The Battle of Nicopolis
By Kelly DeVries Medieval History Magazine, Vol.2 (October 2003)
By Kelly DeVries Medieval History Magazine, Vol.2 (October 2003)
This study will seek to argue that such categories were of secondary importance to both Christian and Muslim contemporaries who either fought in the battle or lived through the summer of 1187 when compared with religious explanations. Continue reading
Venice and the Conquest of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem By Donald E. Queller and Irene B. Katele Studi Veneziani, Vol.21 (1986) Studi Veneziani is published by Istituto di Storia della Società e dello Stato Veneziano. We thank the editors for their permission … Continue reading
The Venetian Crusade of 1122-1124 By Jonathan Riley-Smith I Comuni Italiani nel Regno Crociato di Gerusalemme / The Italian communes in the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem, edited by Gabriella Airaldi and Benjamin Z. Kedar (Genoa, 1986) We thank the author for his … Continue reading
The Significance of Egypt By J.J. Saunders Aspects of the Crusades, by J.J. Saunders (Canterbury University Press, 1962) John Joseph Saunders (1910 – 1972) was an important medieval historian who focused on Islamic and Asian history. Among his works are The … Continue reading
Between East and West: the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem 1099-1291 By Sylvia Schein East and West in the Crusader States : Context, Contacts, Confrontations Vol.1 (1996) East and West in the Crusader States: Context, Contacts, Confrontations is a series … Continue reading
The Alexandrian Crusade (1365) and the Mamluk Sources: Reassessment of the kitab al-ilmam of an-Nuwayri al-Iskandarani By Jo Van Steenbergen East and West in the crusader states : context, contacts, confrontations, Vol.3 (2003)
Knightly Arms – Plebian Arms Zdzislaw Zygulski Jr. (Kraków, Poland) Quaestiones medii aevi novae: vol. 4 (1999) The science dealing with the arms of the past – Waffenkunde, hoplology – developed during the second half of the nineteenth century and … Continue reading
Avant Nicopolis: la campagne de 1395 pour le contrôle du Bas-Danube Dan Ioan Mureşan (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris) L’armée croisée affluait au début de l’été 1396 vers Nicopolis sur deux directions[1]. Le corps principal, ayant le … Continue reading
Byzantines, Avars and the Introduction of the Trebuchet Stephen McCotter The Queen’s University of Belfast (2003) While there has been much debate over when the traction trebuchet appeared in the west and the extent to which it replaced late-antique torsion … Continue reading
The Crusade of the Teutonic Knights against Lithuania Reconsidered By Axel Ehlers Crusade and Conversion on the Baltic Frontier 1150–1500, edited by Alan V. Murray (Ashgate, 2001) Between the late thirteenth and early fifteenth centuries ‘another Hundred Years’ War’ raged between … Continue reading
The Crusading Motivation of the Italian City Republics in the Latin East, c. 1096-1104 Christopher J. Marshall Rivista di Bizantinistica v.1 (1991) Throughout the 200 years of its existence, the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was heavily reliant upon the Italian city … Continue reading
Militia and Malitia: The Bernardine Vision of Chivalry Areyh Grabois The Second Crusade and the Cistercians: New York (1992) In his treatise, De laude novae militiae,l Bernard of Clairvaux distinguished between the Templars and the entire secular knighthood. The first … Continue reading
Anna Comnena, the Alexiad and the First Crusade John France Reading Medieval Studies: v.10 (1984) Abstract By her own account Anna Comnena began to write the Alexiad shortly after the death of her husband, Nicephoros Bryennios, in 1137. He had … Continue reading
Oliver of Paderborn and his siege engine at Damietta Dominic Francis Nottingham Medieval Studies: v.37 (1993) In the hot weeks of August 1218, the soldiers of the German and Frisian contingents involved in the Fifth Crusade laboured hard to build an … Continue reading
The Origin of the Second Crusade George Ferzoco The Second Crusade and the Cistercians (1992) In seeking to establish the formal origin of the Second Crusade, one finds that in Vetralla on December 1,1145, Pope Eugenius III issued the crusading … Continue reading
Pagan Peverel: An Anglo-Norman Crusader Susan Edgington 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 (1985) Thousands of men participated in the … Continue reading
