The study focuses on the unique phenomenon of society’s changing attitudes towards the Crusades. Right from its inception the Crusades made a lasting impact on history, an impact which is still evident in the present day. Several aspects contributed to the start of the Crusades, among them the world and ideology of the eleventh century, the era in which the Crusades began. In current times there have been calls demanding an apology for the Crusades, while at the same time some within Christianity have felt the need to apologise for the atrocities of the Crusades. The Crusades are often blamed for the animosity between Christians and Muslims, a situation worsened by the fact that leaders on both sides misuse the word ‘crusade’ for their own agendas. The thesis is written within a historiographical framework making use of both critical enquiry and historical criticism. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Church history)

This thesis offers an assessment of late medieval public response to the crusades through an investigation of emotional rhetoric in the Middle English crusading romances. It argues that the prevailing climate after the fall of Acre in 1291 and the evacuation of the last Christian strongholds in the Levant was characterized by a mixture of enduring enthusiasm and fascination, but also of concern, anxiety, and self-questioning, engendered by the enterprise's failures. The loss of the Holy Land had enduring repercussions on Christian crusading mindsets, marking a culminating point in Islam's seemingly relentless victories in wars believed to be ordained by God, and the collapse of Christendom's ambitions to secure lasting dominion over Christ's patrimony. The late thirteenth century was also a turning point in the history of insular romance, with the progressive displacement of Anglo Norman by Middle English, expanding the genre's audience. Reworking the emotional depictions of their sources, authors or adaptors of late medieval English crusading romances engaged with, and elicited reflection on, the cultural anxieties of the time: man's relation to God, the workings of divine providence, Christianity's ascendency over Islam, human agency, the connection between morality and fortune, the bearing of motives on actions, and the moral limitations of violence.

Conservée dans quatre langues différentes, la Chronique de Morée relate la naissance et le premier siècle d’existence de la principauté française d'Achaïe ou de Morée – territoire correspondant à la presqu'île du Péloponnèse –, l’une des réalisations durables (1205-1460) ayant suivi l’occupation de Constantinople et des provinces byzantines au cours de la quatrième croisade. La thèse vise à produire une nouvelle édition de la version française de la chronique selon le manuscrit conservé à Bruxelles (Bibliothèque Royale 15702, env. 1400), unique témoin en français. Le nouveau texte critique, offert dans une approche plus sensible aux problèmes de la philologie matérielle par rapport à la précédente édition (Jean Longnon, 1911), est accompagné d'une étude linguistique, un glossaire, une description codicologique, un commentaire au texte et des index, ainsi que d’une introduction qui présente le status quaestionis sur la datation et la langue du prototype à l’origine des quatre versions conservées. / The Chronicle of Morea, preserved in four different languages, tells of the foundation and the first century in the history of the French principality of Achaia or Morea, a territory corresponding to the Peloponnese peninsula. This was one of the longest lasting French dominions (1205-1417), established in the wake of the occupation of Constantinople and the Byzantine provinces during the Fourth Crusade. The thesis consists of a new critical edition of the French version of the chronicle based on the manuscript preserved in Brussels (Bibliothèque Royale 15702, approx. 1400), the only witness in French. Compared to the previous edition (Jean Longnon, 1911), the new critical text is informed by an increased awareness of issues raised by material philology. It includes a linguistic study, a glossary, a codicological description, a commentary to the text and indexes and an introduction which presents the status quaestionis on the dating and the language of the prototype at the origin of the four extant versions.

This study examines the phenomenon of crusading in the Iberian Peninsula through the lens of the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212). This battle was both a major Christian victory over the Almohad Empire of Morocco and its Andalusian allies, and the most successful crusade of the papacy of Innocent III. As such, it serves as an ideal case study for the practice and culture of crusading in the early thirteenth century. The examination of the battle helps to expand our understanding of crusading in a number of ways. First, by examining the institutional aspects of the battle, against the backdrop of the career of Innocent III, it becomes clear that Las Navas was the first crusade in which all of the aspects of papal crusade policy were successfully brought together and implemented. The victory gave the Pope the confidence and capital to officially institutionalize the crusade shortly thereafter in 1215. Secondly, a close study of the participants reveals that, despite the development of official crusade practices, there were many disparate views on what exactly it meant to go on crusade, and what crusaders were expected to do. The Iberian Christians differed greatly from many of the international crusaders both in their cultural attitudes and their expectations of the campaign. For the French participants, the campaign was part of a well-established crusading tradition, passed down from their ancestors. For the Spanish, crusade was a new concept, just beginning to take hold and influence their approach to the regular warfare with their Muslim neighbors. However, the victory of Las Navas helped to solidify and expand the acceptance of crusade ideology in the minds of the Iberian Christians in the ensuing years.

