Second Crusade

Modern discussion of the failure of Conrad III's army in Anatolia whilst on crusade in 1148 has mainly concentrated on the question of logistical supply, and there is no doubt that
lack of food and water played a considerable part in weakening the crusading forces. But there are important near-contemporary Latin sources, including ones written by authors resident in the kingdom of Germany who had spoken to returned crusaders, that provide evidence that social unrest within the ranks of Conrad's army played an important part in the failure of the expedition.

Achieved at the height of the Crusades, the Christian conquests of Santarém in 1147 by King Afonso I, and of Alcácer do Sal in 1217 by Portuguese forces and Northern European warriors on their way by sea to Palestine, were crucial events in the creation of the independent kingdom of Portugal. The two texts presented here survive in their unique, thirteenth-century manuscript copies appended to a codex belonging to one of Europe’s most important monastic library collections accumulated in the Cistercian abbey of Alcobaça, founded c. 1153 by Bernard of Clairvaux. Accompanied by comprehensive introductions and here translated into English for the first time, these extraordinary texts are based on eye-witness testimony of the conquests. They contain much detail for the military historian, including data on operational tactics and the ideology of Christian holy war in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Literary historians too will be delighted by the astonishing styles deployed, demonstrating considerable authorial flamboyance, flair and innovation. Likely written by Goswin of Bossut, the search for authorship yields an impressive array of literary friends and associates, including James of Vitry, Thomas of Cantimpré, Oliver of Paderborn and Caesarius of Heisterbach.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003162292/conquest-santar%C3%A9m-goswin-song-conquest-alc%C3%A1cer-sal-jonathan-wilson

Arab-Byzantine coinage typically refers to the issues between about AD 650 and 720, when familiar Byzantine designs were copied by the early Muslims before they developed their own. This paper is about a much later “Arab-Byzantine” coin that does not seem to be listed in the most commonly used references on Byzantine or Islamic coins. The coin appears to have been copied by the Muslims around 1100 to 1150, during the age of the First and Second Crusades, a period of instability in the Arab world.

Quaderno n. 5 –– Conferenze 1998, stampato per conto del Circolo da De Bastiani ed., Vittorio Veneto, ottobre 1998 –– Sommario: (1) IMPERIO Loredana, La Seconda Crociata: 1147-1149 pp. 1-21; (2) TOMASI Giovanni, L’elemento germanico del Dialetto Cenedese pp.  21-26; (3) PEZZELLA Nicola, L’architettura sacra dei Templari nella Francia centro-meridionale pp. 27-34; (4) NETTO Giovanni, Il Lottatore. Prese il posto del “giocatore di volata” allo Stadio dei Marmi pp. 35-50; (5) RUZZA Vincenzo, 1848 pp. 51-56; (6) ZOCCOLETTO Giorgio, Il conduttor elettrico di S. Francesco della Vigna (titolo della conferenza: Il Parafulmine, un'invenzione veneziana) pp. 57-80; (7) RUZZA Vincenzo, Statuti di Ceneda e Serravalle pp. 81-115; (8) GUSSO Massimo, Edipo in Giallo. Una rilettura di Sofocle pensando ad Agatha Christie pp. 117-141

This text was inspired by the three entries I wrote for ‘The Crusades: An Encyclopedia’, ed. by Alan V. Murray (2006) on Finland, Sweden and the Wendish Crusade (1147), respectively (now uploaded on academia.edu). This made me wonder whether the first Swedish crusade to Finland (tentatively dated to 1155/57) should not be seen in context with the general call for the Second Crusade, which allowed to crusades to target pagans in the periphery of western Christianity. To that end I compared the Wendish crusade of 1147 with the Swedish crusade suggesting that in the wording in Pope Alexander III’s Gravis admodum bull of 1171/72 to the Swedish archbishop of Uppsala and his suffragans and Duke Guthorm we find the same frame of mind, which was expressed by Bernard of Clairvaux in his famous dictum, "either the religion or the nation [the Wends] be wiped out (Lat. aut ritus ipse, aut natio deleatur)". The Gravis admodum is published with an English translation and diplomatic comments in the appendix.

