SSCLE Online PhD/ECR Conference
Session 5: Thursday, 30 June 16.00-17.30 BST
5.1 Honour, Chivalry and Violence
Chair: Michael Ehrlich (Bar-Ilan University)
James Currie (Royal Holloway, University of London): How to Leave a Crusade: Honour.
Most crusades failed to achieve their objectives, or even come close, and surviving participants had to justify why they were coming home with their mission (and perhaps the vow they had made to God) unfulfilled. This paper explores how failed crusaders turned to chivalry to preserve their honour. In particular, it will focus on fidelitas, a commonly understood principle among knights established in the early eleventh century that strongly influenced their sense of loyalty. Crusaders were often told to think of their relationship with God as being essentially the same as their loyalty to secular lords (and superior to it), with crusading framed as an act of fidelitas to God. But where the nobility could commit a variety of acts that voided loyalty, God was almost above reproach. Instead, other aspects of fidelitas were explored to justify going home. Two examples will be explored in detail: a letter of King Conrad III of Germany explaining his departure from the Second Crusade, and Joinville’s account of when King Louis IX of France finally called an end to the Seventh Crusade. Louis IX in Joinville’s account represents the earnest side of how crusaders used chivalry to frame their actions, as he reasonably argues that Louis IX had done enough to show dedication to the cause. On the dishonest side, there is Conrad III’s explanation, in which he misrepresents his own actions and those of his allies to salvage his reputation after the farcical Siege of Damascus and his decision to return home.
James Currie is a PhD student at Royal Holloway, University of London in his second year of study. His thesis explores the relationship between chivalric ideology and crusading. Areas of academic interest include medieval philosophy, propaganda, and aristocratic culture.
Thomas Brosset (University of Lancaster): Unofficial Interactions between Besieged and Besiegers in Medieval Syria (1097-1193).
Siege warfare during the Crusades was mainly studied through fortifications and massacres but sieges were also an occasion for the study of interactions between Levantines communities. As I worked on the many different forms of contact between the besieged and the outer world, it seemed interesting to propose a reflexion on this topic. Little had been said on this matter despite the great impact it played on the course of siege operations. It is with multilingual historical documentation, mainly Arabic and Latin chronicles, that the research was carried out. The focus was placed on forms of exchange that were unofficial and often unprepared between the besieged and the besiegers in cities at war of the first century of the Eastern Crusades. The subject here is not to deal on negotiations with the besiegers or even about communications with allies. Most of the contact were in fact unofficial. These interactions gave rise to hostile exchanges mixing religious humiliation with verbal and physical abuse. These played an effective role on the enemy’s conduct of the siege. In some case it led to the persecution of confessional minorities. Some famous case led to forms of fraternization between military commanders. Some other examples show that soldiers or civilians were also conducting such type of exchange with their enemies. Finally, spying, disruption or betrayal will not be neglected by the paper as necessary and decisive form of unofficial contact. The aim of this paper is to provide a new understanding of enemy’s daily relationship during medieval warfare.
Thomas Brosset is a first-year PhD student at Lancaster University. Before undertaking a PhD, Thomas completed an MA in History at the University of Nantes in 2019. His research deals with besieged experience of siege warfare in medieval Syria and Jazīra regions during the 12th century.
Connor Wilson (University of Lancaster): ‘The Lord has brought Eastern Riches before you, indeed, He has placed them in your hands’: Battlefield Spoils and Looted Treasure in Crusade Narrative.
Connor Wilson is a former Royal Holloway PhD candidate who currently works and teaches at Lancaster University. His first monograph, The Battle Rhetoric of Crusade and Holy War, c. 1099-1222 is forthcoming from Routledge.
Chair: Michael Ehrlich (Bar-Ilan University)
James Currie (Royal Holloway, University of London): How to Leave a Crusade: Honour.
