Brian Todd Carey, Joshua B. Allfree, John Cairns Warfare in the Age of the Crusades: The Latin East (Pen & Sword, 2022), 312pp. $34.95 Professor Brian Todd Carey, the retired U.S. Army Sergeant Joshua Allfree, and the cartographer John Cairns … Continue reading →

Helena P. Schrader The Holy Land in the Era of the Crusades: Kingdoms at the Crossroads of Civilizations, 1100-1300 (Pen & Sword, 2022), 341pp. $42.95 The crusades are a source of nearly constant and perennial fascination for scholars and a … Continue reading →

Michael S Fulton Siege Warfare During the Crusades (Pen & Sword, 2019), 344 pp. $42.95/£30.00 There have been a number of well-respected studies of warfare during the crusades but none in English that cover the siege over the whole two … Continue reading →

Roger Crowley The Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades (Yale University Press/Basic Books, 2019) 304 pp. $25.00 It is an unfortunate reality that most introductory discussions of the crusades continue to give disproportionate attention … Continue reading →

Michael S Fulton Artillery in the age of the Crusades: Siege warfare and the development of trebuchet technology (Brill, 2018) 514 pp. $156.00/€130.00 Medieval artillery has been a subject of fascination since the nineteenth century. The interest is shared by … Continue reading →

Linda Paterson Singing the Crusades: French and Occitan Lyric Responses to the Crusading Movements, 1137-1336 (D.S. Brewer, 2018) 350 pp. $99.00 As the rather complex bibliographic citation suggests, this is not a completely standard monographic publication. It is rather the hard … Continue reading →

Elizabeth Lapina, April Jehan Morris, Susanna A. Throop, and Laura J. Whatley (eds) The Crusades and Visual Culture (Ashgate, 2015) 286 pp. $109.95 Contrary to the ample scholarship on the political, military, and diplomatic aspects of the crusades, the research on … Continue reading →

Michael S. Fulton Contest for Egypt. The Collapse of the Fatimid Caliphate, the Ebb of Crusader Influence, and the Rise of Saladin (Brill, 2022), 193pp. $142.00 Once the early crusaders had worn down the Fatimid Caliphate’s seaports, they faced little … Continue reading →

Wojtek Jezierski Risk, Emotions, and Hospitality in the Christianization of the Baltic Rim, 1000-1300 (Brepols, 2022), 356pp. €50 Wojtek Jezierski’s Risk, Emotions, and Hospitality in the Christianization of the Baltic Rim, 1000-1300 investigates how perceptions of risk and danger shaped … Continue reading →

Radosław Kotecki, Carsten Selch Jensen and Stephen Bennett (eds) Christianity and War in Medieval East Central Europe and Scandinavia (Amsterdam: ARC Humanities Press, 2021), 310 pp. Normally, thirteen is considered an unlucky number, and in the days of the CoViD-19 … Continue reading →

Duccio Balestracci Stato d’Assedio: Assedianti e Assediati dal Medioevo all’età Moderna (Il Mulino, 2021), 372 pp. €25.00 It is a truism among scholars of medieval and early modern warfare that anyone who pursued a career of arms could expect to … Continue reading →

Georgios Theotokis Bohemond of Taranto: Crusader and Conqueror (Pen & Sword, 2021), 208 pp. £19.99 Georgios Theotokis’ timely monograph comes to fill (but, by design, only partially) a gap in the recent anglophone scholarship on the First Crusade. In his … Continue reading →

Georgios Theotokis (ed.) Warfare in the Norman Mediterranean (Boydell & Brewer, 2020), 252 pp. $99.00 Historians, even medieval historians, have their stars. These are peoples, things, ideas, movements that somehow we cannot leave alone. The Vikings, cultural renaissances, military revolutions, … Continue reading →

Christopher Gravett The Medieval Knight (Osprey, 2020), 192 pp. $15.00 Interest in medieval knights is as old as knighthood itself. This means that any new book addressing knighthood needs to be particularly creative in its execution. Christopher Gravett’s The Medieval … Continue reading →

