The Crusades

Introduction

The crusading movement involved peoples of varying religious and cultural backgrounds engaged in a violent struggle that spanned several centuries and took place on three continents. Until the later 20th century, historians focused narrowly on only those expeditions to the Holy Land as representing proper Crusades, but since then a broader crusading enterprise has been recognized that incorporates similar efforts against pagans in the Baltic region, heretics in southern Europe, Muslims in Spain, and papal foes in Italy. Consequently, Crusades studies have become broad and varied, leading to significant geographical and chronological specialization.

Reference Works

Although there have long existed numerous scholarly reference works on broader topics that also provide useful information on the Crusades, the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries have seen the publication of some works that are narrowly focused on the crusading movement. Riley-Smith 1991 should be consulted for maps. Andrea 2003 provides a useful single-volume encyclopedia. Murray 2006 offers the most comprehensive reference work available on the topic with more than a thousand up-to-date scholarly entries as well as fifty-four maps.

Andrea, Alfred J. Encyclopedia of the Crusades. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003.
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This work is a single-volume encyclopedia of the Crusades authored by a leading American historian that includes over 230 entries on key topics.
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Murray, Alan V., ed. The Crusades: An Encyclopedia. 4 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2006.
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This monumental work is a comprehensive and up-to-date four-volume encyclopedia edited by one of the leading British scholars of the Crusades. With more than a thousand entries (authored by 120 international scholars), this work covers all aspects of the crusading movement from the 11th to the 16th century. The work also includes fifty-four maps of major Crusades and Crusades settlements as well as photographs and illustrations of castles, landscapes, artwork, and coins.
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Riley-Smith, Jonathan, ed. The Atlas of the Crusades. New York: Facts on File, 1991.
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The work was produced as a collaborative product of a large number of leading Crusades specialists under the direction of Jonathan Riley-Smith. It provides over 150 pages of colorful detailed maps covering the period from 1000 to 1500.
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Bibliographies

The popularity of Crusades studies ensures that comprehensive bibliographies of secondary works quickly become dated. This may be why so few bibliographies on the Crusades have been produced during the late 20th and early 21st century. Yet for those seeking bibliographic information on primary sources or older secondary works, Atiya 1962, Mayer 1960, and McClellan and Hazard 1989 are the best available options. Those seeking bibliographic information on 21st-century works should consult the International Medieval Bibliography.

Atiya, Aziz S. The Crusade: Historiography and Bibliography. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962.
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The value of Atiya’s work derives from its comprehensive section “Monumental Collections” of Crusades primary sources. The work lists each of the major collections, such as the Recueil des historiens des Croisades and the Exuviae aacrae Constantinopolitanae, and provides helpful summaries of their contents. Although the work also provides a well-organized and comprehensive bibliography of secondary sources, it only covers works produced before 1962.
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International Medieval Bibliography. Leeds, UK: University of Leeds, 1967–.
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Edited and produced at the University of Leeds, the International Medieval Bibliography is the leading interdisciplinary bibliography of the Middle Ages. Its early-21st-century editorial director is Alan V. Murray, a leading British Crusades historian.
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Mayer, Hans Eberhard. Bibliographie zur Geschichte der Kreuzzüge. Hannover, Germany: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1960.
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Along with Atiya 1962, published only two years later, Hans Eberhard Mayer’s work was one of only two useful and comprehensive bibliographies available on the Crusades in the mid-20th century. It was later supplanted by McClellan and Hazard 1989, part of the six-volume History of the Crusades published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
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McClellan, J., and Harry W. Hazard. “Select Bibliography of the Crusades.” In A History of the Crusades. 2d ed. Vol. 6, The Impact of the Crusades on Europe. Edited by Harry W. Hazard and Norman P. Zacour, 511–664. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.
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Although dated, this 153-page bibliography’s listings of over five hundred primary sources and more than eighteen hundred secondary sources remains useful. This is especially the case with its detailed listings of primary sources in eight categories arranged by language, including Western languages (Latin and Old French) as well as Greek, Arabic, Armenian, Syriac, Persian, Turkish, and Mongolian.
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Journals

Since 2002 the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East, an international organization of scholars numbering around five hundred members, has joined together with Ashgate Publishing to produce the only journal devoted solely to the Crusades, Crusades: The Journal of the Society of the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East. Other important journals that have published a significant amount of material either directly or indirectly related to the Crusades include Speculum and the Journal of Medieval History.

Crusades: The Journal of the Society of the Study of the Crusades in the Latin East.
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This is the best available journal for those focused on crusading history. The editorial board is composed of leading Crusades scholars, and the journal not only publishes cutting-edge scholarship and book reviews but also provides comprehensive updates on the scholarly pursuits of its members.
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Journal of Medieval History.
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This journal focuses on medieval history and has published a number of important articles and reviews related to Crusades history by historians such as Michael Angold, Helen Nicholson, Christoph T. Maier, Norman Housley, and William Chester Jordan. The journal is searchable through ScienceDirect.
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Speculum.
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Speculum is North America’s oldest journal devoted exclusively to the Middle Ages. Over the years it has published a significant number of historically influential articles by important scholars, including Dana Carleton Munro, Loren C. MacKinney, Joseph Strayer, Archibald Lewis, and others. These essays, as well as many useful book reviews, are easily searchable through JSTOR.
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Major Primary-Source Collections

Although original sources in Latin, Greek, Arabic, Armenian, and other languages are found scattered throughout major general collections, there are also some important collections that focus more narrowly, and even exclusively, on the crusading movement and the Latin East. They include Michaud 1829, Société de l’Orient Latin 1881–1884, and the monumental Recueil des historiens des Croisades (Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 1841–1906). Riant 1877–1904 provides a focused collection of sources related to the Fourth Crusade. Although Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society 1971 does not focus exclusively on the crusading movement or provide texts in their original languages, it offers some important lengthy full-text English translations, warranting its inclusion here.

Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Recueil des historiens des Croisades. 16 vols. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1841–1906.
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The Recueil des historiens des Croisades is the most important collection of primary sources for the study of the Crusades. It includes Latin, Greek, Arabic, Old French, and Armenian sources with accompanying French translations. The entire collection of the Recueil des historiens des Croisades is available online in PDF format through the Bibliothèque Nationale de France Gallica online library.
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Michaud, Joseph-François, ed. Bibliothèque des Croisades. 4 vols. Paris: A. J. Ducollet, 1829.
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The Bibliothèque des Croisades was compiled as a supplement to Joseph-François Michaud’s three-volume Histoire des Croisades. The Bibliothèque des Croisades represents the first serious attempt to produce a documentary record of the Crusades that was drawn from all the known sources. Although quite old, the work is still valuable as a starting point for research on the Crusades, especially in the case of the fourth part of the series that focuses on Arab chronicles.
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Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society. The Library of the Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society. New York: AMS, 1971.
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This is a collection of translated primary sources, many authored by medieval pilgrims, that provide geographical and cultural information on the Holy Land from late Antiquity until the early modern period. Many of the sources, originally written in Latin, Greek, Arabic, and other languages, are from the era during which Western Christians operated various crusader states in the Holy Land (1098 to 1291); the collection includes lengthy translations of works such as Jacques de Vitry’s History of Jerusalem and Beha ed-Din’s Life of Saladin. These volumes were originally published by the Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society as a series between 1884 and 1895.
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Riant, Paul, ed. Exuviae sacrae Constantinopolitanae. 3 vols. Paris: E. Leroux, 1877–1904.
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Paul Riant’s three-volume Exuviae sacrae Constantinopolitanae provides a considerable number of primary sources from the era of the Fourth Crusade, as he sought to collect all available sources regarding the transfer of religious treasures from Constantinople to Western Europe during the 13th century. A facsimile of Riant’s work was published by the Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques in 2004.
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Société de l’Orient Latin. Archives de l’Orient Latin. 2 vols. Paris: E. Leroux, 1881–1884.
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This two-volume work contains a number of letters, charters, chronicles, and other primary sources covering the entire period of the Latin presence in the East. The sources in each volume are organized according to genre and prefaced by scholarly critical essays and commentary.
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Primary-Source Collections in Translation

There are a number of useful single-volume sourcebooks that include key primary-source selections in English translation that are ideal for use by students. These works tend to focus on selections from key texts from the crusading movement and are usually organized chronologically or according to theme. The most comprehensive volume for Islamic sources on the Crusades is Gabrieli 1969, although Holt and Muldoon 2008 provides several Islamic-source selections in addition to Latin, Greek, and Hebrew texts. Andrea 2008 provides a comprehensive collection of sources from the Fourth Crusade, while Peters 1971 and Housley 1996 provide key source selections from the later Crusades.