Most crusades failed to achieve their objectives, or even come close, and surviving participants had to justify why they were coming home with their mission (and perhaps the vow they had made to God) unfulfilled. This paper explores how failed crusaders turned to chivalry to preserve their honour. In particular, it will focus on fidelitas, a commonly understood principle among knights established in the early eleventh century that strongly influenced their sense of loyalty. Crusaders were often told to think of their relationship with God as being essentially the same as their loyalty to secular lords (and superior to it), with crusading framed as an act of fidelitas to God. But where the nobility could commit a variety of acts that voided loyalty, God was almost above reproach. Instead, other aspects of fidelitas were explored to justify going home. Two examples will be explored in detail: a letter of King Conrad III of Germany explaining his departure from the Second Crusade, and Joinville’s account of when King Louis IX of France finally called an end to the Seventh Crusade. Louis IX in Joinville’s account represents the earnest side of how crusaders used chivalry to frame their actions, as he reasonably argues that Louis IX had done enough to show dedication to the cause. On the dishonest side, there is Conrad III’s explanation, in which he misrepresents his own actions and those of his allies to salvage his reputation after the farcical Siege of Damascus and his decision to return home.
James Currie is a PhD student at Royal Holloway, University of London in his second year of study. His thesis explores the relationship between chivalric ideology and crusading. Areas of academic interest include medieval philosophy, propaganda, and aristocratic culture.
Thomas Brosset (University of Lancaster): Unofficial Interactions between Besieged and Besiegers in Medieval Syria (1097-1193).
Siege warfare during the Crusades was mainly studied through fortifications and massacres but sieges were also an occasion for the study of interactions between Levantines communities. As I worked on the many different forms of contact between the besieged and the outer world, it seemed interesting to propose a reflexion on this topic. Little had been said on this matter despite the great impact it played on the course of siege operations. It is with multilingual historical documentation, mainly Arabic and Latin chronicles, that the research was carried out. The focus was placed on forms of exchange that were unofficial and often unprepared between the besieged and the besiegers in cities at war of the first century of the Eastern Crusades. The subject here is not to deal on negotiations with the besiegers or even about communications with allies. Most of the contact were in fact unofficial. These interactions gave rise to hostile exchanges mixing religious humiliation with verbal and physical abuse. These played an effective role on the enemy’s conduct of the siege. In some case it led to the persecution of confessional minorities. Some famous case led to forms of fraternization between military commanders. Some other examples show that soldiers or civilians were also conducting such type of exchange with their enemies. Finally, spying, disruption or betrayal will not be neglected by the paper as necessary and decisive form of unofficial contact. The aim of this paper is to provide a new understanding of enemy’s daily relationship during medieval warfare.
Thomas Brosset is a first-year PhD student at Lancaster University. Before undertaking a PhD, Thomas completed an MA in History at the University of Nantes in 2019. His research deals with besieged experience of siege warfare in medieval Syria and Jazīra regions during the 12th century.
Connor Wilson (University of Lancaster): ‘The Lord has brought Eastern Riches before you, indeed, He has placed them in your hands’: Battlefield Spoils and Looted Treasure in Crusade Narrative.
Connor Wilson is a former Royal Holloway PhD candidate who currently works and teaches at Lancaster University. His first monograph, The Battle Rhetoric of Crusade and Holy War, c. 1099-1222 is forthcoming from Routledge.
5.2 Sources, Panel 2
Chair: Helen Nicholson (Cardiff University)
Stephen Spencer (King’s College, London): Repurposing Crusade Chronicles: Peter of Cornwall and Fulcher of Chartres.