Stephen Spencer Emotions in a Crusading Context, 1095-1291 (Oxford University Press, 2020), 320 pp. $85.00 Stephen J. Spencer’s Emotions in a Crusading Context: 1095-1291 is part of Oxford University Press’ Emotions in History series. Spencer participates in a growing conversation … Continue reading →

Susan B. Edgington and Steven J. Biddlecombe Baldric of Bourgueil, “History of the Jerusalemites”: A Translation of the Historia Ierosolimitana (Boydell & Brewer, 2020) 224 pp. $99.00 Baldric of Bourgueil (alternatively, Baldric of Dol, d. 1130) was a writer of … Continue reading →

Christofer Herrmann Der Hochmeisterpalast auf der Marienburg: Konzeption, Bau und Nutzung der modernsten europäischen Fürstenresidenz um 1400 (Michael Imhof Verlag, 2019) 600 pp. 89.00 € Professor Christofer Herrmann (Uniwersytet Gdańsk / Technische Universität Berlin) is a leading expert on the … Continue reading →

Elizabeth Lapina and Nicholas Morton (eds.) The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources (Brill, 2017) 514 pp. $197.00 The media often brings back the world of the crusades through films and books on the matter, but there is always … Continue reading →

L.J. Andrew Villalon and Donald J. Kagay (eds.) To Win and Lose a Medieval Battle: Najera (April 3, 1367), a Pyrrhic Victory for the Black Prince (Brill, 2017) 650 pp. $197.00 This is an immensely thorough and detailed study of … Continue reading →

Susan B. Edgington Baldwin I of Jerusalem, 1100-1118 (Routledge, 2019) 204 pp. $140.00 The third book in the Rulers of the Latin East series investigates the dawn of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The life and career of Baldwin, Godfrey … Continue reading →

Michael Lower The Tunis Crusade of 1270: A Mediterranean History (Oxford University Press, 2018) ) xvi + 216 pp. £60.00 The crusades of the thirteenth century have received much less scholarly attention than those of the twelfth. Monograph-length studies on … Continue reading →

John France (ed.) Acre and its Falls: Studies in the History of a Crusader City (Brill, 2018) 214 pp. $92.00/€80.00 The fall of Acre to the Mamluk armies in 1291 is conventionally seen as marking a major caesura in the … Continue reading →

Luigi Russo I crociati in Terrasanta. Una nuova storia (1095-1291) (Rome: Carocci Editore, 2018) 284 pp. €22,00 [The review is also available in Italian below] The study of the crusades has long been a marginal area in the Italian academic … Continue reading →

Gary P. Baker, Craig L. Lambert, and David Simpkin Military Communities in Late Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Andrew Ayton (The Boydell Press, 2018) 324 pp. $99.00 The present volume recognises the contribution of Andrew Ayton to the study of … Continue reading →

Danielle E.A. Park Papal Protection and the Crusader: Flanders, Champagne, and the Kingdom of France. 1095-1222 (Boydell & Brewer, 2018) 254 pp. $99.00 British readers of a certain age may associate the potential problems encountered by absent crusaders with a popular … Continue reading →

Simon John Godfrey of Bouillon: Duke of Lower Lotharingia, Ruler of Latin Jerusalem, c. 1060-1100 (Routledge, 2018) 284 pp. $144.95 Godfrey of Bouillon, who rose to be leader of the First Crusade, died shortly after the conquest of Jerusalem leaving behind … Continue reading →

Martin Aurell The Lettered Knight: Knowledge and Aristocratic Behaviour in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Central European University Press, 2017) 468 pp. $70 In the past two decades, scholars of chivalry have placed the study of imaginative literature (e.g., romances, … Continue reading →

E.J. Mylod, Guy Perry, Thomas W. Smith, Jan Vandeburie (eds.) The Fifth Crusade in Context The Crusading Movement in the Early Thirteenth Century (Routledge, 2017) 240 pp. $149.95/£110. 2017 marks the 800th anniversary of the year that the first contingents of … Continue reading →