Andrea, Alfred J., ed. Contemporary Sources for the Fourth Crusade. Rev. ed. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2008.
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This volume provides dozens of translations, with introductions and notes, of Latin sources for the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204). Of particular interest are the forty-one letters from the registers of Pope Innocent III that are presented chronologically, allowing the reader to follow the development of the pope’s thinking during the course of the controversial Crusade.
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Gabrieli, Francesco, ed. Arab Historians of the Crusades. Translated by E. J. Costello. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969.
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This work represents the best collection of Arab sources on the Crusades in English translation. Its dozens of selections, with brief introductory commentary, illuminate the Arab perspective on key events during the crusading era, including the crusaders’ capture of Jerusalem in 1099 and Frederick II’s unusual negotiations for the kingdom of Jerusalem in 1228. Gabrieli also provides selections from Arab writers on the cultural interaction of Christians and Muslims in the crusader states, including, for example, Arab views of Frankish women and medicine.
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Holt, Andrew, and James Muldoon, eds. Competing Voices from the Crusades. Oxford: Greenwood, 2008.
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This book juxtaposes contemporary Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek accounts of controversial events during the Crusades, such as the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 and the Battle of Hattin in 1187, thus highlighting and providing the sometimes strikingly different perspectives on the same events. This work also includes chapters with selections from primary sources with details, including “Life on a Crusade,” “Life in the Crusader States,” and an especially useful chapter on the development of canon law as it related to crusading.
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Housley, Norman, ed. and trans. Documents on the Later Crusades, 1274–1580. New York: St. Martin’s, 1996.
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This work is a collection of more than sixty sources, edited and translated by Norman Housley, a leading scholar of the Crusades, that span the period from the end of the crusading movement in the Holy Land until the early modern era. The sources are arranged chronologically, beginning with the decrees of the Second Council of Lyons on the Crusade in 1274 and covering events through the battle of Lepanto in 1571.
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Peters, Edward, ed. Christian Society and the Crusades, 1198–1229: Sources in Translation Including the Capture of Damietta by Oliver of Paderborn. Translated by John J. Gavigan. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971.
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This collection of sources focuses on the early 13th century, a crucial period when crusading became fully institutionalized under the pontificate of Pope Innocent III and reached its height in terms of organization and frequency. Oliver of Paderborn’s account of the capture of Damietta during the Fifth Crusade, which comprises a significant portion of the book, is accompanied by a wide-ranging selection of shorter texts dealing with the Fourth Crusade, the Albigensian Crusade, the Children’s Crusade, and the Sixth Crusade as well as selections from the Fourth Lateran Council.
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Modern Crusades Historiography

Modern historians have long debated a number of fundamental issues related to the crusading movement. Indeed historians even disagree over the very definition of a Crusade and what properly qualifies as such, much less other issues like the goals of the papacy, the degree faith played in the motivations of the crusaders, and whether the crusading movement represented an early form of European colonialism. Constable 2001 and Riley-Smith 1999 provide the best overviews of the controversial issues debated by Crusades historians and the shifting opinions on these issues throughout the modern era. Madden 2002 offers reprints of key influential works, allowing the reader to develop a sense of how modern historians have debated many of these issues and the scholarly arguments that led to shifts in how historians understand the Crusades. Kedar 1998 considers how historians dating back to the 17th century have interpreted the attacks on Jews during the First Crusade. See also Crusader Motivations.

Constable, Giles. “The Historiography of the Crusades.” In The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World. Edited by Angeliki E. Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh, 1–22. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2001.
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This essay broadly considers historical accounts of the Crusades from the 12th century to the early 21st with an emphasis on modern Western historiography. Among modern historians, the author traces the development of a “comparatively favorable” view of the Crusades in the 19th and early 20th centuries to a “hostile” view that followed, represented, for example, by the works of Steven Runciman. The hostile view was based on modern disdain for warfare in general as well as the view of the crusader states as representative of early colonialism. While such a view remains common in popular understandings of the Crusades, late-20th- and early-21st-century scholarly research has seemingly shifted back to a more favorable view in that the initial impulses of crusading are now presented as motivated by “idealism” rather than a form of imperial aggression. Constable also provides an excellent analysis of late-20th- and early-21st-century scholarly efforts to define a Crusade, as historians have long debated what expeditions and campaigns actually qualify as such. In doing so he considers four schools that adhere to what can be termed traditionalist, pluralist, popularist, and generalist positions, each allowing for greater or lesser inclusion of various campaigns as proper Crusades.
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Kedar, Benjamin Z. “Crusade Historians and the Massacres of 1096.” Jewish History 12.2 (September 1998): 11–31.
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Benjamin Z. Kedar asks how Crusades historians, from Thomas Fuller in the 17th century to the early 21st- century, have interpreted the massacres of 1096 in their studies of the Crusades. Because Jews were never intended to be formal targets of the crusaders and significant efforts were made in the wake of the First Crusade to insure similar attacks did not happened again in later Crusades, historians have traditionally found it problematic to place such attacks in their proper context when considering the broader crusading movement. Kedar outlines six approaches historians have used when dealing with the issue.
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Madden, Thomas F., ed. The Crusades: The Essential Readings. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.
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This work reprints a selection of twelve key works that represent essential readings about the crusading movement. It includes, for example, H. E. J. Cowdrey’s 1970 essay arguing that Pope Urban II’s primary goal for the First Crusade was the liberation of Jerusalem and not just an attempted export of violence, as Carl Erdmann had argued in 1935. This work also includes two influential essays by Jonathan Riley-Smith (from 1980 and 1995) arguing that the crusaders were motivated by pious reasons rather than greed as well as a key essay by John France from 1997 leaving open the possibility of material motivations for at least some who participated in the First Crusade. Other essays consider important arguments regarding the rebirth of jihad during the Crusades, the influence of the crusading movement on the so-called Reconquista of Spain, and the development of crusading institutions during the 12th century.
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Riley-Smith, Jonathan. “The Crusading Movement and Historians.” In The Oxford History of the Crusades. Edited by Jonathan Riley-Smith, 1–15. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
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This essay, along with Constable 2001, represents one of the two best general summaries of 20th-century historical approaches to the major debates and controversies of the Crusades. Riley-Smith traces, for example, how modern historians have come to the conclusion that the Crusades to the East were only a part, albeit an essential one, of a broader crusading movement that took place against pagans in northern Europe, Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula, and heretics in southern France and Italy and extended well beyond the traditional dating of 1095 to 1291 to conclude in the early modern period. Also of interest are the author’s observations concerning the rise of the liberation movement in Latin America in the 1960s, which demonstrated that sincere Christians could embrace positive violence when carried out as a form of charity to aid others. As a result modern Crusades historians who once argued that the crusaders were primarily driven by greed were forced to recognize that sincere medieval Christians also could have found violence justifiable, or even desirable, if done to liberate Eastern Christians, for example, believed to have been suffering under Islamic rule. In this case the hardships of crusading for such a goal would have been understood as an expression of Christian charity.
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General Histories of the Crusades

A number of general histories of the Crusades have been written since the early 20th century. They range from comprehensive multivolume works to “concise,” “short,” or even “very short” introductions to the Crusades. A comprehensive single-volume history of the Crusades is Tyerman 2006, while a introduction, Tyerman 2005, is by the same author. The most popular texts for classroom use are Riley-Smith 1987 and Madden 2005. Mayer 1972 and Richard 1999 are also important histories with which any scholar of the Crusades should be familiar. Setton 1969–1989 provides a comprehensive multivolume history of the Crusades, while Runciman 1951–1954 remains among the most readable. Although not solely focused on the crusading movement, Bartlett 1993 provides a useful examination of the crusading movement in the context of the broader expansion of Christendom during the same era.