In considering the increasing interest in the study of a global Middle Ages, there seem to be few individuals, either fictional or actual, that had a more powerful cosmopolitan currency than the figure of Prester John and the legends surrounding his kingdom. As a product of cultural imaginings and questionably recounted historical events, the search for and legitimization of Prester John has commanded consistent interest, both popular and scholarly, almost continuously since first mention of the figure of John in 1145. The now infamous Letter of Prester John, which details the magnificent Christian kingdom lying somewhere in the East, beyond the approaching threat of an ever-expanding Islam, has long catalyzed a hunt, by both adventurers and scholars, to seek the elusive patriarch. The very indeterminacy of the geographic location of Prester John allowed the European imagination to consequently imagine him everywhere precisely because he could neither be confirmed nor denied existence anywhere. This report will explore the ways that a reading of the Prester John legend reveals competing ambitions of enclosure and expansion within twelfth and thirteenth-century Latin Christendom, specifically around the time of the Fifth Crusade. This report will trace the ideational tensions within a presumed Christian Crusading West trying to legitimate itself against the dialectical buttress of what was increasingly professed as its heretical other, Islam. The Fifth Crusade, especially, seemed to hinge on the possibility of the harmonious convergence of Eastern and Western Christian powers, literalizing the sense of Christian enclosure around all of Islam. Prester John’s kingdom thus served two functions: first, to comprise the other half of the Christian enclosure, and secondly, to mark a phenomenological limit point of human experience that domesticated alterity under the banner of a sovereign priest-king. / text

This thesis will demonstrate that the modern understanding of the four primary crusades (1095-1204) has been influenced by a fundamentally flawed framework. Defining the crusades as a conflict between two monolithic at-war religious groups (Christians and Muslims) results in an incorrect conception of the period. Therefore, in order to deconstruct this belief, this thesis will view the crusades through the prism of two cities: Constantinople and Jerusalem. The rhetorical relationship that developed between these two cities during the crusading period demonstrates that the moment was defined by political and pragmatic relationships that cut across religious lines. Modern historians, through oversimplifications and assertions of a binary religious relationship, have buttressed public misperceptions of the crusades. Thus, historians have allowed the moment to be used as a rhetorical justification for modern political issues like imperialism and terrorism.

In 1492, the Catholic Monarchs Isabel and Ferdinand conquered Granada, the last Muslim Kingdom in Spain, issued the edict of expulsion of Jews and charged Christopher Columbus to find out a western route to Indies who by coincidence discovered America. These three momentous events led to construction of Spanish national unity and of the Spanish world empire. In this study, what we are looking for is the impact of the first two events, the conquest of Granada and the expulsion of the Jews, on the formation of the Spanish national unity and the Spanish nationhood vis-&agrave / -vis Jews and Muslims in its historical context. In this study, the concept of nation-building would be employed not in economic but in political, religious and cultural terms. This study, by using the historical analysis method, found that centuries-long Muslim and Jewish presence in Spain and the Spaniards&rsquo / fight for exterminating this religious, cultural and political pluralism led to the formation of unitary Catholic state and society in Spain in the period under consideration.

With the confrontation of opponents, cultures and religions, the different spiritual and material possessions of sides end up with a synthesis. Such a unity may be one of the rare benefits of events like wars / while the main objection is to destroy the other. The crusades where the idea was to rescue the Holy Lands not only generated a culture of Levant but also furnished the lands of near east with the art and architecture of the crusading Latin Kingdom. Cyprus, as support and stronghold had been an important and strategic place where the Latins took advantage and granted back with beautiful Gothic churches and strongly built inaccessible castles. The castles, especially the three hilltop castles of St Hilarion, Buffavento and Kantara on the north probably perfectly reflect the crusading culture and exemplify the architecture which the Latins built in Cyprus. The crusader castles in Cyprus are certainly the products of a synthesis which combine the war and castle building experiences of the west, which crusaders brought with them when they came and the east which they faced with in the Holy Lands. In order to comprehend on the castles in Cyprus, subjects like the idea of crusading, the feudal system and knighthood in Europe and Levant are also important to enlighten the context as well as the characteristics and the types of the crusader castles in Levant. Therefore this study aims to find out the place and the importance of crusader castles in Cyprus in the crusading history.

Sungur Bey Mosque and the Tomb adjacent to it were built in Nigde in the first half of the 14th century. In many respects, the Mosque is a traditional Anatolian building in terms of its architecture and decoration. Nevertheless, some of the architectural forms observed on the Mosque point to possible foreign interactions. The aim of this thesis is to take a critical look at the sources of the foreign architectural forms observed on the Sungur Bey Mosque and to question how such interactions could be possible in the 14th century Anatolia. In this context, the foreign architectural elements of the Mosque are compared vis-a-vis contemporary examples from Europe, Eastern Crusader States, Cyprus, Armenia and Anatolia. In addition, Crusades, trade relations and traveling artists are considered among possible interactions which could be influential in the transmission of these architectural forms. Thus, Sungur Bey Mosque is evaluated in a different viewpoint, which considers historical events and a number of possible interactions.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--University of Sydney, 2008. / Title from title screen (viewed March 10, 2009) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Philosophy to the Medieval Studies programme. Includes bibliographical references.