A first result of this was a paper given to a section on the Second Crusade at the IMC Leeds 2006. The paper was completed for publication in 2008 together with other papers of the section. Nevertheless it took the publishers until 2015 for the book to appear, partly, it seems, due to the delaying and often inexpert process of peer reviewing.

This article presents an overview of recent work by Byzantinists on the Alexiad of Anna Comnena, in particular her account of the First Crusade. It suggests that, since the Alexiad was composed at the time of the Second Crusade, it reflects the concerns of the mid-twelfth, not late eleventh century. In particular, Anna's account of the First Crusade is coloured by a concern to counter the claims of mid-twelfth-century panegyrical literature produced in praise of her nephew, Emperor Manuel I Comnenus. Several points addressed in the Alexiad mirror those in orations delivered by the panegyrist Manganeius Prodromus in praise of Manuel's handling of the Second Crusade. Examples from both texts are given in translation.

The Battle of Marj Ayyun was a military confrontation fought near the
Litani River (modern-day Lebanon) in June 1179 CE between the Christian
Crusaders under the leadership of the king of Jerusalem Baldwin IV (r.
1174-1185 CE) and the Muslim armies under the leadership of Saladin,
Sultan of Egypt and Syria (r. 1174-1193 CE).

This article revisits the failed attempt to conquer Lisbon by a combined host of Anglo-Norman and Portuguese crusaders in 1142 within the wider context of both the crusader movement to the Holy Land and the Iberian Reconquista. Focusing on the Historia Gothorum, De expugnatione Lyxbonensi and other sources, it endeavours to demonstrate the degree of involvement of the Anglo-Norman contingents in maritime adventures at a time when no other crusades had been declared. Finally, it illustrates the consequence of this undertaking for the final conquest of Lisbon, as part of the Second Crusade, in 1147.

This introductory article serves a number of purposes. It offers an abridged narrative of the scope of the Second Crusade and introduces the major debates associated with the venture. All the contributions to the present volume are introduced within this framework and, when applicable, their place in the current historiography is highlighted. While serving as a concise introduction to the multifaceted nature of the crusade and, for the first time, drawing attention to the main debates associated with it within a single article, the historiographical discussion of this remarkable mid-twelfth-century endeavour has necessarily proved to be a testing ground for a familiar although still unresolved debate: what do scholars mean when the employ the terms ‘crusading’, ‘crusade’ and ‘crusader’?

Highly Commended in the British Records Association Janette Harley Prize 2018.

The pontificate of Honorius III (1216–27) ranks among the most important papal reigns of the thirteenth century: the pope organised two large-scale crusades to recover the Holy Land, the second of which recovered Jerusalem for the first time since 1187; he presided over a ‘golden summer’ of papal-imperial relations with the medieval stupor mundi, Frederick II, emperor of the Romans and king of Sicily; he developed an original theological conception of his office; and he laid the foundations for a centralised papal financial machine. Yet, despite his significant impact on early thirteenth-century Christendom, Honorius has often languished in the shadow of his famous predecessor, Innocent III – a balance that the present book redresses.

Grounded in extensive original research into the manuscripts of Honorius’s letter registers, this study develops a revisionist interpretation of how the curia marshalled the crusading movement to recover the Holy Land. Questioning the utility of the historiographical construct of ‘papal policy’, this book provides new insights into crusade diplomacy, papal theology, the roles of legates, and the effectiveness of crusade taxation. It also includes a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the papal chancery and its documents, which will be of particular use to students and those approaching the medieval papacy for the first time.