Bartlett, Robert. The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization, and Cultural Change, 950–1350. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.
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This important work considers the rise of the Latin West and the crusading movement as a means of furthering its expansion of its faith, culture, and ideals in the Baltic, the Iberian Peninsula, and elsewhere in Europe, among other goals.
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Madden, Thomas F. The New Concise History of the Crusades. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.
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This work, written by a leading American scholar of the Crusades, represents one of the more popular general histories on the subject. It provides a concise and up-to-date scholarly overview of the crusading movement and is often assigned in undergraduate classes as an alternative to Jonathan Riley-Smith’s The Crusades: A Short History (Riley-Smith 1987).
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Mayer, Hans Eberhard. The Crusades. Translated by John Gillingham. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972.
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Hans Eberhard Mayer’s The Crusades, first published in German in 1965, provides a solid overview of the crusading movement in the East. He also argues against the “Erdmann thesis,” which held that the Crusades were concocted by Western clerics as a means of exporting violence to the East. Mayer instead argues that concern over the fate of Jerusalem under Turkish control was more of a motivator for the papacy than concerns about quelling violence in the West.
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Richard, Jean. The Crusades, c. 1071–c. 1291. Translated by Jean Birrell. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
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This work is an English translation of Histoire des Croisades, written by a leading French Crusades scholar and originally published in 1996. It covers the crusading movement from the papacy of Gregory VII until the fall of Acre in 1291.
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Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades: A Short History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987.
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Written by the most influential Crusades historian of the last thirty years of the 20th century and regularly assigned in undergraduate classes, this work traces the crusading period from its inception in the 11th century to its decline in the early modern period. Riley-Smith considers both the traditional Crusades to the Latin East and the broader crusading movement.
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Runciman, Steven. A History of the Crusades. 3 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1951–1954.
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Although outdated and thus rarely assigned in modern university courses, Runciman’s three-volume history once represented the most popular scholarly history of the Crusades. Indeed, this work was the means by which many historians initially came to their study of the Crusades on account of its lively and passionate prose. Consequently it continues to be referenced in the scholarly literature as among the most “readable” accounts available on the subject.
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Setton, Kenneth M., ed. A History of the Crusades. 6 vols. 2d ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969–1989.
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These six volumes, available online through the University of Wisconsin, collectively represent a monumental work on the Crusades. Includes essays by leading international scholars compiled and published over a twenty-year period; each volume focuses on a period, such as The First Hundred Years (Volume 1) and The Later Crusades, 1189–1311 (Volume 2), or a theme, such as The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States (Volume 4) and The Impact of the Crusades on Europe (Volume 6).
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Tyerman, Christopher. The Crusades: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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Instead of the author’s mammoth God’s War (Tyerman 2006), one might prefer his Very Short Introduction, which seeks to offer a brief introduction to the phenomenon of crusading. Although the work presents itself as an introductory text, Tyerman’s sophisticated and condensed coverage of the crusading movement might prove challenging for those without any background in Crusades studies.
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Tyerman, Christopher. God’s War: A New History of the Crusades. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2006.
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At over a thousand pages, this work is a comprehensive single-volume history of the crusading movement. Written by a leading British Crusades scholar who based his work on the most up-to-date scholarship available, this book seeks to supplant Runciman 1951–1954.
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First Crusade

Because of the extraordinary nature of the First Crusade as well as its unlikely success, it is by far the most studied of all Crusades. Scholars have long been fascinated with the origins and causes of the crusading movement as well as the reasons for its success. Indeed numerous works by both popular and scholarly authors were published in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, including the scholarly overviews Asbridge 2005 and Kostick 2008. France 1994 remains the authoritative military history of the First Crusade. On the origins and background of the first crusaders, see Riley-Smith 1997 and Riley-Smith 2009. See also Crusader Motivations.

Asbridge, Thomas. The First Crusade: A New History; The Roots of Conflict between Christianity and Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
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This work represents a scholarly, comprehensive general examination of the causes and events of the First Crusade. Asbridge provides a detailed analysis of primary sources and late-20th- and early-21st-century scholarship to trace the course of the Crusade from its inception to the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099.
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France, John. Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
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John France, a leading British scholar of the Crusades, provides one of the best available works on the military history of the Crusades. Through a careful examination of warfare in Europe prior to the Crusades and how it was adapted to the special needs of those who took part in the First Crusade, he explains why the earliest crusaders were successful on the battlefield.
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Kostick, Conor. The Social Structure of the First Crusade. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2008.
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Although the First Crusade has been well studied by military and religious historians, few have comprehensively considered the social history of the Crusades. Conor Kostick addresses this deficiency through a careful examination of the social classes and class tensions that existed during the First Crusade. Of particular interest are his conclusions on the participation of women in the First Crusade, as he argues, in contrast to traditional scholarship, that many women did not go on Crusades as simple camp followers or prostitutes but as genuine participants or pilgrims, often seeking a new life in the East.
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Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The First Crusaders, 1095–1131. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
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This work has been described by Princeton University’s William Chester Jordan as having “laid to rest for all time” the notion that the crusaders profited from the Crusades. Indeed through the use of crusading charters, Riley-Smith demonstrates the financial hardships of crusading for the crusaders and their families. Moreover, the earliest crusaders took their vows while aware of the expense involved and did not expect to profit financially from their efforts.
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Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading. 2d ed. London: Continuum, 2009.
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Riley-Smith argues that Pope Urban II’s calling of the First Crusade in 1095 was fairly conventional but differed from prior papal calls for warfare against Muslims because the goal of the Crusade was Jerusalem. This led to a far more enthusiastic response than had been anticipated, which was then followed by the otherwise unthinkable conquest of Jerusalem in 1099. It was only after this that clerical leaders in the early 12th century began developing the unique crusading ideology that would set the standard for later Crusades.
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Tyerman, Christopher J. “Were There Any Crusades in the Twelfth Century?” English Historical Review 110 (1995): 553–577.
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In this controversial work Christopher Tyerman argues that the First Crusade was not representative of a new type of holy war but rather only a continuation of already established holy war trends in Europe. It was only in retrospect, Tyerman argues, that the First Crusade was recognized by contemporaries as a unique and recognizably different type of holy war. Although Tyerman’s argument has not won many adherents, it has contributed significantly to debates about the evolutionary nature of crusading as an institution.
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Second and Third Crusades

It is surprising perhaps that the Second Crusade has not received more attention from scholars. If the success of the First Crusade represented the zenith of the crusading movement in the Holy Land, then the failure of the Second Crusade marked the beginning of a slow decline that culminated in Saladin’s successful conquest of Jerusalem in 1187, the cause of the Third Crusade. With the exception of Gervers 1992, there were relatively few reliable books focused on the Second Crusade until the historian Jonathan Phillips produced two important books on the subject, including his definitive work, Phillips 2007. Some scholarly works provide important background and consideration of important aspects of the Third Crusade. They include Hamilton 2000, an examination of the reign of Baldwin IV, Painter 1969, an essay considering French and English leadership and cooperation during the Third Crusade, Markowski 1997, a critical analysis of Richard I’s leadership during the Crusade, Gillingham 1999, a more positive appraisal of Richard I’s leadership, and Kedar 1992, which includes essays on Saladin’s victory at Hattin and conquests in the Holy Land, which preceded the call for the Third Crusade. While popular works abound, there is no early-21st-century reliable scholarly single-author volume focusing comprehensively on the events of the Third Crusade.

