This volume is the product of a lecture series and a conference, held in commemoration of the 900th anniversary of the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders in 1999 at the University of Erlangen and by the same university in Weingarten. Except for the bloodbath of the conquest, it has little to offer to the reader keen to learn about earthly Jerusalem in the Middle Ages. Instead, as indicated by the subtitle, the reader is directed to Jerusalem, actually Crusader Jerusalem, as a cipher for two very different concerns: conflicts and conflict settlement, and the even broader category of images and representations. These are indeed phenomena worthy of deliberation, but one would have wished for something more than the few paragraphs provided by way of introduction. Instead of an attempt at conceptualization, the preface is mainly concerned with the way contemporary Europeans connect (or rather do not connect) to the Crusades and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Thus present day conflicts over Jerusalem are the foil for the "attention by the authors and authoresses to the mechanisms of conflict settlement, as well as to those persons and groups contributing to the keeping and creation of peace" (9).
Such historiographical and broader contemporary problems could have been spelt out. What is it present-day Europeans see in the Crusades, as a compared, for instance, to Americans, Israelis, or Arabs? However, except for the article by Marie-Luise Favreau-Lilie and the thoughtful summary by Klaus Herbers (for both see below), the volume is a loosely connected series of case studies, many of them interesting by themselves to the specialist. Their topics are mostly expressed by the titles. Part I on Conflicts and Conflict Settlement contains the following articles: Christoph T. Maier, "Konflikt und Kommunikation: Neues zum Kreuzzugsaufruf Urbans II," takes issue with the thesis of Christopher Tyerman on the absence of a clearly defined idea of crusading in the twelfth century; Kaspar Elm, "Die Eroberung Jerusalems im Jahre 1099. Ihre Darstellung, Beurteilung und Deutung in den Quellen zur Geschichte des Ersten Kreuzzugs"; Marie-Luise Favreau-Lilie, "'Multikulturelle Gesellschaft' oder 'Persecuting Society'? 'Franken' und 'Einheimische' im Koenigreich Jerusalem"; Rudolf Hiestand, "Pacem in omnibus servare. Konflikte und Konfliktloesungen in der lateinischen Kirche der Kreuzfahrerstaaten"; Johannes Pahlitzsch and Dorothea Weltecke, "Konflikte zwischen den nicht-lateinischen Kirchen im Koenigreich Jerusalem"; Jonathan Phillips, "Konfliktloesungen im lateinischen Orient. Politik, Patriarchen und Heiratsabkommen (1099-1187)"; Jochen Burgtorf, "Die Ritterorden als Instanzen zur Friedenssicherung."
Part two on Images and Representations is made up of the following articles: Hartmut Bobzin, "Jerusalem aus muslimischer Perspektive waehrend der Kreuzfahrerzeit"; Nikolas Jaspert, "Vergegenwaertigungen Jerusalem in Architektur und Reliquienkult"; Ingrid Baumgaertner, "Die Wahrnehmung Jerusalems auf mittelalterlichen Weltkarten"; Peter Christian Jacobsen, "Die Eroberung von Jerusalem in der mittellateinischen Dichtung"; Peter Orth, "Papst Urbans II. Kreuzzugsrede in Clermont bei lateinischen Schriftstellern des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts"; Hartmut Kugler, "Nicht nach Jerusalem. Das Heilige Land als Leerstelle in der mittelhochdeutschen Epik der Kreuzfahrerzeit"; Klaus Herbers, "Die Eroberung Jerusalems 1099: Ergebnisse und Perspektiven."