Kirjahaku

The crusade movement needed women: their money, their prayer support, their active participation, and their inspiration... This book surveys women's involvement in medieval crusading between the second half of the eleventh century, when Pope Gregory VII first proposed a penitential military expedition to help the Christians of the East, and 1570, when the last crusader state, Cyprus, was captured by the Ottoman Turks. It considers women's actions not only on crusade battlefields but also in recruiting crusaders, supporting crusades through patronage, propaganda, and prayer, and as both defenders and aggressors. It argues that medieval women were deeply involved in the crusades but the roles that they could play and how their contemporaries recorded their deeds were dictated by social convention and cultural expectations. Although its main focus is the women of Latin Christendom, it also looks at the impact of the crusades and crusaders on the Jews of western Europe and the Muslims of the Middle East, and compares relations between Latin Christians and Muslims with relations between Muslims and other Christian groups.

The Crusades of the Middle Ages were fought by Latin Christians against peoples who they believed were threatening the existence of their Christian faith. Some of these campaigns were against Muslims, some were against other Christians, and some were against pagans. Topically oriented chapters backed up by biographies, primary documents, maps, and illustrations make this an ideal introductory reference resource to this pivotal period in European medieval history. The Crusades were distinctive because they were an invention of Latin Christians, they had their own symbols and traditions, and they were not one war but many, fought over several centuries. Thematic chapters provide an overview of the Crusades—why scholars believe they were fought, why they appealed to a very broad cross-section of Europe's population, and what motivated crusaders to dedicate years of their lives to the martial cause of Christendom. Among other interesting facts, readers will learn that to the Muslim states, the Christian Crusades were more of a distraction, as the Mongols from the East and schisms within occupied the bulk of their efforts, and that when it was convenient and advantageous—which was often—Christians and Muslims would ally with one another, or serve as mercenaries in each other's armies. Covering the classic crusades to the Holy Lands and the taking and defending of Jerusalem, Nicholson also gives equal treatment to the just as important Requonquista of the Iberian peninsula, the subjugation and conversion of pagans in North-Western Europe, the Crusades against the Ottoman Turks in the Balkans, and the internal Crusades against the heretical Albigensians and Hussites. An annotated timeline provides readers with an easy-to-follow overview of the several centuries' worth of Crusading, and a half-dozen maps provide rapid and easy-to-read geographical and political information on the most important campaigns. Seventeen biographical sketches of key Christian, Muslim, Balkan, Spanish, and pagan figures and a dozen annotated primary documents breathe fresh life into the topic, providing students and readers with a new look at the period. A glossary is provided, as is an annotated bibliography and index.

Warfare in medieval times was never static or predictable - although there were ideals and conventions to follow, in the field commanders had to use their initiative and adapt to the needs of the moment. In this concise, wide-ranging study, Helen Nicholson provides the essential introductory guide to a fascinating subject.Medieval Warfare- surveys and summarises current debates and modern research into warfare throughout the whole of the medieval period across Europe- sets medieval warfare theory and practice firmly into context as a continuation and adaptation of practice under the Roman Empire, tracing its change and development across more than a millennium- considers military personnel, buildings and equipment, as well as the practice of warfare by land and sea

Queen Sybil of Jerusalem, queen in her own right, was ruler of the kingdom of Jerusalem from 1186 to 1190. Her reign saw the loss of the city of Jerusalem to Saladin, and the beginning of the Third Crusade. Her reign began with her nobles divided and crisis looming; by her death the military forces of Christian Europe were uniting with her and her husband, intent on recovering what had been lost. Sybil died before the bulk of the forces of the Third Crusade could arrive in the kingdom, and Jerusalem was never recovered. But although Sybil failed, she went down fighting – spiritually, even if not physically. This study traces Sybil’s life, from her childhood as the daughter of the heir to the throne of Jerusalem to her death in the crusading force outside the city of Acre. It sets her career alongside that of other European queens and noblewomen of the twelfth century who wielded or attempted to wield power and ask how far the eventual survival of the kingdom of Jerusalem in 1192 was due to Sybil’s leadership in 1187 and her determination never to give up.

Spanning thirty-five years of scholarly research, the articles in this collection represent key research findings from Helen Nicholson’s studies of the military religious orders and the crusades. Ranging across subjects as diverse as the Templars’ religious practices, Arthurian romance inspired by the events of the Third Crusade, medieval European Christians’ views of Muslims, and a heresy investigation in Ireland, these articles reflect Nicholson’s research into the Templars and Hospitallers as religious institutions, medieval European fictional literature as an historical source, and the trial of the Templars.Aimed at university students, scholars, and enthusiasts on the military orders, this volume makes this research available again to a new generation of readers.

Known worldwide among scholars of medieval Europe for her books on the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar, the trial of the Templars in Britain and Ireland, and women and the crusades, Professor Helen J. Nicholson has drawn together in this volume a selection of her shorter publications, previously published in academic journals, scholarly collections, or online.Reflecting almost thirty years of published research, this collection includes articles focusing on women’s depiction in contemporary writing on the crusades and their involvement with the military religious orders, the Templars’ and Hospitallers’ relations with the rulers of Latin Christendom and with their noble patrons and their operations in Britain and Ireland.Women, the Crusades, the Templars and Hospitallers in Medieval European Society and Culture will interest scholars, students, and other researchers studying the military religious orders, the crusades and women’s lives in medieval Europe and the crusader states.

Queen Sybil of Jerusalem, queen in her own right, was ruler of the kingdom of Jerusalem from 1186 to 1190. Her reign saw the loss of the city of Jerusalem to Saladin, and the beginning of the Third Crusade. Her reign began with her nobles divided and crisis looming; by her death the military forces of Christian Europe were uniting with her and her husband, intent on recovering what had been lost. Sybil died before the bulk of the forces of the Third Crusade could arrive in the kingdom, and Jerusalem was never recovered. But although Sybil failed, she went down fighting – spiritually, even if not physically. This study traces Sybil’s life, from her childhood as the daughter of the heir to the throne of Jerusalem to her death in the crusading force outside the city of Acre. It sets her career alongside that of other European queens and noblewomen of the twelfth century who wielded or attempted to wield power and ask how far the eventual survival of the kingdom of Jerusalem in 1192 was due to Sybil’s leadership in 1187 and her determination never to give up.

Nicholson, one of the UK's leading historians of the medieval military orders...has a flair for clear and uncluttered explanations enlivened with telling detail and quotation. And her account is comprehensive. An attractive volume. HISTORY This short study of the history of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta, also known as the Knights Hospitaller, is intended as an introduction to the Order for academics working in other fields, as well as the interested general reader. Beginning with a consideration of the origins of the Order as a hospice for pilgrims in Jerusalem in the eleventh century, it traces the Hospitaller's development into a military order during the first part of the twelfth century, and its military activities on the frontiers of Christendom in the eastern Mediterranean, Spain and eastern Europe during the middle ages and into early modern period: its role in crusades and in wars against non-Christians on land and at sea, as well as its role in building and maintaining fortresses. It also considers the Order's activities away from the frontiers of Christendom: its economic activities and its relations with patrons and rulers throughout Europe, as well as its hospitaller work and its religious life. The focus of the study is on the medieval period down to the loss of Rhodes in 1522, but the final chapters of the book consider the Order'shistory on Malta from the sixteenth to the end of the eighteenth century, and from the loss of Malta in 1798 to the present day. HELEN NICHOLSON is Senior Lecturer in History, Cardiff University.