Gervers, Michael, ed. The Second Crusade and the Cistercians. New York: St. Martin’s, 1992.
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This volume contains an introduction by Giles Constable and nineteen essays that consider various aspects of the Cistercians’ influence on the Second Crusade. The first seven essays deal with the background of the Crusade, the following six essays deal with the campaign itself, and the final seven essays deal with the aftermath of the Crusade.
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Gillingham, John. Richard I. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.
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The primary focus of this book is Richard I’s involvement in the Third Crusade from 1190 to 1192. The author considers a wide variety of sources, arguing for a far more favorable interpretation of Richard’s leadership during the Crusade than has traditionally been the case. In doing so he has produced what James Brundage has claimed may be the “best account” of Richard’s activities in the Holy Land.
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Hamilton, Bernard. The Leper King and His Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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Bernard Hamilton provides a comprehensive assessment of Baldwin IV’s rule of Jerusalem in the years prior to Saladin’s conquest of the city. Hamilton refutes the notion that Baldwin’s rule was a period of decline and argues, contrary to critics of Baldwin’s reign, that continued peace with Saladin was not a realistic option.
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Kedar, B. Z., ed. The Horns of Ḥaṭṭīn: Proceedings of the Second Conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East, Jerusalem and Haifa, 2–6 July 1987. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zavi, 1992.
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The papers in this volume are from a conference held in 1987 by the Society of the Study of the Crusades in the Latin East that marked the eight hundredth anniversary of Saladin’s victory at Hattin and the conquest of Jerusalem that followed only months later. Although this work includes essays on the broader crusading movement, the papers that focus on the Third Crusade include studies of the battle of Hattin, a letter purported to have been written by Saladin after his victory at Hattin, Saladin’s military strategies, and crusading ideology in the context of the Third Crusade.
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Markowski, Michael. “Richard Lionheart: Bad King, Bad Crusader?” Journal of Medieval History 23 (1997): 351–365.
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This essay is critical of Richard I’s leadership and argues that Richard’s lack of discipline and self-centered interests led to his failure to take Jerusalem and thereby undermined any chance of success for the Third Crusade.
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Painter, Sidney. “The Third Crusade: Richard the Lionhearted and Philip Augustus.” In A History of the Crusades. Vol. 2, The Later Crusades, 1189–1311. Edited by Robert Lee Wolff and Harry W. Hazard, 45–87. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969.
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Although dated, this essay by Sidney Painter provides a useful overview of the Third Crusade. Painter considers the early efforts to bring unity between the kings of France and England to insure their cooperation on the Crusade as well as their efforts in the Holy Land.
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Phillips, Jonathan. The Second Crusade: Extending the Frontiers of Christendom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007.
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This much-needed book, by a leading British scholar of the Crusades, stands as the definitive work on the Second Crusade. There simply are no other single-author works devoted to the Second Crusade. Phillips provides a comprehensive overview of the Second Crusade, considering not only events in the Holy Land but also the Wendish Crusade and events in medieval Iberia.
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Phillips, Jonathan, and Martin Hoch, eds. The Second Crusade: Scope and Consequences. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2001.
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This volume includes several useful essays covering important themes and events of the Second Crusade. Among the topics considered are the role of the Germans, Bernard of Clairvaux and Pope Eugenius III’s influence, the career of Imad ad-Din Zengi, and the long-term effects of the failure of the Second Crusade.
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Fourth Crusade

The Fourth Crusade, which led to the crusaders’ conquest of Constantinople, the Orthodox Christian capital city of the Byzantine Empire, perhaps is the most controversial event of the crusading era. Historians debate the causes of the political and economic weaknesses of the Byzantine state prior to the Fourth Crusade and whether such weakness allowed for the crusaders’ success (see Treadgold 1997). Queller and Day 1976 and Queller and Madden 1997 suggest that the crusaders’ conquest of the Byzantine capital might be ascribed to what has come to be known as the accident theory, which holds that the conquest of Constantinople was never the goal of the crusaders but only the result of a number of unforeseen events that left them with few other choices. Angold 1999 and Angold 2003 reject the accident theory but do not embrace the alternative notion of a grand conspiracy by profit-driven Venetians to conquer the empire. Phillips 2004 offers an updated scholarly overview that is ideal for classroom use.

Angold, Michael. “The State of Research—The Road to 1204: The Byzantine Background to the Fourth Crusade.” Journal of Medieval History 25 (1999): 257–278.
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This essay provides a review and critique of 20th-century scholarship (until 1999) on the causes of the crusaders’ conquest of Constantinople in 1204. Angold considers and provides an overview of the arguments of Donald E. Queller, Warren Treadgold, Paul Magdalino, Margaret Mullet, R. J. Lilie, and many others concerning the vulnerability of the Byzantine state prior to the Fourth Crusade.
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Angold, Michael. The Fourth Crusade: Event and Context. Harlow, UK: Longman, 2003.
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Michael Angold rejects the historiographical trends that suggest the Fourth Crusade was only a cover for a grand plan, orchestrated by the Venetians in collusion with the crusaders, to conquer the Byzantine Empire or that the sack of Constantinople was simply the accidental result of a series of unforeseen and unfortunate events. Also of interest is Angold’s analysis of the doubts of many Western writers following the Crusade as well as the tendency by Orthodox writers to exaggerate the atrocities of 1204 in influential works that effectively hardened Greek attitudes toward the Latins.
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Phillips, Jonathan. The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople. New York: Viking, 2004.
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This book is one of most readable narrative accounts of the Fourth Crusade since the era of Steven Runciman. Phillips provides a comprehensive overview of the circumstances that led the crusaders away from their planned destination of Egypt to the Byzantine capital city of Constantinople, the most magnificent city in all of Christendom. Phillips details the intrigues and complex negotiations between the crusaders, the Venetians, and Byzantine Christians during the course of the Crusade, leading to the crusaders’ conquest and sack of Constantinople.
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Queller, Donald E., and Gerald W. Day. “Some Arguments in Defense of the Venetians on the Fourth Crusade.” American Historical Review 81:4 (1976): 717–737.
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In response to scholarly arguments that attribute base motives during the Fourth Crusade to the Venetians, who presumably sought only their own economic gain, Queller and Day argue that the Venetians, like the other crusaders, were initially victims, then beneficiaries “of a series of mistakes, failures, and accidents that determined the course of the Fourth Crusade” (p. 718).
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Queller, Donald E., and Thomas F. Madden. The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople. 2d ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
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This work offers a careful examination of the events that led the warriors of the Fourth Crusade to the walls of Constantinople. Rather than assigning blame to any group for the unusual and troubling result of the Fourth Crusade, Queller and Madden, as proponents of the so-called accident theory, detail the odd and unforeseen sequence of events that culminated in the crusaders’ attack on fellow Christians. This work also includes an excellent essay by Alfred J. Andrea on the narrative sources for the Fourth Crusade.
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Treadgold, Warren. A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997.
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This is a major history of the Byzantine state that provides an analysis of the events that led to the sack of Constantinople in 1204. Treadgold refuses to see the fall of the Byzantine capital to the crusaders as an inevitable consequence of the weakness of the empire, but he does present the period prior to the Fourth Crusade as one of progressive weakness.
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Later Crusades to the East

While the first four Crusades (1095 to 1204) have traditionally received considerable attention from Crusades historians, the remaining four (or five) Crusades to the East have received considerably less coverage. There are some notable exceptions, such as Powell 1986, which provides an important and comprehensive revisionist account of the Fifth Crusade, and Jordan 1979, which offers a definitive analysis of how the experiences of crusading affected King Louis IX’s rule. Other works, such as Schein 1991 and Lower 2005, have also contributed much to our knowledge of the institutionalization and continued support for crusading in this period.