The Second Crusade (1145-49) is thought to have encompassed near simultaneous Christian attacks on Muslim towns and cities in Syria and Iberia and pagan Wend strongholds around the southern shore of the Baltic Sea. The motivations underpinning the attacks on Damascus, Lisbon and – taken collectively – the Wendish strongholds have come in for particular attention. The doomed decision to assault Damascus in 1148 rather than recover Edessa, the capital of the first so-called crusader state, was once thought to be ill-conceived. Historians now believe the city was attacked because Damascus posed a significant threat to the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem when the Second Crusaders arrived in the East. The assault on Lisbon and the Wendish strongholds fell into a long-established pattern of regional, worldly aggression and expansion; therefore, historians tend not to ascribe any spiritual impulses behind the native Christians' decisions to attack their enemies. Indeed, the siege of Lisbon by an allied force of international crusaders and those of the Portuguese ruler, Afonso Henriques, is perceived primarily as a politico-strategic episode in the ongoing Christian-Muslim conflict in Iberia – commonly referred to as the reconquista. The native warrior and commercial elite undoubtedly had various temporal reasons for engaging in warfare in Iberia and the Baltic region between 1147 and 1149, although the article concludes with some notes of caution before clinically construing motivation from behaviour in such instances.

Doubts over the authenticity of Bernard of Clarivaux's Letter 308 have focussed principally on a certain Pedro mentioned therein being described as Portuguese King, Afonso Henriques’s “brother”, in association with the known fact that the king had no such brother – the character being thought to have been almost entirely invented by the controversial seventeenth-century historian Bernardo de Brito as a device to further his desired version of Portuguese History. To confound matters even more, there are references in a cluster of late Portuguese chronicles (fifteenth century) to a quasi-mythical character “Pedro Afonso”, for whom there is no diplomatic evidence whatsoever, who is confusingly referred to as a brother or son of Afonso Henriques, with the earliest references to him occurring in texts redacted well-over two centuries after the events that supposedly concerned him. This article seeks to highlight various aspects of this convoluted saga, some hitherto overlooked, some apparently forgotten, in order tentatively to suggest that we may be able to assert with a little more confidence that Letter 308 could well be genuine.

"Poland, Holy War and the Piast Monarchy" explores the evolution of the idea of holy war in medieval Poland. It examines the origins and practice of holy wars conducted by the Poles in the southern Baltic, the last bastion of paganism in Europe. The book traces the transmission of the idea of holy war to Central Europe and explains its impact on political and religious life in Poland. It takes
account of the Polish missionary and crusading activity in Prussia, Pomerelia, and Pomerania. The book analyses the interplay between wars of conquest and holy wars and the emergence
of the crusades in the thirteenth century. Key mechanisms by which the idea of holy war was transmitted to Poland are examined and compelling evidence is provided that the Polish elites were highly familiar with, and receptive to, the idea of holy war. The author demonstrates that the Polish elites were deliberate participants in Christian holy wars and undertook various crusading activities during the twelfth century, a new interpretation and at variance with the traditional position of the Polish historiography. The influence of the idea of holy war on the
actions of the Polish dynasts, and the central role of women in the establishment of crusader family traditions are examined in some detail. This work offers new perspectives for international studies of religiously motivated warfare.

Throughout history, the Balkans have been a meeting place for numerous peoples and cultures. This area was the borderline between the two great spheres of civilization: the Latin West and the Orthodox East. The ethnic image of the Balkan Peninsula has undergone drastic changes on several occasions during Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. In the period from the fourth to the seventh century, there were various Turkic, Germanic, and Slavic ethnic elements influencing the area. At the beginning of the seventh century, the Byzantine Limes collapsed, which enabled a deeper penetration of the Slavs into the interior of the Balkan Peninsula. During this period, Serbs and Croats settled. In the middle of the ninth century, the Turkish population of Bulgarians settled, which in the following period underwent a gradual process of Slavicization. The last in a series of migrations took place at the end of the ninth century when the Hungarians settled in Pannonia. In this paper, we will look at the perception of the interior of the Balkans in the period from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. First of all, we will discuss the sources that speak about the perception of the Balkan, that is, the territories of medieval Hungary, and to a lesser extent Serbia and Bulgaria.

