It can be hard to imagine that when Pope Urban II stood before the Council of Clermont on 27 November 1095 and called for, at the very least, an armed pilgrimage to the Holy Land, that he could have quite imagined what his words would lead to. It is even harder to imagine that, even if Urban might have dreamt of a movement that continued to capture the imaginations of Christians for centuries to come, he could have anticipated Pete Hegseth’s Deus vult! tattoo or imagined that the story of the venture his words inspired would be told through the medium of singing cat memes on a worldwide media platform. And yet, here we are. Indeed, the Crusades continue to attract attention, whether in the academy and the classroom—the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East boasts, in its own words, “over 450 paying members from five continents and 41 countries,” while most universities, my own included, deliver modules that cover crusading history in some form—or on TikTok and those deeper areas of the internet where extremists of various flavours lurk. It is perhaps of little surprise, then, that S. J. Allen and Emilie Amt’s immensely useful teaching aid, The Crusades: A Reader, is now in its third edition, some twenty years after its initial publication.
Anyone with even a passing familiarity with teaching medieval history will be quick to extol the virtues and importance of primary source translations. Putting aside the ever-increasing disdain for language teaching, particularly those languages in which medieval sources were originally composed, it is a simple reality that it is through translations that nearly all students of the Middle Ages first experience sources from the period. Whether that student’s response is to put the source down and return quickly to the comforting embrace of modern history, or to embark on a life-long fascination with the medieval, without translations that process cannot even begin. This in part explains the format of The Crusades: A Reader. Split into ten chapters and incorporating 122 source sets (most of which have more than one extract), there is little of the crusading movement that is left without some sort of coverage. This begins with the background and origins of the movement; incorporates sources on each of the numbered crusades, as well as the logistics and wider planning of these ventures; details life and power in the crusader states; outlines the evolution of crusading into theatres other than the Holy Land; and ends with modern perceptions, starting with Thomas Fuller’s The Historie of the Holy Warre (1639) and leading through to Far Right uses of the crusades in the twenty-first century. A teacher hoping to run a course on The Crusades could happily do so largely through the materials contained in this volume, as I am sure many already do.
Regarding what new material has been added to the third edition, a key area for growth is the role of women, which has become an increasingly important area for academic study, thanks to scholars like Natasha Hodgson, Helen Nicholson, and recently Gordon Reynolds. Thus, we now find a letter sent by Pope Gregory VII to Matilda of Canossa; charters issued by Queen Melisende of Jerusalem (either alone or as co-ruler with her son, Baldwin III); letters exchanged between Hildegard of Bingen and the crusader, Count Philip of Flanders; and a series of short extracts detailing the exploits of Eleanor of Aquitaine on the Second Crusade. Through these additions, the significance of women to the conception, definition, and practice of crusade, as well as crusading settlement, is made clear. Likewise, this edition seeks to better understand other areas that demonstrate the wider impact and practice of crusading. For example, new sources have been added to help students explore the Jewish and Islamic experience of crusading. This includes a letter—one of the famous “Cairo Genizah” documents—sent by Jewish leaders in Ascalon in the months following the conquest of Jerusalem in July 1099, wherein they sought aid in ransoming coreligionists still held in Frankish captivity, as well as Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn’s narrative on the pogroms launched against Jews in the Rhineland and elsewhere during the summoning period of the Second Crusade in the 1140s. Importantly, both sources reveal that Jews, although not the intended recipient of crusade violence, were nevertheless subject to outpourings of aggression resulting directly from papal efforts to stimulate Holy War against those perceived as enemies of the faith. The incorporation of new maps and Islamic coins, as well as an extract from Baha al-Din ibn Shaddad’s life of Saladin regarding the Sultan’s negotiations with King Richard I of England during the Third Crusade, also help to better bring to life the Muslim world and its responses to crusade and settlement. Snippets from Peter of Les-Vaux-de-Cernay’s History of the Albigensian Crusade and a letter sent to call off this venture by Pope Innocent III in 1213 similarly expand the volume’s coverage of crusades pointed at those deemed heretical in the Latin West. Finally, a few short extracts have been added to the section on modern perceptions, including historiographical coverage of the Far Right and Fuller’s aforementioned early Protestant response to the movement.
Overall, therefore, the changes and updates provided in the third edition of The Crusades: A Reader improve and expand upon what was already a highly valuable volume. It is particularly useful that the editors are continuing to respond both to changes in the academic study of the Crusades, meaning that those in the classroom can teach in line with the evolution of the field, and broader social and cultural responses in the modern world. While it would perhaps be better for all concerned if the Crusades lost their relevance to current events, and that they might stop providing the backdrop for the fantasy worlds of those who seek only hatred and division, in the meantime, having useable and accessible translations that allow us to historicise and contextualise contemporary evidence to new generations of potential scholars is an invaluable thing. The editors are thus to be thanked for their continued efforts.