Jordan, William Chester. Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: A Study in Rulership. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979.
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William Chester Jordan considers how Louis IX’s two Crusades affected him both personally and in terms of policy. He argues that Louis’s public acts prior to his first Crusade were done in preparation for the Crusade. When Louis returned from his failed Crusade in 1254, his failure inspired a personal conversion by which he geared all his administrative and financial policies, as well as the treatment of his subjects, toward an ideal of kingship based on Christian justice.
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Lower, Michael. The Barons’ Crusade: A Call to Arms and Its Consequences. Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.
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Michael Lower provides a unique examination of the so-called Barons’ Crusade, which Pope Gregory IX had originally called in 1235 to go to the Holy Land but then diverted to aid the Latin empire of Constantinople against its enemies in Bulgaria and Nicaea. In preparation for the Crusade and during the campaign, Gregory IX sought to unify and bring about the involvement of all of Latin Christendom through mass vow redemption and compulsory sermons, among other things, in the cause of the Crusade, marking an important milestone in the institutionalization of crusading.
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Powell, James M. Anatomy of a Crusade, 1213–1221. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986.
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James M. Powell provides a revisionist account of the Fifth Crusade in which he bases his interpretation of its failure on a quantitative analysis of the arrivals and departures of the crusaders. By such a means Powell argues that the crusading army’s structural problems, not only the ebb and flow of manpower but also poor financial resources, were more at fault for the failure of the Crusade than the leadership.
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Schein, Sylvia. Fideles Crucis: The Papacy, the West, and the Recovery of the Holy Land, 1274–1314. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991.
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Sylvia Schein shows that although crusading to the East had ceased by the later 13th century, popes such as Nicholas IV and Clement V, as well as kings like Philip IV of France and James II of Aragon, had kept alive the hope of a new Crusade to restore Jerusalem to Latin Christian control.
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Northern (Baltic) Crusades

It was not long after the inception of the crusading movement that primarily German crusaders turned their focus toward pagan civilizations in northern Europe. This resulted in a movement from the 11th to 15th centuries that saw the Christianization and opening of trade with northern Europe. Christiansen 1980 and Urban 1994 offer two scholarly narratives that serve as reliable introductions to the subject. For more detailed scholarly analysis considering issues ranging from warfare to conversion and culture during the Baltic Crusades, see Murray 2009 and Murray 2001. Fonnesberg-Schmidt 2007 is a useful examination of papal policy as it related to the Baltic Crusades.

Christiansen, Eric. The Northern Crusades: The Baltic and the Catholic Frontier, 1100–1525. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980.
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This highly readable work remains among the key narrative accounts through which students are introduced to the Baltic Crusades. Christiansen situates the crusading effort in northern Europe firmly in the broader context of European expansion during the 12th to the 16th centuries.
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Fonnesberg-Schmidt, Iben. The Popes and the Baltic Crusades 1147–1254. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007.
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This work considers the formation of papal policy in the Baltic region from the pontificate of Eugenius III to that of Innocent IV, a crucial period in the development of crusading. Fonnesberg-Schmidt considers how various popes, as a result of their political and ecclesiastical goals, viewed the Baltic Crusades in relation to Crusades elsewhere. The author notes, for example, that while Eugenius III and Honorius III seemingly put crusading efforts in the Baltic on par with those in the Holy Land, other popes, such as Alexander III, did not.
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Murray, Alan V., ed. Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier: 1150–1500. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001.
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The first of two edited volumes by Alan V. Murray on the Baltic Crusades (the other being Murray 2009), this text presents a number of scholarly essays considering the historiography, literature, and effects of the Crusade in the Baltic region as well as the crusaders’ motivations and the ideology of conversion in the context of the Crusade.
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Murray, Alan V., ed. The Clash of Cultures on the Medieval Baltic Frontier. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009.
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The essays of this volume focus on the clash of European pagan, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox cultures during the era of the Baltic Crusades. An emphasis is placed on conflicts that emerged over missionary work and religious identity, but the transformation of political and social structures as well as warfare on the Baltic frontier are also considered.
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Urban, William L. The Baltic Crusade. 2d ed. Chicago: Lithuanian Research and Studies Center, 1994.
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Originally published in 1975, this revised and expanded version provides an updated introduction to the Baltic Crusade that is useful for students or those new to the topic. Urban places the Crusade in the context of the religious, economic, and territorial expansion of Europe that began in the 10th century and continued through the early modern period.
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Crusades Against Heretics

It was during the early-13th-century pontificate of Pope Innocent III that the Crusade was first directed against heretics in the south of France. The Albigensian Crusade, aimed at the steadily expanding Cathar movement, represents the most significant effort by the Church to eradicate heresy in the heart of Christendom. Consequently scholars have long been fascinated with the causes that led to its calling and its impact on medieval European society. Kienzle 2001 considers the impact of the Cistercians on the movement against the Cathar heresy, while Marvin 2008 provides a military and political history of the Crusade. Pegg 2008, on the other hand, radically reinterprets the nature of the Cathar threat to the Catholic Church and the impact of the Crusade on Europe. One might also consider, as Housley 1982 does in a rare examination of the Italian Crusades, how charges of heresy were useful in justifying the call for a Crusade against one’s political opponents.

Housley, Norman. The Italian Crusades: The Papal-Angevin Alliance and the Crusades against Christian Lay Powers, 1254–1343. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982.
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This is a rare and important book on the so-called Italian Crusades against papal political opponents during the 13th and 14th centuries. Housley argues that the Italian Crusades did not represent a degradation of the Crusades but were instead true to the crusading ideology of the era and had wide popular support and solid financial backing.
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Kienzle, Beverly Mayne. Cistercians, Heresy, and Crusade in Occitania, 1145–1229: Preaching in the Lord’s Vineyard. Rochester, NY: York Medieval, 2001.
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This book examines the Cistercian effort against the Cathars in late-12th- and early-13th-century Occitania. Kienzle focuses on the growing concern with heresy in Cistercian literature, inspired by Bernard of Clairvaux, that eventually led them to emerge from their monasteries to combat heresy.
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Marvin, Laurence W. The Occitan War: A Military and Political History of the Albigensian Crusade, 1209–1218. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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Rather than a social or religious history of the Albigensian Crusade, this work provides a political and military history that focuses on the different campaigns of the war for the crucial years of 1209 to 1218. On the military side, Marvin provides an excellent overview of tactics and strategies, while on the political side he details the papacy’s struggle for control over the Crusade.
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Pegg, Mark Gregory. A Most Holy War: The Albigensian Crusade and the Battle for Christendom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
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Mark Gregory Pegg provides a lively and concise narrative in which he challenges conventional scholarship on the Albigensian Crusade through a number of striking revisionist arguments. He argues, for example, that genocide originated in Western Christendom with the Albigensian Crusade, as did anti-Semitism in its wake. Perhaps more plausibly, Pegg also argues that modern scholars have incorrectly presented the Cathar “Church” as far more organized than was the case in 1209. Although scholars should consider some of Pegg’s arguments, students should not do so in isolation from other scholarship.
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Crusades in Spain

Although the Crusades and the so-called Reconquista are different movements, they clearly influenced each other in ways that scholars still debate. Fletcher 1987, an influential essay, argues that by the 11th century Spanish Christians and Muslims were living in relative peace until the rise of the crusading movement rehabilitated the Reconquista movement. O’Callaghan 2003 argues that crusading movements in Spain and the Holy Land developed in tandem rather than one significantly influencing the other. Bishko 1975 focuses on the leading role of the papacy in transforming the Reconquista into a type of Iberian Crusade.

