11th Century Europe
A01=Dr Thomas W. Smith
A01=Thomas W Smith
Adela of Blois
Adhemar of Le Puy
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Alexios I
Alexios I Komnenos
Anselm of Ribemont
Antioch Siege
Author_Dr Thomas W. Smith
Author_Thomas W Smith
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Baldwin of Boulogne
Battle of Ascalon
bishop of Arras
Bohemond I of Taranto
Byzantine Diplomacy
Byzantine emperor
Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Relations
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DB
Category=HBG
Category=HBLC1
Category=HBWC
Category=NHB
Category=NHW
Category=NHWR
Christian-Muslim Relations
Chroniclers of the Crusades
COP=United Kingdom
count of Flanders
count of Toulouse and St Gilles
Cross-Cultural Encounters
Crusade Leadership
Crusade Recruitment
Crusader Ideology
Crusader Letters
Crusader Narratives
Crusader States
Crusades Historiography
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
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eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
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Forgery in Crusade Letters
Heinrich Hagenmeyer
Historia Ierosolimitana
Historical Revisionism
Holy Land
Holy Sepulchre
Islamic World
Jerusalem Capture
Jerusalem Conquest
king of France
Lambert
Language_English
Laodicea
Latin Christendom
Le Puy
Lectio divina
Louis VII
Manuel I Komnenos
Manuscripts
Medieval Chronicles
Medieval Historiography
Medieval Pilgrimage
Medieval Religion
Medieval Warfare
Montecassino abbey
Nicaea
Oderisius I
PA=Available
Papal Indulgence
Papal Legates
Papal letters
Paschal II
Petchenegs
Pilgrimage
Pisa
pope
Price_€50 to €100
Primary Sources Crusades
PS=Active
Quellenkritik
Raymond
Religious Devotion
Religious Zeal
Robert I of Flanders
Robert II
Scribal culture
siege of (1097)
Siege Warfare in Crusades
softlaunch
Stephen of Blois
Tarragona
Templars
Temple of Solomon
Translatio Sancti Nicolai
Urban II
Product details
- ISBN 9781837651757
- Weight: 453g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 16 Apr 2024
- Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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An exploration of the letters from the First Crusade, yielding evidence for a number of reinterpretations of the movement.
The letters stemming from the First Crusade are premier sources for understanding the launch, campaign, and aftermath of the expedition. Between 1095 and 1100, epistles sustained social relationships across the Mediterranean and within Europe, as a mixture of historical writing, literary invention, news, and theological interpretation. They served ecclesiastical administration, projected authority, and formed focal points for spiritual commemoration and para-liturgical campaigns.
This volume, grounded on extensive research into the original manuscripts, and presenting numerous new manuscript witnesses, argues that some of the letters are post hoc "inventions", composed by generations of scribe-readers who visited crusading sites from the twelfth century on, adding new layers of meaning in the form of interpolations and post-scripts. Drawing upon this new understanding, and blurring the distinction of epistolary "reality", it rewrites central aspects of the history of the First Crusade, considering the documents in a new way: as markers of enthusiasm and support for the crusade movement among monastic clergy, who copied and consumed them as a form of scribal crusading. Whether authentic letters or literary "confections", they functioned as communal sites for the celebration, commemoration and memorialisation of the expedition.
Thomas W. Smith gained his PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London; he is presently Keeper of the Scholars and Head of Oxbridge (Arts and Humanities) at Rugby School.
