Fall 2015 will see the return of HIST 6078: Crusader States: The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem 1099-1291 Professor Nicholas Paul’s class charts the social, political, and cultural history of the feudal principalities that were established by Latin Christians in the Eastern Mediterranean in the wake of the First Crusade. Students will be introduced to the narrative and documentary sources through which the history of the Latin Kingdom has been constructed, as well as the archaeology and art of the Levant during the period of Frankish occupation and settlement. In addition, we will engage with the major historiographical debates concerning the constitutional organization of the Latin kingdom, the relationship between the Frankish crusaders and the Muslim and eastern Christian populations over whom they ruled, and the “colonial” character of the Latin settlements. For more information about the course, read on…
Reading list:
Suggested texts:
Jotischy, Crusading and the Crusader States (Harlow and New York, 2004)
Malcolm Barber, The Crusader States (New Haven, 2012)
Required Texts:
Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, tr. Frances Rita Ryan and Harold S. Fink (Knoxville, 1969, repr. W.W. Norton, 1972)
Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization, and Cultural Change, 950-1350 (Princeton: Princeon Univ Press, 1993)
[Lyon Eracles] The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, tr. Peter Edbury (Brookfield, VT, 1196 repr. 1999)
Christopher MacEvitt, The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance (Philadelphia, 2008)
Usamah ibn Munqidh, Book of Contemplation: Islam, The Crusades, and the East. tr. Paul M. Cobb (London. 2008)
Andrew Jotischy, The Perfection of Solitude: Hermits and Monks in the Crusader States (Philadelphia, 1995)