Bishko, Charles Julian. “The Spanish and Portuguese Reconquest, 1095–1492.” In A History of the Crusades. Vol. 3, The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. Edited by Harry W. Hazard, 396–456. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975.
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This essay provides a concise narrative introduction to the Spanish and Portuguese reconquest from the rise of the crusading era until the conquest of Granada in 1492. Bishko argues that the increase of Spanish Christian populations and resources in the late 11th century as well as the maturation of Spanish political institutions created a strong pressure to gain land and spoils from Spain’s Muslim neighbors to the south. These pressures, coupled with the rise of the crusading movement, allowed the papacy to take a leading role in the transformation of the Reconquista into a type of Iberian Crusade that was increasingly institutionalized until its completion in 1492.
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Fletcher, R. A. “Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain, c. 1050–1150.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 37 (1987): 31–47.
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The author argues against once-traditional characterizations of medieval Spain as the scene of a long and continuous struggle between Christians and Muslims that provided a foundation on which the later crusading movement was built. To the contrary, Fletcher argues that there existed considerable cooperation between Spanish Muslims and Christians during much of the 11th century until the rise of the crusading movement, when notions of the Spanish reconquest were rehabilitated and co-opted into the broader crusading movement. Thus it was not the Spanish reconquest that provided a foundation for the Crusades but rather the Crusades that rehabilitated and transformed the Spanish reconquest.
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O’Callaghan, Joseph F. Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.
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This book provides a comprehensive overview of the development of crusading in medieval Iberia. O’Callaghan argues that the Crusades in Spain and the Holy Land developed and evolved in tandem but the Iberian Crusades were more successful because they were waged at home and on familiar territory.
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Children’s Crusade

The troubling story of misguided children setting out to recover the Holy Land, ending in tragedy, has long fascinated the popular imagination. Yet linguistic and social-history analysis has led scholars to conclude that the crusaders of 1212 were not mostly children in the modern sense but rather young adults without means. To begin with, historians have highlighted how the Latin term for children (pueri) could also have been applied to landless young men at the time. This movement was also never a Crusade in the legal sense of being sanctioned by the pope with indulgences given to its participants. On the contrary, responsible authorities disapproved of it. The dominant scholarly voice on this topic is Gary Dickson, who has produced a number of articles on the subject leading to the publication of his important book, Dickson 2008. Prior to Dickson’s research relatively little was published on the Children’s Crusade, with the important exceptions of Raedts 1977 and Zacour 1969.

Dickson, Gary. The Children’s Crusade: Medieval History, Modern Mythistory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
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This work is an updated scholarly analysis of one of the most confusing and misunderstood events in medieval history. Dickson argues that the Children’s Crusade did not consist exclusively of children, a misconception only found in later sources on the subject, but he does allow for the inclusion of youths, broadly defined, whose participation later became a defining feature of the movement.
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Raedts, Peter. “The Children’s Crusade of 1212.” Journal of Medieval History 3 (1977): 297–323.
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Peter Raedts provides a scholarly analysis of how poor people, living on the margins of rural society and inspired by religious zeal in the early 13th century, came to be understood as children during the movement of 1212.
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Zacour, Norman P. “The Children’s Crusade.” In A History of the Crusades. Vol. 2, The Later Crusades, 1189–1311. Edited by Robert Lee Wolff and Harry W. Hazard, 325–342. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969.
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Norman P. Zacour provides a solid overview of the religious atmosphere and events leading up the Children’s Crusade of 1212. He carefully considers the prior work of Dana Carleton Munro on the issue and the limitations of the sources in determining what we can know about the events of 1212.
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Women and the Crusades

Only toward the end of the 20th century did the topic of women and the Crusades become an area of significant study. It began with important essays in the 1980s and 1990s by such influential historians as James A. Brundage and Helen Nicholson (see Brundage 1985 and Nicholson 1997). Mazeika 1998 offers a unique examination of the perception of women during the Baltic Crusades. Maier 2004 considers the motivations and roles of women involved in the crusading movement. Holt 2008 considers clerical concerns about the involvement of women in the First and Second Crusades. The first book-length study dealing extensively with the topic of gender and the Crusades, with a heavy emphasis on women, was Edgington and Lambert 2002. Since then two important single-authored volumes, Geldsetzer 2003 and Hodgson 2007, have appeared.

Brundage, James A. “Prostitution, Miscegenation, and Sexual Purity in the First Crusade.” In Crusade and Settlement: Papers Read at the First Conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East and Presented to R. C. Smail. Edited by Peter W. Edbury, 57–65. Cardiff, UK: University College Cardiff Press, 1985.
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This essay deals with three key topics related to issues involving women during the Crusades—prostitution, miscegenation, and sexual purity. Although brief, it is an excellent starting point for research on any of these topics and represents a seminal work for those considering clerical concerns about sexual immorality during the Crusades.
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Edgington, Susan B., and Sarah Lambert, eds. Gendering the Crusades. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
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This pioneering work is an excellent starting point for anyone considering research on gender and the Crusades, as it is the sole book-length study of the topic. A number of highly regarded Crusades scholars are among the contributors, including Helen Nicholson, Sylvia Schein, and Elizabeth Siberry. Its thirteen essays focus on issues of issues of femininity, although much useful information can be gleaned on masculinity as well. Among the topics covered are the gendering of papal crusading policy, women warriors during the Crusades, women in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, and the experience of women taken captive during the Crusades.
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Geldsetzer, Sabine. Frauen auf Kreuzzügen. Darmstadt, Germany: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2003.
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This work, along with Hodgson 2007, is a comprehensive early-21st-century examination of women during the Crusades. Geldsetzer carefully outlines the various roles of women and how they were perceived by the male authors who wrote about them.
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Hodgson, Natasha R. Women, Crusading, and the Holy Land in Historical Narrative. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2007.
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Here Natasha R. Hodgson provides an updated survey of the varying roles of women during the course of a Crusade and in the crusader states. She examines a wide range of sources as she considers how gendered stereotypes influenced perceptions of women as recorded in clerical chronicles and lay sources.
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Holt, Andrew. “Feminine Sexuality and the Crusades.” In Sexuality in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: New Approaches to a Fundamental Cultural-Historical and Literary-Anthropological Theme. Edited by Albrecht Classen, 449–469. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008.
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The author traces the development of clerical attitudes toward women during the Crusades and argues that the presence of women became a convenient scapegoat for those seeking to explain military defeats. As defeated crusaders sought explanations from clerics who had previously assured them of God’s goodwill, clerics explained such misfortunes by accusing the crusaders of immorality with women, which brought God’s disfavor and resulted in losses on the battlefield.
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Maier, Christoph T. “The Roles of Women in the Crusade Movement: A Survey.” Journal of Medieval History 30 (2004): 61–82.
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Christoph T. Maier surveys the roles of women during the crusading era both within Crusades armies and on the home front. He considers the reasons some women joined a Crusade, whether as pilgrims or camp followers, as well as the broader roles of women on the home front in the recruitment and financing of Crusades.
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Mazeika, Rasa. “‘Nowhere Was the Fragility of Their Sex Apparent’: Women Warriors in the Baltic Crusade Chronicles.” In From Clermont to Jerusalem: The Crusades and Crusader Societies, 1095–1500; Selected Proceedings of the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 10–13 July 1995. Edited by Alan V. Murray, 229–248. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1998.
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Rasa Mazeika provides a rare study of how women were perceived, often quite positively, in military monastic sources from the Baltic Crusades. Her study demonstrates how it was not uncommon for women in the Baltic to resort to arms, often quite successfully, in a variety of circumstances.
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Nicholson, Helen. “Women on the Third Crusade.” Journal of Medieval History 23 (1997): 335–349.
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This essay provides an examination of the differences between Christian and Muslim accounts of Christian women during the Third Crusade. Nicholson considers why Christian sources portrayed women as assistants who, for the most part, performed menial tasks, while Muslim sources claim Christian women actively took part in the combat.
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Jews and the Crusades

The primary focus of those studying Jewish history during the Crusades is usually the slaughter of the Rhineland Jews in 1096. The two most important books on the topic are Chazan 1987 and Cohen 2004. Both authors take a revisionist approach, particularly Jeremy Cohen, which has considerably influenced how historians understand the Hebrew sources of 1096. For those looking for a more general overview of the topic, Prawer 1988 provides an examination of Jewish interaction with the crusaders in the Holy Land, while Rist 2007 examines papal-Jewish relations in the context of crusading during the early 13th century.

