Postgraduate Course: The Crusades: Thirteenth Century Crossroads (PGHC11357)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course supplements the School's existing graduate options for the MSc in Medieval History by focusing upon one of the most distinctive and significant aspect of the medieval world, whose influence is still deeply felt to the present day. Moreover, focusing the course on the thirteenth century will allow a pluralist approach to be fully adopted that does not consider only the canonical expeditions directed to the Holy Land but also the expansion of the crusades in other theatres and contexts: from Spain, to the Baltic Sea, and from North Africa to Byzantium; and the "internal crusades", that is, the crusades that targeted heretics and political enemies inside Western Christendom. At the same time, in contrast, but also in relation to the above-mentioned expansion of the phenomenon, the thirteenth century has been often perceived as a period of weakening of the crusading drive. This will enable the students to fully appreciate the richness of the phenomenon, and will provide MSc students with a very wide range of options, themes and topics from which to explore not only various aspects of the crusade, but also of the medieval world, many of which are probably less familiar to them, or generally less covered in surveys of the period.
This course aims to introduce students to the evolution of the crusades in the thirteenth century and to the historical debate on it. It will include topics such as management, legitimacy, criticism of the crusades both within and outside Western Christendom, the background of the participants, warfare, the crusader states, as well as the legacy of the crusades. Some key expeditions and theatres will be covered, from the conquest of Constantinople to some of the late medieval campaigns to North Africa. Indeed, the same variety will apply to a series of the primary sources that will be examined, which include Western, Byzantine and Muslim accounts, and which portray a great variety of views and different perceptions of the phenomenon.
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| Course description |
Week 1 Introduction: what were the crusades?
Week 2 Authority, legitimacy and management
Week 3 Who were the crusaders?
Week 4 The fourth crusade and the fragmentation of Byzantium
Week 5 Crusading warfare and military orders
Week 6 The crusades in Africa and in the Holy Land
Week 7 Crusades inside Christendom 1: the political crusades
Week 8 Crusader outposts
Week 9 The Baltic crusades and the Iberian reconquista
Week 10 Crusades inside Christendom 2: the heretic Cathars of southern France
Week 11 The legacy of the crusades
This course supplements the School's existing graduate options for the MSc in Medieval History by focusing upon one of the most distinctive and significant aspect of the medieval world, whose influence is still deeply felt to the present day. Moreover, focusing the course on the thirteenth century will allow a pluralist approach to be fully adopted that does not consider only the canonical expeditions directed to the Holy Land but also the expansion of the crusades in other theatres and contexts: from Spain, to the Baltic Sea, and from North Africa to Byzantium; and the "internal crusades", that is, the crusades that targeted heretics and political enemies inside Western Christendom. At the same time, in contrast, but also in relation to the above-mentioned expansion of the phenomenon, the thirteenth century has been often perceived as a period of weakening of the crusading drive. This will enable the students to fully appreciate the richness of the phenomenon, and will provide MSc students with a very wide range of options, themes and topics from which to explore not only various aspects of the crusade, but also of the medieval world, many of which are probably less familiar to them, or generally less covered in surveys of the period.
This course aims to introduce students to the evolution of the crusades in the thirteenth century and to the historical debate on it. It will include topics such as management, legitimacy, criticism of the crusades both within and outside Western Christendom, the background of the participants, warfare, the crusader states, as well as the legacy of the crusades. Some key expeditions and theatres will be covered, from the conquest of Constantinople to some of the late medieval campaigns to North Africa. Indeed, the same variety will apply to a series of the primary sources that will be examined, which include Western, Byzantine and Muslim accounts, and which portray a great variety of views and different perceptions of the phenomenon.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
| Students who successfully complete the course will have acquired an advanced knowledge and understanding of key aspects of the crusades as well as awareness of previously unfamiliar methodological approaches, chronological periods and geographical areas encompassing Western Europe, the Baltic, the Mediterranean and the Middle East. They will have developed an appreciation of the wide diversity of the phenomenon, of the various historical interpretations and methodologies employed in their study and of a wide range of primary sources. In the process they will have developed further skills in researching and writing historical essays, in handling primary sources and assessing them by placing them in their historical context and thinking critically about historical issues. They will have developed a series of transferable skills by fostering individual initiative, personal choice, group discussion and problem-solving teamwork.