This paper builds upon recent studies which have highlighted the importance of Fulcher of Chartres’ Historia Hierosolymitana as a foundation text for several near-contemporary chroniclers of the First Crusade and the early years of the Latin East, such as ‘Bartolf of Nangis’, ‘Lisiard of Tours’, and William of Malmesbury. It does so by examining the
numerous variant readings found in an underexplored twelfth-century manuscript of Fulcher’s Historia, created at the Benedictine abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury, and the reception of that manuscript at Holy Trinity Priory, Aldgate, in c.1200. There, Prior Peter of Cornwall and his scribes incorporated select chapters from Fulcher’s account of the First
Crusade into the Liber revelationum in pursuit of the wider literary goal of proving the existence of God, angels, and life after death. By analysing the sole surviving witness to the Liber revelationum (London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 51), this paper seeks to both expose new evidence for the reception of Fulcher’s Historia in medieval England and to explore one way in which a crusade chronicle’s miraculous components could be repackaged to perform a wider devotional purpose. Such evidence, it is argued, also offers insights into the community which compiled the Itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta regis Ricardi (IP2), for it attests to a palpable interest in, and the production of texts about, the crusading past at Holy Trinity.
Stephen Spencer is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at King’s College London, where he is conducting research on the memorialisation of the Third Crusade in western Europe between 1187 and 1300. His first book, Emotions in a Crusading Context, 1095–1291, was published by Oxford University Press in 2019.
Katrine Funding Højgaard (University of Copenhagen): Past in the Present: Temporal Discontinuity and the Loss of Jerusalem in Western Historical Writing.
Katrine Funding Højgaard attained the PhD degree in January 2021 at University of Copenhagen with the dissertation “Narrating the Defeat: The Loss of Jerusalem in Western Historical Writing, 1187–1229.” Her PhD project examined the reactions to and memory of the loss of Jerusalem (1187) in Western historical writing with a special focus on the role of emotions in the creation of a new memory tradition. She has studied medieval history at Aalborg University (BA 2014, MA 2016) and Fordham University (visiting graduate student, fall 2015). Her research interests include History of the Crusades, History of Emotions, Memory Studies, Manuscript Studies, Historiography, and Medieval Animal Studies. She has presented papers at Danish and international conferences, including IMC Leeds, and she was co-organizer of the conference “The Loss of Jerusalem – Reactions, Memory and Afterlife in the West, 1187–1500” held via Zoom in April 2021. In the spring semester, she taught an undergraduate course on animals and monsters in the Middle Ages at University of Copenhagen.
Katy Mortimer (Royal Holloway, University of London): Writing the Third Crusade: Richard the Lionheart, the True Cross, and the Problem of Failure.
Chair: Helen Nicholson (Cardiff University)
Stephen Spencer (King’s College, London): Repurposing Crusade Chronicles: Peter of Cornwall and Fulcher of Chartres.
This paper builds upon recent studies which have highlighted the importance of Fulcher of Chartres’ Historia Hierosolymitana as a foundation text for several near-contemporary chroniclers of the First Crusade and the early years of the Latin East, such as ‘Bartolf of Nangis’, ‘Lisiard of Tours’, and William of Malmesbury. It does so by examining the
numerous variant readings found in an underexplored twelfth-century manuscript of Fulcher’s Historia, created at the Benedictine abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury, and the reception of that manuscript at Holy Trinity Priory, Aldgate, in c.1200. There, Prior Peter of Cornwall and his scribes incorporated select chapters from Fulcher’s account of the First
Crusade into the Liber revelationum in pursuit of the wider literary goal of proving the existence of God, angels, and life after death. By analysing the sole surviving witness to the Liber revelationum (London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 51), this paper seeks to both expose new evidence for the reception of Fulcher’s Historia in medieval England and to explore one way in which a crusade chronicle’s miraculous components could be repackaged to perform a wider devotional purpose. Such evidence, it is argued, also offers insights into the community which compiled the Itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta regis Ricardi (IP2), for it attests to a palpable interest in, and the production of texts about, the crusading past at Holy Trinity.
Stephen Spencer is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at King’s College London, where he is conducting research on the memorialisation of the Third Crusade in western Europe between 1187 and 1300. His first book, Emotions in a Crusading Context, 1095–1291, was published by Oxford University Press in 2019.
Katrine Funding Højgaard (University of Copenhagen): Past in the Present: Temporal Discontinuity and the Loss of Jerusalem in Western Historical Writing.