Foundations of Venetian Naval Strategy from Pietro II Orseoto to the Battle of Zoncho, 1000-1500 John E. Dotson Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies v.32 (2001) For Venetians during the Middle Ages the sea was life. The prosperity, the very existence, … Continue reading
Teenagers at War During the Middle Ages Kelly DeVries (Loyola University, Maryland) The Premodern Teenager: Youth in Society, 1150-1650 (2002) Early in 1212 a young man from western Germany, whose name has come down through history only as Nicholas, became … Continue reading
A Reassessment of Some Medieval and Modern Perceptions of the Counter-Crusade By Hadia Dajani-Shakeel The Jihad and its Times: Dedicated to Andrew Stefan Ehrenkreutz, edited by Hadia Dajani-Shakeel and Ronald A. Messier (1991) In an article entitled, “The Use by Muslim … Continue reading
During the period of the Crusades a large number of Muslim writers wrote accounts of the events that took place at the time, and also kept records of their experiences. Continue reading
Following the expulsion of the Crusaders from their last outpost of Acre in 1291, several attempts and plans were made to bring back Christian rule to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. In the following memorandum, Fulk of Villaret, master of the Hospitallers, proposes this invasion plan. Continue reading
The Crusader kingdom in the Holy Land began to collapse in the later part of the thirteenth-century. The fall (1268) of Jaffa and Antioch to the Muslims caused Louis IX to undertake the Eighth Crusade, Eighth Crusade, 1270, which was cut short by … Continue reading
Bar Hebraeus (1226-1286) is one the best known Syriac writers of the Middle Ages. His Chronography contains a history of the world from creation until his own time. Most of his information relates to events in the Middle East, including … Continue reading
Robert of Clari was a knight from Picardy who took part in the Fourth Crusade, which ended with the capture of Constantinople in 1204. Robert seems to have returned to France in 1205, since although his work contains references up … Continue reading
After the Crusader’s disastrous defeat at the Battle of Hattin in 1187, the Christian forces regrouped under Guy de Lusignan, king of Jerusalem, and Conrad, marquis de Montferrat, and went back on the offensive. In 1189, the crusaders laid siege … Continue reading
Translated by Helen J. Nicholson Continue reading
Here are several versions of the founding of the Knights Templar, from sources translated by Helen Nicholson Continue reading
A Forgotten Crusade: Alfonso VII of Leon-Castile and the Campaign for Jaen (1148) Simon Barton Historical Research: v.73 (2000) Abstract Between 114-7 and 1149 the rulers of the realms of Christian Iberia conducted a series of victorious campaigns against the … Continue reading
Frontier Warfare in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: The Campaign of Jacob’s Ford, 1178-79 Malcolm Barber The Crusades and their Sources: Essays Presented to Bernard Hamilton (1998) The construction by the Latins of the fortress of Chastellet at the place … Continue reading
The main focus of the Second Crusade (1145-49) was an attempt by Christian forces to expand the territory held by Christian forces in the Holy Land. One of the key players was Conrad III, the Holy Roman Emperor, who led … Continue reading
One of the most interesting contemporary accounts of the crusades comes from a twelfth-century resident of Damascus. Ibn Al-Qalanisi was a distinguished scholar in Damascus, and was twice elected the mayor of that city. His Chronicle begins in 1097 with … Continue reading
King John’s expedition to Ireland, 1210: the evidence reconsidered Seán Duffy Irish Historical Studies, v.30, n. 117 (1996) The valiant efforts of certain professional historians to redeem the reputation of King John of England have had a limited impact on the … Continue reading
Peter Tudebode was a Poitevin priest who was part of the First Crusade, perhaps with forces of the count of Toulouse. He wrote his account, the Historia de Hieroslymitano Itinere, by at least 1111, which was after many of the … Continue reading
Caballus et Caballarius in Medieval Warfare Bernard S. Bachrach The Study of Chivalry: Resources and Approaches (1988) The little poem “For Want of a Nail” has for centuries conveyed to children a glimpse of the fundamental technical underpinnings of the … Continue reading
Myra Miranda Bom Women in the Military Orders of the Crusades The New Middle Ages. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Pp. xiv, 230. $85.00. ISBN-13: 9780230114135. Reviewed in The Medieval Review: TMR 13.03.15 The topic of women’s participation in the military orders is one which … Continue reading
