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God's War
'God's War' tells the powerful and horrifying story of the Crusades - an explosive mixture of religious quest and greed for treasure that led enormous Christian armies to invade the Islamic world.
The Crusades
'Asbridge can't help but tell a ripping yarn, often breezily dramatic, whipping the narrative along' The Times A superb and definitive one-volume account of the Crusades, the impact of which still resonates to this day. In the eleventh century, a vast Christian army, summoned to holy war by the Pope, rampaged through the Muslim world of the eastern Mediterranean, seizing possession of Jerusalem, a city revered by both faiths. Over the two hundred years that followed this First Crusade, Islam and the West fought for dominion of the Holy Land, clashing in a succession of chillingly brutal wars, both firm in the belief that they were at God's work. The Crusades tells the story of this epic struggle from the perspective of both Christians and Muslims, reconstructing the experiences and attitudes of those on either side of the conflict. Mixing pulsing narrative and piercing insight, it exposes the full horror, passion and barbaric grandeur of the crusading era. ‘A dramatic and powerful look at both sides of the story’ Sunday Times 'A compelling narrative... A masterful conclusion' Observer
The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 4, C.1024-c.1198, Part 2
The fourth volume of The New Cambridge Medieval History covers the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which comprised perhaps the most dynamic period in the European middle ages. This is a history of Europe, but the continent is interpreted widely to include the Near East and North Africa. The volume is divided into two parts of which this, the second, deals with the course of events - ecclesiastical and secular - and major developments in an age marked by the transformation of the position of the papacy in a process fuelled by a radical reformation of the church, the decline of the western and eastern empires, the rise of western kingdoms and Italian elites, and the development of governmental structures, the beginnings of the recovery of Spain from the Moors and the establishment of western settlements in the eastern Mediterranean region in the wake of the crusades.
The Crusader Armies
A major new history of the Crusades that illuminates the strength and sophistication of the Western and Muslim armies During the Crusades, the Western and Muslim armies developed various highly sophisticated strategies of both attack and defense, which evolved during the course of the battles. In this ambitious new work, Steve Tibble draws on a wide range of Muslim texts and archaeological evidence as well as more commonly cited Western sources to analyze the respective armies’ strategy, adaptation, evolution, and cultural diversity and show just how sophisticated the Crusader armies were even by today’s standards. In the first comprehensive account of the subject in sixty years, Tibble takes a fresh approach to Templars, Hospitallers, and other key Orders and makes the controversial proposition that the Crusades were driven as much by sedentary versus nomadic tribal concerns as by religious conflict. This fluently written, broad-ranging narrative provides a crucial missing piece in the study of the West’s attempts to colonize the Middle East during the Middle Ages.
Crusader Landscapes in the Medieval Levant
Written to celebrate the prestigious career of Professor Denys Pringle, this collection of articles produced by many of the leading archaeologists and historians in the field of crusades studies offers a compilation of pioneering scholarship on recent studies on the Latin East. The geographical breadth of topics discussed in each chapter reflects both Pringle’s international collaborations and research interests, and the wide development of scholarly interest in the subject. With a concentration on the areas corresponding to the crusader states during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the articles also offer research into the neighbouring areas of Cyprus, Anatolia, Greece and the West, and the legacy of the crusader period there, with results from recent archaeological fieldwork in the Middle East.
Naming Patterns in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem
Anthroponymy, or the study of personal names, is used here to investigate the extent to which Frankish settlers in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem assimilated the practices and traditions of their hosts. Data from legal and commercial documents has been used to create a database of 6,200 individual names from the years 1099 to 1291 which the author analyses for any trends and patterns that may relate to social change. Comparing evidence with contemporary Catholic Europe, Shagrir finds that the Franks neither adopted local ways nor maintained their own traditions, but changes in naming reflected a unique set of characteristics influenced by eastern contacts, cults and customs and a greater awareness of religious fervour.
The Leper King and His Heirs
The reign of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (1174-85) has traditionally been seen as a period of decline when, because of the king's illness, power came to be held by unsuitable men who made the wrong policy decisions. Notably, they ignored the advice of Raymond of Tripoli and attacked Saladin, who was prepared to keep peace with the Franks while uniting the Islamic near east under his rule. This book challenges that view, arguing that peace with Saladin was not a viable option for the Franks; that the young king, despite suffering from lepromatous leprosy (the most deadly form of the disease) was an excellent battle leader who strove with some success to frustrate Saladin's imperial ambitions; that Baldwin had to remain king in order to hold factions in check; but that the society over which he presided was, contrary to what is often said, vigorous and self-confident.
Frankish Jerusalem
An in-depth analysis of the dynamic process of urbanisation in Frankish Jerusalem.
The Crusader Strategy
A new look at the crusaders, which shows how they pursued long-term plans and clear strategic goals Medieval states, and particularly crusader societies, often have been considered brutish and culturally isolated. It seems unlikely that they could develop "strategy" in any meaningful sense. However, the crusaders were actually highly organized in their thinking and their decision making was rarely random. In this lively account, Steve Tibble draws on a rich array of primary sources to reassess events on the ground and patterns of behavior over time. He shows how, from aggressive castle building to implementing a series of invasions of Egypt, crusader leaders tenaciously pursued long-term plans and devoted single-minded attention to clear strategic goals. Crusader states were permanently on the brink of destruction; resources were scarce and the penalties for failure severe. Intuitive strategic thinking, Tibble argues, was a necessity, not a luxury.