During the course of the Second Crusade in 1147, an army nominally led by King Conrad III of Germany advanced through the Balkan provinces of the Byzantine Empire en route to Constantinople. It has long been held that the German march through Byzantine territory and the crusaders’ stay outside the Byzantine capital posed significant threats to Constantinople’s security, were characterised by gratuitous plunder and destruction, and that they gave rise to mutual hostility between Conrad III and the Byzantine emperor, Manuel I Komnenos. These conventional notions stem from the work of Bernard Kugler, Ferdinand Chalandon and Steven Runciman, and they are heavily dependent upon literal readings of the Latin text of Odo of Deuil and the Greek narratives of Niketas Choniates and John Kinnamos in particular.  This article will highlight a number of obvious concerns with the well-known Greek sources including the lack of supporting data for the testimonies they provide and the ways in which rhetorical conventions and the authors’ agenda influence their evidence. Through the exposition of two Greek verse encomia composed by the so-called ‘Manganeios Prodromos’, the article takes particular issue with John Kinnamos’s testimony.  As will be seen, an appreciation of the eulogistic aims and rhetorical methods of the verse encomiasts, and an understanding of the ways in which the encomiastic rhetorical tradition is evident throughout the Greek narratives are essential to an interpretation of the Germans’ advance in the Byzantine empire.

Original abstract:

This article traces the Frankish legacy in the early years of Frederick Barbarossa's reign, from his coronation to the diet of Roncaglia (1152-1158). I demonstrate that Frederick's ideological system was based on a fluctuating set of German, Frankish, and Roman identities, which constituted an imperial identity. By analysing Frederick's words and deeds as reported by his contemporaries and comparing them to the Cappenberg Head which he commissioned, I conclude that Frederick alternated between these various identities based on his political situation, and that new ideological developments during his reign, such as the introduction of the term sacrum imperium, stemmed directly from the political discernment of Frederick and his court.

14.06.2018.

This paper is now 2 years old, and I would now revise much of what I have written coming out of the MA. While I may not have been utterly wrong, the precision of my work back then is somewhat lacking. There are two points which I would change: 1) the Cappenberg head is not necessarily an imperial monument, and 2) the cult of Saint Charlemagne has to be approached much more carefully. As with my other publications: I intend to address the subject of this work in my PhD.

The article offers the first detailed study of a hitherto underappreciated narrative of the early years of Latin Settlement in Outremer following the First Crusade (1095–99), the Secunda pars historiae Iherosolimitane, often attributed to Lisiard of Tours. Taking inspiration from methodological developments in the field of “Crusade Studies” that have emphasized the narratives relating to this movement as crucial “cultural artifacts” of Latin Christian society, it seeks to demonstrate the valuable light this text sheds on twelfth-century perceptions of the Latin East, the importance of crusading to local identities, reactions to crusading failures, and international monastic networks. After establishing that the Secunda historia should be situated in northeastern France in the early 1150s, and linked in particular to the Premonstratensian order and a church council held at Laon Cathedral in March 1150, it is argued that the text served two key purposes. First, that after the failed Second Crusade (1146–49), efforts to explain defeat necessitated the incorporation of the Latin East’s history, rather than merely the First Crusade (the influence of which hung heavily over contemporary crusade promotion), as a site of divine punishment and reward; and second, that these same narratorial motives were harnessed to validate and promote further crusading.