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Reading List
Primary Sources:
For a variety of primary sources on the crusades available online:
http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/sbook1k.asp
http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/categories/crusades1.htm
The crusades: a reader, ed. S. J. Allen and E. Amt (Peterborough, Ont., 2003)
Arab historians of the crusades, ed. F. Gabrieli (London, 1969)
O. Paderborn, Christian society and the Crusades, 1198-1229: sources in translation, including The capture of Damietta (Philadelphia, 1971)
The chronicle of Ibn al-Athi'r for the crusading period from al-Ka'mil fi'l-ta'rikh, tran. by D. S. Richards (Aldershot, 2006)
Chronicles of the Crusades: eye-witness accounts of the wars between Christianity and Islam (London, 1989)
Villehardouin, Geoffroi de, Chronicles of the Crusades (Baltimore, 1963)
J. Brundage, The Crusades: a documentary survey (Milwaukee, 1962)
The song of the Cathar Wars: a history of the Albigensian crusade, ed. J. Shirley (Aldershot, 1996)
Crusader Syria in the thirteenth century: the Rothelin continuation of the history of Tyre with part of the Eracles or Acre text, ed. J. Shirley (Aldershot, 1999)
The rare and excellent history of Saladin, or, al-Nawadir al-Sultaniyya wa'l-Mahasin al-Yusufiyya, transl. D.S. Richards (Aldershot, 2001)
The Book of deeds of James I of Aragon : a translation of the medieval Catalan Llibre dels fets, ed. J. Smith and H. Buffery (Aldershot, 2003)
The seventh crusade, 1244-1254: sources and documements, ed. P. Jackson (Aldershot, 2007)
Secondary literature:
General works:
A. V. Murray (ed.) The crusades. An Encyclopedia (Oxford, 2006)
J. Riley Smith, What were the crusades? (various editions, the latest are to be preferred)
C. Tyerman, The Crusades: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2005) [electronic access]
Oxford illustrated history of the crusades (Oxford, 1995)
Specific themes and topics:
M. Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers and infidels (Liverpool, 1979)
E. Siberry, Criticism of crusading, 1095-1274 (Oxford, 1985)
J. Brundage, Crusades, Holy War and canon law (Aldershot, 1991)
J. Cole, Preaching the crusades to the Holy Land, 1095-1270 (Cambridge Mass., 1991)
J. Riley Smith. 'Crusading as an act of love', History, 65 (1980), 177-92.
G. Constable, 'The place of the crusader in medieval society', Viator 29 (1998)
W. C. Jordan, Louis IX and the challenge of the crusade (Princeton, 1979)
A. Macquarrie, Scotland and the crusades, 1095-1560 (Edinburgh, 1997)
C. Tyerman, England and the crusades, 1095-1588 (Chicago, 1988)
S. Lambert and S.B. Edington (eds), Gendering the crusades (Cardiff, 2001)
H. Nicholson, The knights Hospitaller (Woodbridge, 2001)
M. Barber, The new knighthood: a history of the Order of the Temple (Cambridge, 1994)
C. Hillenbrand, The crusades: Islamic perspectives (Edinburgh, 1999)
J. Harris, Byzantium and the crusades (London, 2003)
MacEvitt, Crusaders and the Christian world of the east: rough tolerance (Philadelphia, 2008)
R. Lilie, Byzantium and the crusader states, 1096-1204 (Oxford, 1993)
P. M. Holt, The age of the crusades: the near east from the eleventh century to 1517 (London, 1986)
C. Marshall, Warfare in the Latin East, 1192-1291 (Cambridge, 1991)
N. Housley, Crusading and warfare in medieval and renaissance Europe (Adelrshot, 2001)
K. Molin, Unknown crusader castles (London, 2001)
Crusade and settlement, ed. P. W. Edbury (Cardiff, 1985)
N. Housley, The later crusades (Oxford, 1992)
E. Christiansen, The northern crusades (London, 1980)
I. Fonnesberg-Schmidt, The popes and the Baltic crusades 1147-1254 of the royal Historical Society, 37 (1987)
P. Linehan, The Spanish Church and the Papacy in the Thirteenth century (Cambridge, 1991)
R. I. Burns, The crusader kingdom of Valencia: reconstruction on a thirteenth-century frontier (Cambridge Mass., 1967)
N. Housley, The Italian crusades (Oxford, 1982)
R. Rist, 'Papal policy and the Albigensian crusades: continuity or change?', Crusades, 2 (2003)
M. Barber, Cathars: dualist heretics in Languedoc in the high middle ages (Harlow, 2000)
Queller, D. E. and T. F. Madden, The Fourth Crusade (Philadelphia, 1997)
M. Barber, Crusaders and heretics, 12th-14th centuries (Aldershot, 1995)
M. Angold, The fourth crusade (Harlow, 2003)
E. Siberry, The new crusaders (Adelrshot, 2000)
J. Riley-Smith, The crusades, Christianity and Islam (New York, 2008)
P. W. Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the crusades, 1191-1374 (Cambridge 1991)
P. Maureen, Papal crusading policy: the chief instruments of papal crusading policy and crusade to the Holy Land from the final loss of Jerusalem to the fall of Acre 1244-1291 (Leiden, 1975)
B. Hamilton, The Latin Church in the crusader states: the secular church (London, 1980)
G. Dickson, The Children's Crusade: medieval history, modern mythistory (New York, 2008)
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Crusades Thirteenth Century Crossroads |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Gianluca Raccagni
Tel:
Email: |
Course secretary | Ms Cristina Roman
Tel: (0131 6)50 4577
Email: |
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