Chazan, Robert. European Jewry and the First Crusade. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
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Robert Chazan, a leading scholar of the massacres of 1096, provides a solid overview of the crusaders’ attacks on Rhineland Jews during the First Crusade. He considers the attitudes of the crusaders who engaged in such attacks but provides considerable analysis of the thinking and beliefs that underpinned the Jewish response.
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Cohen, Jeremy. Sanctifying the Name of God: Jewish Martyrs and Jewish Memories of the First Crusade. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
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Jeremy Cohen critically examines Hebrew accounts of the massacre of Jews during the First Crusade, which he argues were never intended to be fully reliable historical accounts of the massacres but rather narratives that borrowed from Hebrew, and sometimes Christian, literary traditions to appeal in various ways to the Jewish communities that were rebuilding in the wake of the attacks. Cohen demonstrates how the martyrdom accounts celebrate the heroism of the martyrs but also reflect the doubts and guilt of those who survived.
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Prawer, Joshua. The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988.
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Joshua Prawer traces the interaction of the Jewish community in Palestine with the crusaders from the First Crusade until the fall of the crusader state of Acre in 1291. In doing so he considers how the Jews organized their communities and conducted their relations with the crusader states and also with local Christian groups and neighboring Muslim rulers.
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Rist, Rebecca. “Papal Protection and the Jews in the Context of Crusading, 1198–1245.” Medieval Encounters 13 (2007): 281–309.
DOI: 10.1163/157006707X195002Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article considers the complexities of Jewish-papal relations during the 13th century, a key point in the institutionalization of crusading. Rist considers why sources suggest that popes during this time increasingly viewed Jews as a threat to Christian society, even though popes traditionally called for the protection of the Jews.
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Islam and the Crusades

Although many works deal with Western views of Islam, comparatively few prominent works by Western scholars deal with Islamic views of the Crusades. Nevertheless scholarship in this area has made great strides in the late 20th and early 21st centuries with the publication of some key works by scholars proficient in Near Eastern languages. Elisséeff 1993, an influential essay, considers the decline of jihad prior to the Crusades and how it affected the initial Islamic response. Laiou and Mottahedeh 2001 includes essays on jihad, Islamic art, and Islamic views of the crusaders and Europe. Hillenbrand 2000 deserves special mention as the author’s work on Islamic perspectives of the Crusades has won considerable praise from scholars as well as the prestigious Saudi Arabian–based King Faisal International Prize.

Elisséeff, Nikita. “The Reaction of the Syrian Muslims after the Foundation of the First Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.” In Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth Century Syria. Edited by Maya Shatzmiller, 162–172. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1993.
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Elisséeff argues that the Muslims of Syria initially viewed the First Crusade as an extension of the Byzantine effort to recover lost territories rather than as a Christian holy war directed against them. Elisséeff attributes this to a prior decline in enthusiasm for jihad in the Islamic world, which explains why the Islamic preacher al-Sulami’s call for jihad against the crusaders initially went unheeded, only to be pursued by later Muslim leaders, such as Nur ed-Din and Saladin.
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Hillenbrand, Carole. The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2000.
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This remains the best scholarly work in English for those seeking to understand the Crusades from the Islamic point of view. Through a careful examination of Islamic sources, some previously unavailable to non-Arabists, Hillenbrand considers the evolving Muslim understanding of the crusaders and the thinking that underpinned the Islamic response.
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Laiou, Angeliki E., and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh, eds. The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, 2001.
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This collection of essays, available online, considers non-Western contemporary perspectives of the Crusades. While not comprehensive, this volume provides essays covering the entire period of the crusaders’ presence in the Holy Land. It includes essays on jihad before the Crusades, views of Europe in the Arab hero cycles, the development of Islamic art during the Crusades, and Muslim views of Byzantium and the crusaders.
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Crusading Orders

The aftermath of the First Crusade saw the rise of the crusading orders, which were composed of religious warriors who took the permanent vows of monks and committed their lives to the physical defense of Christians and their holy places. They quickly made an impact in the Holy Land and Europe, as they became among the most feared and respected of warriors. Malcolm Barber, perhaps the leading historian of the Knights Templar, authored two important works on the crusading orders that have continued relevance for scholars (Barber 1994a, Barber 2006). Ashgate Publishing has produced four excellent volumes of conference proceedings, Barber 1994b, Nicholson 1998, Mallia-Milanes 2008, and Upton-Ward 2008, that have also contributed considerably to scholarship on the subject. Forey 2002 considers the roles of the crusading orders in the conversion of Muslims, while Urban 2003 provides a comprehensive history of the Teutonic Order.

Barber, Malcolm. The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994a.
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Malcolm Barber provides a comprehensive and reliable overview of the Knights Templar from their origins in the Holy Land around 1119 to their expansion as an international order and finally their suppression and dissolution in 1312. Barber’s work is one of the most popular and readable scholarly accounts on the subject.
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Barber, Malcolm. The Trial of the Templars. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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Malcolm Barber provides the definitive account of the suppression of the Knights Templar from 1307 to 1314. Barber considers the charges of heresy against the Templars, including the denial of Christ, homosexuality, and worship of idols, all extracted under torture by agents of King Philip IV, and the Templar effort to mount a defense of their order. Originally published in 1978. The second edition takes account of new scholarship since its original publication.
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Barber, Malcolm, ed. The Military Orders. Vol. 1, Fighting for the Faith and Caring for the Sick. Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1994b.
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This surprisingly coherent volume contains no less than forty-one conference papers. Fourteen of the essays consider various issues related to the Hospitallers, eight consider the Knights Templar, seven consider the Teutonic Knights, and four consider the Spanish orders, while the remaining eight deal with more general topics. The essays are prefaced by an excellent introduction by Jean Richard.
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Forey, Alan. “The Military Orders and the Conversion of Muslims in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.” Journal of Medieval History 28 (2002): 1–22.
DOI: 10.1016/S0304-4181(01)00014-8Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article considers how the military orders were never really tasked with the goal of the conversion of Muslims, nor did they seem concerned with this goal. Yet as Christian leaders began to emphasize missionary efforts, some criticized the crusading orders for hindering peaceful missionary efforts, while others argued the orders should be used to convert Muslims by force as well as preaching.
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Mallia-Milanes, Victor, ed. The Military Orders. Vol. 3, History and Heritage. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008.
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This volume’s essays consider topics including Hospitaller and Spanish historiography as well as issues related to the liturgy and heraldry of the Hospitallers. The third section considers various issues regarding the Knights Templar and the Teutonic Knights, including the trial of the Templars and the use of indulgences by the Teutonic order. The final section presents a wide-ranging collection of essays on the Hospitallers.
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Nicholson, Helen J., ed. The Military Orders. Vol. 2, Welfare and Warfare. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998.
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The thirty-three essays in this volume focus on the origins of the crusading orders and their efforts in the Holy Land but also consider the various efforts of the knightly orders in Europe as late as the 18th century. The essays are organized into four sections: “Welfare,” “Warfare,” “Life within the Military Orders,” and “Relations with the Outside World.”
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Upton-Ward, Judi, ed. The Military Orders. Vol. 4, On Land and by Sea. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008.
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This volume of twenty-seven essays deals with a wide range of topics beyond just military and naval matters, such as the architecture, archaeology, and spiritual lives of the orders. The focus of these essays is on the Hospitallers, but the book also includes essays on Portuguese military orders as well as the Knights Templar and the Teutonic Knights.
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Urban, William L. The Teutonic Knights: A Military History. London: Greenhill, 2003.
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Here William L. Urban, a leading scholar of the Baltic Crusades, provides a comprehensive updated military history of the Teutonic Knights. Urban traces the life of the order from its origins in the Holy Land during the late 12th century to its new focus on central-eastern European affairs from the 13th to the 16th centuries.
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The Crusader States

The older, once influential work Prawer 1973 held that Latin Christians maintained a type of colonial segregationist model in their dealings with local inhabitants, but Ellenblum 1998 and MacEvitt 2008 have challenged such assumptions. MacEvitt 2008 and Kedar 1990 have even argued that Latin Christians exhibited a significant level of tolerance in their rule over local Christians and Muslims. As historians have mostly focused on the kingdom of Jerusalem, Edbury 1985, a collection of essays, and Asbridge 2000, a work on the crusader principality of Antioch, offer a broader perspective on Crusades settlements, while Pringle 2000 provides a useful examination of the relationship of fortifications to settlement in the Latin East.

