-Smith, Jonathan. What Were the Crusades? 4th edition, Ignatius Press, 2009. When this was first published in 1977, it represented the first serious effort to explain what historians mean when they refer to crusades, and remains a key work. It is also short, 177 pages, and clearly written. As I took the title for this episode from this book, it is only fair that it is listed first. Riley-Smith's The Crusades: A History and the volume of essays he edited, The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades are good introductions to the subject.


Constable, Giles. Crusaders and Crusading in the Twelfth Century. Routledge, 2020. Constable is responsible for the categorization of modern crusading historiography into four schools, Traditionalists, Pluralists, Generalists, and Popularists. He is also the scholar most responsible for recognizing the importance of charters as source material for crusading history. Giles, who passed away in 2021, was a welcoming and generous scholar who helped me appreciate the importance of culture in medieval warfare.

Housley, Norman. Contesting the Crusades. Blackwell Publishing, 2006. A survey of the key historiographical debates over key crusading issues (defining the crusade, origins of the First Crusade, Intentions and Motivations, etc.).  

Tyerman, Christopher. The Debate on the Crusades. Manchester University Press, 2011. From the blurb on the back cover: “This is the first book-length study of how succeeding generations from the First Crusade in 1099 to the present day have understood, refashioned, moulded and manipulated accounts of these medieval wars of religion to suit changing contemporary circumstances and interests.” It is a bit idiosyncratic—Tyerman has strong opinions about the work of fellow scholars--but the author clearly knows his stuff. Tyerman also has the distinction of being the author of one of the longest single volume histories of the Crusade (God’s War, Harvard U. Press, 2009) and one of the shortest (The Crusades: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford U. Press, 2006).

Muslim views of the Crusades

Hillenbrand, Carole, The Crusades: The Islamic Perspectives. Edinburgh University Press, 1999. This is a monumental (704 pages), groundbreaking study of how Muslims viewed the crusaders and the West in the era of the crusades, and later. 

Niall Christie, Muslims and Crusaders: Christianity’s Wars in the Middle East, 1095-1382, from the Islamic Sources. Routledge, 2014. This is a concise and well thought out survey of the crusades from the contemporary Muslim perspective, with a well-chosen selection of excerpts from medieval Arabic sources.

Sivan , Emmanuel.  "The Crusaders described by modern Arab historiography". Asian and African Studies , 8 ( 1972 ): 104-49. One of the few studies of modern Arab historiography of the Crusades (written, interestingly, by an Israeli scholar).

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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada

If you have questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]