As a concept the Wendish crusade is closely linked to the redefinition of crusading goals that were formulated by Pope Eugenius III and Bernard of Clairvaux allowing crusaders to target pagans or enemies of Christendom elsewhere than the Holy Land. Nevertheless earlier crusading ventures against Wends had been both planned and executed. While the Wendish Crusade of 1147 ended in a dismal failure later expeditions during what can be called a “permanent crusade against the Wends”, did lead to both the Christianization of the Wends and the conquest of their territory. While the First Crusade had not aimed at the conversion to Christianity of those targeted, this became a major objective in the Wendish and later crusades, and the means to obtain this, as described in Bernard of Clairvaux’s writings, have initiated fierce debates among modern scholars as to the exact meaning of  "either the religion or the nation [the Wends] be wiped out (Lat. aut ritus ipse, aut natio deleatur)".

Helmold z Bozowa opisując wydarzenia poprzedzające II wyprawę krzyżową wspomina o próbie zdyskredytowania jej głównego propagatora – Bernarda z Clairvaux. Polegała ona na zmuszeniu przyszłego świętego do dokonania cudu uzdrowienia chromego
chłopca. Autorem tej próby był hrabia Adolf z Holsztynu. Choć wspomniane wydarzenia przypominają te zawarte w żywocie Św. Bernarda, nie pozostają jednak z nimi w związku ze względu na chronologię powstania omawianych źródeł. Podstawową przyczyną działań Adolfa był zapewne sojusz z księciem Obodrytów – Niklotem, który miał okazać się głównym celem wyprawy połabskiej 1147 r. Współpraca między oboma feudałami dała o sobie znać także w trakcie samych działań zbrojnych, a sojusz ten utrzymywał się także po wojnie. Specyficzna postawa i działania polityczne sugerują, że Adolf był osobą nie do końca podzielającą światopogląd i wartości moralne swojej epoki.

Rubenstein’s latest work is fascinating and commendable. As a historian, he has shown the tenacity a first crusader; as hermeneut, the restraint of a Templar. His parting wish is that readers leave “with a deeper respect for the sophistication, the attractiveness, and the sheer staying power of apocalyptic ideas” (217). In this pilgrimage, Rubenstein has been resoundingly successful.

By the end of the twelfth century, Matilda de Bailleul, abbess of Wherwell Abbey in Hampshire, England (c. 1174-1212), had acquired a finely decorated psalter for her personal use, now Cambridge, St. John’s College, MS C.18 (68). The book still bears signs of her ownership—entries of her relatives’ obits in the opening calendar and additions of prayers tailored for an abbess—and the marks of its subsequent owners, her abbatial successors, over the course of the thirteenth century. Scholars of the psalter are in agreement that an artist and two scribes affiliated with, but likely not members of, St. Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire were responsible for the psalter’s initial production. But their consensus divides over the questions of who originally commissioned and owned the psalter, and how the book then came into Matilda’s possession. This seminar presentation will answer both questions, drawing on liturgical evidence internal to the psalter itself and on charters and narrative sources attesting to the lives of Matilda and her relatives. Ultimately this presentation will make a case for identifying Matilda’s maternal uncle, Osto of Saint-Omer (d. c. 1174), a Templar based first in Flanders, then in England, as the psalter’s original recipient.

The Fifth Crusade represented a cardinal event in early thirteenth-century history, occurring during what was probably the most intensive period of crusading in both Europe and the Holy Land. Following the controversial outcome of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, and the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, Pope Innocent III's reform agenda was set to give momentum to a new crusading effort. The Fifth Crusade marked the last time that a medieval pope would succeed in mounting a full-scale, genuinely international crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land. Despite the untimely death of Innocent III in 1216, the elaborate organisation and firm crusading framework made it possible for Pope Honorius III to launch and oversee the expedition. The crusade itself marked the last time that a medieval pope would succeed in mounting a full-scale, genuinely international crusade for the recovery of the Holy Land, yet, despite its significance, it has traditionally been neglected in the historiography. The crusade was much more than just a military campaign, and the present book locates it in the contemporary context for the first time. Contextualizing the Fifth Crusade is of crucial importance not only to better understand the organisation and execution of the expedition itself, but also to appreciate its place in the longer history of crusading, as well as the significance of its impact on the medieval world. This volume brings together the original research of an international group of scholars working on the Fifth Crusade and the crusading movement in the first half of the thirteenth century, exemplifying the new approaches being pursued in the study of the crusades and religious medieval history more broadly. The contributions address the historiographical debate, the roles of the papacy and the German empire, the preaching and recruiting of the crusade, the situation in Egypt and the Holy Land, the political importance of the crusade in Europe, and, finally, its lasting legacy in the textual traditions.

