A pioneering approach to contemporary historical writing on the First Crusade, looking at the texts as cultural artefacts rather than simply for the evidence they contain.

A pioneering approach to contemporary historical writing on the First Crusade, looking at the texts as cultural artefacts rather than simply for the evidence they contain.

The First Crusade (1095-1101) was the stimulus for a substantial boom in Western historical writing in the first decades of the twelfth century, beginning with the so-called "eyewitness" accounts of the crusade and extending to numerous second-hand treatments in prose and verse. From the time when many of these accounts were first assembled in printed form by Jacques Bongars in the early seventeenth century, and even more so since their collective appearance in the great nineteenth-century compendium of crusade texts, theRecueil des historiens des croisades, narrative histories have come to be regarded as the single most important resource for the academic study of the early crusade movement. But our understanding of these texts is still far from satisfactory.
This ground-breaking volume draws together the work of an international team of scholars. It tackles the disjuncture between the study of the crusades and the study of medieval history-writing, setting the agenda for future research into historical narratives about or inspired by crusading. The basic premise that informs all the papers is that narrative accounts of crusades and analogous texts should not be primarily understood as repositories of data that contribute to a reconstruction of events, but as cultural artefacts that can be interrogated from a wide range of theoretical, methodological and thematic perspectives.

MARCUS BULL is Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor of Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; DAMIEN KEMPF is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Liverpool.

Contributors: Laura Ashe, Steven Biddlecombe, Marcus Bull, Peter Frankopan, Damian Kempf, James Naus, Léan Ní Chléirigh, Nicholas Paul, William J. Purkis, Luigi Russo, Jay Rubenstein, Carol Sweetenham,

Introduction - Marcus Bull and Damien Kempf
Baldric of Bourgueil and theFamilia Christi - Steven J. Biddlecombe
Gilbert of Nogent, Albert of Aachen and Fulcher of Chartres: Three Crusade Chronicles Intersect - Jay C. Rubenstein
Understanding the Greek Sources for the First Crusade - Peter Frankopan
The Monte Cassino Tradition of the First Crusade: From theChronica Monasterii Casinensis to theHystoria de via et recuperatione Antiochiae atque Ierusolymarum - Luigi Russo
Nova Peregrinatio: The First Crusade as a Pilgrimage in Contemporary Latin Narratives - Léan Ní Chléirigh
What Really Happened to Eurvin de Créel's Donkey? Anecdotes in Sources for the First Crusade - Carol Sweetenham
Porta Clausa: Trial and Triumph at the Gates of Jerusalem - Nicholas L. Paul
TheHistoria Iherosolimitana of Robert the Monk and the Coronation of Louis VI - James Naus
Towards a Textual Archaeology of the First Crusade - Damien Kempf
Robert the Monk and his Sources[s] - Marcus Bull
Rewriting the History Books: The First Crusade and the Past - William J. Purkis
The Ideal of Knighthood in English and French Writing, 1100-1230: Crusade, Piety, Chivalry and Patriotism - Laura Ashe