Asbridge, Thomas S. The Creation of the Principality of Antioch, 1098–1130. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2000.
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This is one of the first monographs devoted to the symbolically and strategically important crusader state of Antioch. Asbridge uses Latin, Armenian, and Arabic sources to reconstruct the turbulent history of Antioch under crusader rule and provides a fascinating look at the makeup of the Latin Christian leadership with an emphasis on the foundational rule of Tancred.
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Edbury, Peter W., ed. Crusade and Settlement: Papers Read at the First Conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East and Presented to R. C. Smail. Cardiff, UK: University College Cardiff Press, 1985.
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This work is a collection of brief but important essays on crusader settlements beyond the kingdom of Jerusalem, including Tripoli, Cyprus, Rhodes, and elsewhere. The section on settlement includes seventeen essays by leading scholars of the Crusades, including works by Jonathan Riley-Smith, Hans Eberhard Mayer, Bernard Hamilton, Jean Richard, and Michel Balard. The essays cover topics ranging from trade and treaties to law and legal authority.
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Ellenblum, Ronnie. Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
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This influential and highly regarded survey of crusader settlements considers both urban and rural settlement patterns of Latin Christians in the Holy Land and makes some compelling new arguments. Ellenblum convincingly argues, for example, contrary to the arguments of Joshua Prawer and others, that Latin Christians did not live in isolation from Muslims and local Christians.
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Kedar, Benjamin Z. “Subjected Muslims of the Frankish Levant.” In Muslims under Latin Rule, 1100–1300. Edited by James M. Powell, 135–174. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
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In this essay Benjamin Z. Kedar examines life for Muslims living in or around the Latin Christian–ruled states of the crusading era. He notes that while the initial Christian conquests of these states was not good for Muslims, the crusaders eventually began to allow Muslims to remain in conquered areas and did not require conversion to Christianity. Consequently, Muslim subjects rarely resisted Frankish rule, because for the most part Christian rulers did not interact with or bother such populations so long as they paid a poll tax that was previously exacted on Christians by Muslim rulers. So long as they paid their tax, Kedar argues, Muslim subjects were allowed to practice Islam and live their lives largely unmolested by their Christian rulers.
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MacEvitt, Christopher. The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.
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Christopher MacEvitt offers a convincing challenge to the theories of Joshua Prawer that held that Latin Christians maintained a strict colonial segregationist model in their dealings with local Christian groups in the Holy Land. MacEvitt argues that the Franks instead ruled with a type of “rough tolerance” that, unlike in Europe during this period, allowed for the growth of diverse religious and ethnic communities in the crusader states.
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Prawer, Joshua. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973.
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Joshua Prawer argues that the crusader states were European colonies, particularly French colonies, and that any study of their society or economy must be understood in the context of their colonial status. Obviously these colonies did not follow a 19th-century mercantilist model, as far more wealth went from West to East in support of the crusader states than the other way around, nor was direct control exerted over them by the king of France. Rather, Prawer argues that the crusader states represented types of social and institutional colonies in which Latin Christians and their institutions were strictly segregated from local populations.
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Pringle, Denys. Fortification and Settlement in Crusader Palestine. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000.
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This work examines the relationship of fortifications to Frankish settlements in Palestine during the 12th and 13th centuries. Through an analysis of both key sources and archaeological evidence, the author considers the roles of castles, walls, and towers in promoting settlement and providing security for settlers.
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Crusader Motivations

From the time of Voltaire until the middle of the 20th century, the goals and efforts of the crusaders were generally ascribed to baser motives, including greed, that were presumably fueled by an irrational religious zealotry. Erdmann 1977, a more sober evaluation, argues that the Crusades were born from reform efforts to control and sanctify warfare, which then allowed the crusaders to export violence to the East in the form of the Crusade. Yet other scholarly appraisals, including Cowdrey 1970, Bull 1993, and especially Riley-Smith 1980 and Riley-Smith 1995, have argued that the earliest crusaders were primarily motivated by pious reasons as they sought to restore Christ’s patrimony and to aid Eastern Christians believed to be suffering under oppressive Muslim rule. Some of Jonathan Riley-Smith’s conclusions have been challenged by France 1997, an essay that claims that at least some of the earliest crusaders could have been motivated by the prospect of economic gain.

Bull, Marcus. “The Roots of Lay Enthusiasm for the First Crusade.” History 78 (1993): 353–372.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-229X.1993.tb02249.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Marcus Bull argues that 11th-century knights knew they were sinners, as sin was often necessary for the maintenance of their positions in society. Consequently knights sought remedies for their sins in acts of pilgrimage and the veneration of relics. Thus when the First Crusade was preached as a type of armed pilgrimage, the same sinful but conscientious knights saw crusading as the perfect opportunity to apply their martial skills in a positive or even redemptive way. Bull expanded on these arguments in his now classic book Knightly Piety and the Lay Response to the First Crusade: The Limousin and Gascony, c. 970–c. 1130 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
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Cowdrey, H. E. J. “Pope Urban II’s Preaching of the First Crusade.” History 55 (1970): 177–188.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-229X.1970.tb02491.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
In contrast to the argument of the historian Carl Erdmann, who claimed that the First Crusade primarily represented an effort by ecclesiastical leaders to export violent, troublemaking knights to the East to restore peace at home, H. E. J. Cowdrey argues that Pope Urban II was genuinely concerned about the plight of Jerusalem under Islamic rule. He bases his conclusions on a careful analysis of papal sources written within weeks or months of the pope’s calling of the First Crusade. Cowdrey’s argument was given additional support by the later efforts of Marcus Bull, as Bull’s research suggests that Jerusalem was also an important element of the Crusade’s appeal to local knights, suggesting that the subject must have been a prominent and effective element in clerical preaching of the Crusade.
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Erdmann, Carl. The Origin of the Idea of Crusade. Translated by Marshall W. Baldwin and Walter Goffart. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977.
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Edrmann’s work is dated, as it was originally published in 1935, and many of its conclusions have been convincingly challenged by subsequent scholars, yet this book remains relevant, as no modern study of crusading ideology or motivations can be conducted without extensive references to Erdmann’s once influential conclusions. The essence of the well-known “Erdmann thesis” is that in the 11th century the reformed Church turned warfare, under certain conditions, into an ethical activity. From there clerical leaders concocted the Crusades as a means of exporting and redirecting improper violence among Christians in the West against Muslims in the East, which was considered justified, thereby restoring peace at home among Western Christians.
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France, John. “Patronage and the Appeal of the First Crusade.” In The First Crusade: Origins and Impact. Edited by Jonathan Phillips, 5–20. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1997.
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Here John France challenges the Jonathan Riley-Smith–inspired notion that the earliest crusaders did not expect to profit from the Crusades and suggests, to the contrary, that at least some crusaders hoped to profit. He points out that Riley-Smith’s argument, that the expense of crusading was common knowledge, could only be applied to those who participated in later Crusades, as there existed no precedent for the first crusaders to make them aware of the expense of crusading and the lack of financial reward.
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Riley-Smith, Jonathan. “Crusading as an Act of Love.” History 65 (1980): 177–192.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-229X.1980.tb01939.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This is a seminal essay that laid the foundation for Riley-Smith’s later works, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986) and The First Crusaders, 1095–1131 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Here Riley-Smith argues that the Crusades were not inspired by greed but rather were conceived of and understood by their participants as acts of Christian charity that sought to aid suffering fellow Christians in the East living under oppressive Muslim rule.
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Riley-Smith, Jonathan. “Early Crusades to the East and the Costs of Crusading, 1095–1130.” In Cross Cultural Convergences in the Crusader Period: Essays Presented to Aryeh Grabois on His Sixty-fifth Birthday. Edited by Michael Goodich, Sophia Menache, and Sylvia Schein, 237–257. New York: Peter Lang, 1995.
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In contrast to notions that the earliest crusaders were motivated by economic gain, Riley-Smith maintains, through a careful examination of the costs of crusading, that the economic factors had little or nothing to do with the motivations of those who joined the Crusade. Crusaders won glory, honor, or spiritual benefits but not economic rewards.
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