Arab-Byzantine coinage typically refers to the issues between about AD 650 and 720, when familiar Byzantine designs were copied by the early Muslims before they developed their own. This paper is about a much later “Arab-Byzantine” coin that does not seem to be listed in the most commonly used references on Byzantine or Islamic coins. The coin appears to have been copied by the Muslims around 1100 to 1150, during the age of the First and Second Crusades, a period of instability in the Arab world.

The Christian conquest of Lisbon in 1147 encouraged the writing of numerous testimonies since short analytic registers to long and detailed narratives, destined to transmit and appraise, in the latin Christianity, the memory of one of the few military successes of the Second Crusade. Coming from the registry of Monastery of Saint Vincent, one of these texts, probably from teutonic origin, detaches the martyrdom of crusaders dead in battle against Islam, focusing mainly in Henry of Bonn and in the description of his miracles in the context of the city's conquest and posterior rule by the king of Portugal. The aim of this article is to depict from the scarce available information in coeval texts and beyond, the mechanisms of construction of a sacred memory of this knight, also named Popteto Ulvinga in Frisian chronicles of XIII to XIV centuries, and recollect the traces of an eventual cult dedicated to him.

https://boydellandbrewer.com/the-miraculous-and-the-writing-of-crusade-narrative.html

The medieval Latin Christian narratives of the crusades are replete with references to miracles, visions and signs. Mysterious white-clad knights lead crusader armies to victory in battle, Christ and the saints offer guidance in visions, and great signs are seen in the skies. However, despite the frequent appearance of these themes in the sources, and the evident importance of these ideas to the narratives which describe them, scholars have often analysed examples in isolation.
This book represents the first far-reaching examination of the miraculous in crusade narrative, offering an analysis of the role of miracles, marvels, visions, dreams, signs and augury in narratives of the crusades of 1096 to 1204 and produced between c.1099 and c.1250. It argues that the miraculous and its related themes represented a powerful tool for the authors of crusade narrative because of its ability to convey divine agency and will, ideas which were central to the belief held among Latin Christian contemporaries that crusade was divinely inspired and spiritually salvific. Overall, the volume demonstrates how the authors of crusade narrative drew upon various intellectual authorities on the miraculous in the service of their narrative agendas and reveals how the use of the miraculous changed as authors were forced to respond to the challenges of narrating crusade during this period.

This article addresses the long-standing problem of the authenticity of Saint Bernard’s “Letter 308”, purportedly sent by the Abbot of Clairvaux to King Afonso Henriques of Portugal in response to his request for Bernard’s aid in recruiting northern European crusaders for an attack on Muslim-held Lisbon – an enterprise that took place in 1147, resulted in the conquest of the city by the Portuguese, and essentially guaranteed the autonomous survival of the kingdom. Since the letter concerns one of the most discussed topics in Portuguese medieval history, namely the extent of Bernard’s involvement in the determinative years of the independent kingdom, this article scrutinises the arguments surrounding it in an attempt to untangle the disparate and often disjointed responses it has produced since its first appearance in 1602, and examines facets hitherto unheeded by those who have denounced it as a forgery, to discover if Letter 308 should now be accepted as genuine.