Bernard S. Bachrach and David S. Bachrach Warfare in Medieval Europe c. 400-c.1453 (Routledge, 2017) 410 pp. hb- $150.00, pb- $44.95 With television shows such as Game of Thrones and a host of video games testifying to the enduring appeal … Continue reading →

Andrew D. Buck The Principality of Antioch and its Frontiers in the Twelfth Century (Boydell, 2017) 296 pp. $99.00 The Principality of Antioch was one of the more obscure Crusader states and it has received comparatively less attention than, for … Continue reading →

Daniel M.G. Gerrard The Church at War: The Military Activities of Bishops, Abbots and Other Clergy in England, c. 900-1200 (Routledge, 2016) pp. xiv and 320, $149.95 The problem of the involvement of clerics in war exercised ecclesiastical authorities as … Continue reading →

Craig M Nakashian Warrior Churchmen of Medieval England, 1000-1250 (Boydell & Brewer, 2016) 304 pp. $99.00 As with the Crusades, studies of the clergy and violence in the Middle Ages seem to be booming these days, and this is an interesting … Continue reading →

Craig Taylor and Jane H.M. Taylor, tr. The Chivalric Biography of Boucicaut, Jean II Le Meingre (Boydell, 2016) 244 pp. $99.00 Fair-minded English-language readers interested in the Hundred Years’ War may often have cause to lament the fact that there are … Continue reading →

Theresa M. Vann and Donald J. Kagay, eds. Hospitaller Piety and Crusader Propaganda (Routledge, 2015) 393 pp. $139.95 Admittedly, I did not know exactly what I was reading when I requested this book. From the title alone, I expected a scholarly … Continue reading →

Mike Carr, Merchant Crusaders in the Aegean, 1291-1352 (Boydell, 2015) 214 pp. $99.00 Mike Carr has written a monograph designed to “cut across the sub-genres of economic and crusading history” (p 6). He qualifies and corrects common assumptions about the conduct … Continue reading →

John France Hattin (Oxford University Press, 2015) 218pp.  £18.99 On the 4th July 1187 one of the most important and well known battles of the middle ages took place. At Hattin, a short distance from the shores of the Sea … Continue reading →

John France Warfare, Crusade and Conquest in the Middle Ages (Ashgate: Variorum Collected Studies Series, 2015) 374pp.  $165 Everybody knows the Variorum series by Ashgate, a series of books that puts together some of the best articles of well-known historians. … Continue reading →

Rory Cox John Wyclif on War and Peace (Royal Historical Society, 2014) 214pp.  £50 / $90 Medieval writers’ attitudes towards war are relatively understudied. This is especially troubling considering that much of our understanding of the conduct of medieval war … Continue reading →

Laura Ashe and Ian Patterson (eds.) War and Literature (D.S. Brewer, 2014) 254pp.  $50.00 “War was the first subject of literature; at times, war has been its only subject.” (xi) With these words, the editors of this volume begin a … Continue reading →

James Waterson Sacred Swords: Jihad in the Holy Land, 1097-1271 (London, UK: Frontline Books, 2010) 206pp.  £19.99/$39.95 In Sacred Swords, the third work by historian James Waterson dealing with the time of the Crusades from the Muslim perspective, Waterson works … Continue reading →

Janet Shirley (tr.) Guillaume de Marchaut, The Capture of Alexandia (Ashgate, 2001) 254pp.  £79.00 The Capture of Alexandria comprises a blank verse translation of Guillaume de Machaut’s La prise d’Alexandre by Janet Shirley, an informative historical introduction and notes by the … Continue reading →

Helen Nicholson and David Nicolle God’s Warriors: Crusaders, Saracens and the Battle for Jerusalem (Osprey Publishing, 2005) 224pp.  $29.99 Helen Nicholson and David Nicolle have not written an introductory text.  The book is not large, but packs information into almost … Continue reading →

David Nicolle The Fourth Crusade 1202-04: The Betrayal of Byzantium (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2011) 96pp.  $19.95.  ISBN 9781849083195  The eleventh and twelfth century European Crusades to the Near East has been an increasingly discussed controversial topic, both among Historians as … Continue reading →