There are three great clichés in our view of the Albigensian Crusades which most historians find hard to resist. Continue reading
A. Bysted, K. V. Jensen, C.S. Jensen, J. Lind (eds.) Jerusalem in the North: Denmark and the Baltic Crusades, 1100-1522 Outremer. Studies in the Crusades and the Latin East 1 (Turnhout, Belg.: Brepols, 2012). xiv+393pp. ISBN: 978-2-503-52325-5. According to the authors of … Continue reading
Was such crusading a truly popular movement, embracing all classes and groups of whatever degree or status? If so, why did it fail to produce sufficient recruits for whom settlement in the east was attractive? Continue reading
The study of medieval warfare has suffered from an approach that concentrates on its social, governmental and economic factors to the detriment of military methods and practice. Continue reading
HS 335: The Crusades Professor: Dr. Kelly DeVries Texts: Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades: A Short History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. Allen, S.J. and Emilie Amt. The Crusades: A Reader. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2003. Gabrieli, Francesco, ed. and trans. Arab Historians of the Crusade. Trans. E.J. Costello. Berkeley and … Continue reading
History 306 — The Crusades Thomas Madden Fall 2002 Required Reading Thomas F. Madden, A Concise History of the Crusades. The Crusades: The Essential Readings, ed., Madden Supplemental (Optional) Reading Carl Erdmann, Origins of the Idea of the Crusade. James A. Brundage, Medieval … Continue reading
If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me… Continue reading
The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa is considered by scholars to be a primary source of major importance for the history of the Near East during the period of the early Crusades. This work relates events that occurred between the … Continue reading
The following are two accounts of the invasion of Cyprus by Richard I in 1191. The Seljuk Turk under Saladin had recaptured Jerusalem in 1187 and Cyprus’ geographical position placed her on the route of the Crusaders from Western Europe … Continue reading
After the fall of Acre in 1291, Crusader forces had no remaining outposts in the Holy Land. The various Military Orders and other Crusaders began to make plans for a return almost immediately. In the following text, the Provincial Council … Continue reading
In the following letter, the Patriarch of Antioch describes events in the Crusader States that took place in 1164. To describe briefly, the King of Jersualem, Amalric I, joined forces with a Kurdish emir, Shirkuh, to besiege the Egyptian city … Continue reading
Translated by Helen Nicholson from the editions in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores, ed.Bill Zajac. In 1153, Baldwin launched a major attack on Ascalon, with an army large enough to invest the great city completely. The siege dragged on for months, with … Continue reading
David Nicolle Cross & Crescent in the Balkans: The Ottoman Conquest of Southeastern Europe Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Military, 2010. 256 pp. ISBN: 9781844159543 Dr. David Nicolle is perhaps best known as the prolific author of many of the … Continue reading
Cristina Tonghini Shayzar I: The Fortification of the Citadel Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2012. 539 pp. This book, an immense assembly of transcribed inscriptions, re-established floor plans, chemical analysis of mortar and construction materials is very much like the building—or rather … Continue reading
Complete audio podcast of NYMAS talk on the Crusades now online: Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, 1000-1300 John France US Military Academy at West Point, Swansea University, Wales, UK recorded April 27, 2012; 1 hr 37 min … Continue reading
Nirmal Dass (ed. and trans.), The Deeds of the Franks and other Jerusalem-bound Pilgrims: The Earliest Chronicle of the First Crusades. Lanham, MD: The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2011. Pp. 154 pages. $24.95. ISBN-13: 9781442204980. Reviewed by Susanna A. Throop, Ursinus College <[email protected]> Available at The … Continue reading
Rubenstein, Jay. Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for the Apocalypse. New York: Basic Books, 2011. Pp. xiv, 402. $29.99. ISBN-13: 978-0-465-01929-8. Reviewed by John France, United States Military Academy, West Point <[email protected]> Available at The Medieval Review 12.06.05