KEYWORDS: Conquest of Lisbon, Forgery of Letter 308, Bernardo de Brito, Saint Bernard, Afonso Henriques, Pedro Afonso, Templars, Portuguese Reconquista, Crusades, Second Crusade, Eugenius III, Alfonso VII

This article seeks to shed light on the literary agenda of Odo of Deuil, author of the most detailed Latin account of the Levantine branch of the Second Crusade. It calls for scholars to reinstate Odo’s vilification of the Byzantines as a primary, rather than secondary, objective and proposes a new explanation for his stringent anti-Greek tone. It first extends our knowledge of Odo’s engagement with the historiographical tradition of the First Crusade, before drawing attention to a hitherto unappreciated layer in his vilification of the Byzantines: his use of emotional language.

The Iberian wars between Christians and Muslims are a historical topos that has usually been described controversially through the Spanish term ‘Reconquista’, which in its own has been focused on the singularity of the Iberian experience. The Iberian historiography as well as much of the Northern European one, has tended to view this as a unique and almost unrelated process from the rest of western Europe. However, these wars between Christians and Muslims for political control of the peninsula were not isolated from the rest of Christendom.  The peninsula was an obligatory stopover for pilgrims, traders and crusaders travelling by sea from Northern Europe to the Mediterranean, making this area unignorable. With the pan-European rise of the crusades, the Iberian conflicts started to be framed as part of this movement by the Papacy. However, in the Iberian theatre the arrival of these groups of warriors did not always coincide with their own bellicose initiatives. As it occurred in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Christian communities of the Iberian Peninsula were forced by their circumstances to cultivate at times a modus vivendi with their Muslim territorial rivals. However, for the crusading forces of Northern Europe as it was the case in the Latin East, this relative tolerance towards the Muslim, clashed with their own religiously inspired views on the nature of the conflict. The purpose of this paper is to discuss through a series of historical encounters how the Iberian frontier societies and their northern allies developed and interacted with one another. Furthermore, it will discuss how these Christian societies of the Mediterranean Ponent, compare to their Levantine counterpart in their relations with the newly arrived crusaders from Northern Europe.

The conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 marked a turning point in the Christian perception of the course of history, as the heavenly city turned overnight into an earthly city that in many ways did not necessarily meet the Crusaders' elevated expectations. This paper analyzes the ways in which the first encounter with Jerusalem was registered in the chronicles of the first Crusade, using it as a prism to observe a gradual coming to terms with the shift in apocalyptic expectations that was required after 1099. It particularly focuses on the Gesta Francorum Iherusalem expugnantium, Fulcher of Chartres, Robert the Monk and Balderic of Bourgueil. An analysis of the manuscript traditions of these texts and their dissemination, sheds new light on the sophisticated ways in which descriptions of Jerusalem were integrated into compilations of Crusade related texts. This analysis provides further insights on the diverse audiences of Crusade narratives, and the changes in the rhetorical purposes of such descriptions over time.

"Кръстоносните походи са любима тема на европейската историческа наука от край време. В тях има всичко, което да вълнува читателя: война в далечни и непознати земи, среща с други цивилизации, лични подвизи, реликви и чудеса, и какво ли не още. За съжаление българският читател дълго време бе държан далеч от това разнообразие на проблеми. На него му бе представяна една стандартизирана и опростена картина на кръстоносните походи като вид религиозни войни и особено като „западна“ агресия срещу мюсюлманския и християнския Изток.
Книгата на д-р Калин Йорданов ще въведе читателя в една друга историческа и културна среда. В нея действително се разглежда класическия кръстоносен период от 11 до 13 в., но тя е далеч от традиционното изброяване и тълкуване на битки, сблъсъци с местни хора, жестокости, колонизация и др. подобни. Книгата ни въвежда в света на кръстоносните реликви и чудеса, тяхното реално или виртуално съществуване, отношението на „въоръжените пилгрими“ към тях, "свещената кражба", фалшификацията, спекулата и черния пазар на реликви и мощи от Близкия изток, Византия и Балканите, както и пренасянето им в Западна Европа, съдбата им в нова среда и много още такива „нетрадиционни“ теми.  Авторът принадлежи на онова поколение български историци, което, убеден съм, ще върне българското историческо знание и вкуса на четящата публика към поизгубените  европейски стандарти и ценности. На тях разчитаме да възпитат у четящите високи изисквания към историческото четиво, да ги убедят, че сериозното историческо произведение не е задължително скучно, а съчетава интереса към историческия процес с неговото задълбочено осмисляне. "

