Modern study of the Hospitallers, of other military-religious orders, and of their activities both in the Mediterranean and in Europe has been deeply influenced by the work of Anthony Luttrell. To mark his 75th birthday in October 2007 twenty-three colleagues from ten different countries have contributed to this volume. The first section focuses on the crusading period in the Holy Land, considering the Hospital in Jerusalem, relations with the Assassins, finances, indulgences, transportati...

This German-to-English translation of a highly successful book is a clear, approachable, student-friendly introduction to the history of the Crusades.With a long chronological span, from the eleventh to the late fifteenth century, and with a wide geographical coverage of the whole of Europe and some of the Middle East, The Crusades is clear, concise and more wide-ranging than most single-volume works.Taking recent scholarship into account, and using boxes, case stu...

Dan Jones narrates in his inimitably vivid and authoritative fashion the remarkable story of the Knights Templar.'Exhilarating, epic, sword-swinging history' TLS'Jones is certainly an entertainer, but also a fine historian who knows how to render serious scholarship into accessible prose' The Times'Another triumphant tale from a historian who writes as addictively as any page-turning novelist' O...

Barbara Frale gives us an explosive, exhaustively researched history of the medieval world’s most powerful military order, the Templars. At its height, the Order of the Knights Templar rivaled the kingdoms of Europe in military might, economic power, and political influence. For 700 years, the tragic demise of this society of warrior-monks amid accusations of heresy has been plagued by controversy, in part because the transcript of their trial by the Inquisition-which held the key to the t...

In a fascinating work of history, Jonathan Sumption brings alive the traditions of pilgrimage prevalent in Europe from the beginning of Christianity to the end of the fifteenth century. Vividly describing such major destinations as Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela and Canterbury, he examines both major figures - popes, kings, queens, scholars, villains - and the common people of their day. With great sympathy he evokes their achievements and failures, and addresses the question of w...

"An indispensable point of departure for anyone interested in the cult of the saints in the Middle Ages." —Eamon Duffy, The New York Review of BooksFrom its earliest centuries, one of the most notable features of Christianity has been the veneration of the saints—the holy dead. This ambitious history tells the fascinating story of the cult of the saints from its origins in the second-century days of the Christian martyrs to the Protestant...

The idea that with the decline of the Roman Empire Europe entered into some immense ‘dark age’ has long been viewed as inadequate by many historians. How could a world still so profoundly shaped by Rome and which encompassed such remarkable societies as the Byzantine, Carolingian and Ottonian empires, be anything other than central to the development of European history? How could a world of so many peoples, whether expanding, moving or stable, of Goths, Franks, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs,...

The lives of the medieval Templars seem hidden and mysterious. Helen J. Nicholson reveals their everyday world set out in early 14th-century records. The records of the Templars’ estates show us how they operated, the men and women who worked for them on their lands and houses, their tenants and the people who owed them money.We can see what animals they kept, from warhorses to plough animals, with cattle, pigs and flocks of sheep. The accounts record fields of grain or hay, meadow...

Vegetius' late Roman text became a well-known and highly respected 'classic' in the Middle Ages, transformed by its readers into the authority on the waging of war. Christopher Allmand analyses the medieval afterlife of the De Re Militari, tracing the growing interest in the text from the Carolingian world to the late Middle Ages, suggesting how the written word may have influenced the development of military practice in that period. While emphasising that success depended on a commander's...

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning author, God’s Crucible brings to life “a furiously complex age” (New York Times Book Review).Resonating as profoundly today as when it was first published to widespread critical acclaim a decade ago, God’s Crucible is a bold portrait of Islamic Spain and the birth of modern Europe from one of our greatest historians. David Levering Lewis’s narrative, filled with accounts of some of the most epic ba...

Charles of Anjou's conquest of the Sicilian Regno in 1266 transformed relations between France and the kingdom of Sicily. This original study of contact and exchange in the Middle Ages explores the significance of the many cultural, religious and political exchanges between the two countries, arguing that the links were more diverse and stronger than simply the rulers' family connections. Jean Dunbabin shows how influence flowed as much from south to north as vice versa, and that France wa...

By the turn of the millennium, the East Mediterranean region had become a place of foreigners to Latin Christians living in Western Europe. Nevertheless, in the eleventh century numerous Latin Christian pilgrims streamed toward the East and Jerusalem in anticipation of the end times. The Apocalypse did not materialize as some had anticipated, but instead over the course of the next few centuries an expansion of Latin Christendom did. This expansion would transform the political, economic, ...