Проф.дин Христо Матанов

The notion of Christianity as a religion of peace was severely tested during the Middle Ages, when killing in the name of God became a sanctified act. In this book, Tim Rayborn traces the development of the early Crusades, Christian views of war and violence, and its attitudes toward Islam, primarily during the turbulent period of the 11th and 12th centuries (with some attention to earlier centuries). A marked shift in Christian perceptions of its own identity coincided with a considerably more martial and aggressive approach to nonbelievers both inside and outside of Europe.

This wide-ranging study includes such topics as the background to the First Crusade, the Knights Templar, Bernard of Clairvaux, the Cistercian Order, the works of Peter the Venerable, apocalyptic hopes and fears, and martyrdom in the context of Christian conflicts with Islam. Focusing on French monastic writings, the book also examines papal documents, Spanish polemics, crusade chronicles, and other works. This is a survey of research on these important subjects, and serves as both a reference work and a point of departure for further study.

The article is dedicated to a little known medieval tractate De civitatibus Persarum. The article highlights a number of issues related to the tractate: the assumed time and place of its writing, the structure, the main ideas of the tractate, the reasons for writing this work. The translation of the tractate from Latin into Russian can be found in the Annex.

The issue of Irish involvement in the crusades prior to the English invasion of Ireland (1160s), which has hitherto received scant attention in both crusader and Irish historiography, is examined here. A critique is offered of two important articles dedicated to this subject (Costello 1970 and Kostick 2003), both of which primarily utilized crusader chronicles to argue the case for Irish participation in the early crusades. A detailed, critical examination of the sources used in these articles demonstrates that those texts cannot be depended upon to provide reliable evidence for such involvement. Sources that have been largely or wholly ignored with regard to this topic are then scrutinized, including Irish annalistic texts and documents emanating from the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem; these too are shown to lack solid evidence for Irish crusaders. It is suggested that a differentiation should be made between Irish knowledge of, and active participation in, the crusades: although convincing evidence for pre-invasion Irish involvement in the crusades is wanting, Irish sources nonetheless display awareness of crusader actions. It is also argued that Irish Church reform in the twelfth century was an important link between Ireland and the world of the crusaders, and that crusader ideology may have had an influence upon Irish society. Finally, it is proposed that literary sources emanating from the reform movement should form an important component of future studies of Ireland and the crusades.

Translation by the author of a Feb 21st, 2018 lecture in the Mint of Austria, Vienna. The topic of the talk is a Silver Penny of Henry Jasomirgott who participated in the Second Crusade. In December 1148 CE he was married in Constantinople to the Byzantine Princess Theodora, niece of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. In Constatinople there was a "Solomonic Lion Throne" which possibly is shown on the Avers of the Krems minted Silver Penny.

While known for his accomplishments surrounding the Fall of Edessa in 1144, the career of Imad al-Din Zengi receives little coverage in the modern Historiography on the Crusades. Even though the careers of other famous Muslim warriors during the
Crusading period tend to overshadow his accomplishments, Zengi had a remarkable career which provided him the opportunities to advance his own agenda within the larger Saljuq political structure. This structure allowed Zengi the opportunity to establish power within the Levant (modern day Syria, Iraq). Zengi succeeded in further stabilizing his own military position through manipulation of both political relationships and religious practices, specifically the calling for and waging of jihad, both of which allowed him to build toward developing his own independence from the Saljuq sultanate.