Katrine Funding Højgaard attained the PhD degree in January 2021 at University of Copenhagen with the dissertation “Narrating the Defeat: The Loss of Jerusalem in Western Historical Writing, 1187–1229.” Her PhD project examined the reactions to and memory of the loss of Jerusalem (1187) in Western historical writing with a special focus on the role of emotions in the creation of a new memory tradition. She has studied medieval history at Aalborg University (BA 2014, MA 2016) and Fordham University (visiting graduate student, fall 2015). Her research interests include History of the Crusades, History of Emotions, Memory Studies, Manuscript Studies, Historiography, and Medieval Animal Studies. She has presented papers at Danish and international conferences, including IMC Leeds, and she was co-organizer of the conference “The Loss of Jerusalem – Reactions, Memory and Afterlife in the West, 1187–1500” held via Zoom in April 2021. In the spring semester, she taught an undergraduate course on animals and monsters in the Middle Ages at University of Copenhagen.
Katy Mortimer (Royal Holloway, University of London): Writing the Third Crusade: Richard the Lionheart, the True Cross, and the Problem of Failure.
5.3 Later Crusades, Panel 3
Chair: Kurt Villads Jensen (Stockholm University)
Zeynep Cecen (Bilkent University): Images of the Turk in French Writings after the Battle of Nicopolis.
Zeynep Kocabıyıkoğlu Çeçen received her PhD from Bilkent University in Turkey in 2012 with a thesis on late fourteenth-century France and chivalry. Since then, she has been teaching part-time and doing research on later crusades with a specific focus on the late fourteenth century and East-West encounters. Her areas of interest include medieval warfare, crusades and the Turkish image in the West.
Roman Ivashko (Independent Scholar, Lviv): The Latin Metropolitanate of Lviv and the Crusade of Varna.
The core of the Lviv Latin Metropolitanate coincided with the territory of the Jagiellonians royal domain. Lviv and Kamieniec were last strongholds of Catholics whom had struggle against unfaithful and ʻschismaticsʼ in Eastern Europe. The King Ulászló I (Władysław III of Varna) of the aforementioned royal dynasty as the king of Hungary had to be formally commander of the ground forces at the Crusade called later of Varna. The population of the royal domain and the Metropolitanate were basis which on the King could organize preparation to the Crusade directly on his behalf. At the outset of the immediate start of the Crusade was the Civil War in the Hungarian kingdom between supporters of the Holy Roman Empire ad Jagiellonians. The King Ulászló I was forced to borrow money and to force estates in population of the royal domain of
Jagiellonians for struggle in the Civil War. After the truce this practice was continued during the Crusade. To secure a rear, the King allowed the ʻschismaticsʼ to profess their faith, and the Cardinal Julian Caesarini granted the Catholics of Lviv the indulgence and confirmed the royal permission to build the school in that city. Three future pastors of the Lviv Church were the immediate participants of the Battle of Varna. The future Bishop of Chołm Paul of Grabow, the future Metropolitan of Lviv Jan Wątrąbka-Strzełecki were knights, and also the future Metropolitan of Lviv Gregory of Syanok was the personal confessor to the King Ulászló I. The degree of influence of them and other knights from Lviv land on the King’s decision to go on the last offensive is difficult to determine. In the camp of Crusaders also was the author of the report on the Battle of Varna, the papal collector Andreas de Palacio, whose service extended to the Lviv Latin Metropolitanate. After the fatal death of the King Ulászló I on the battlefield of Varna, the fate of the pledge in the royal domain remained undetermined. The property came under control of the royal Governor Andrzej Odrowąż. He was responsible for protecting the Eastern border of the Polish-Lithuanian state. But in the service charge, he tried to take control of all customs and bidding in the region. The nobility of Lviv united in the military confederation and subsequently redeemed the disputed lands under the patronage of the new Polish King Casimir IV Jagiellon. In parallel, preparations for the Crusade, which was to start from Ancona, also continued.
Alessandro Scalone (Royal Holloway, University of London): The Recovery of Jerusalem and the Relationship between the Mongols and the West.
This brief paper aims to propose an analysis of the diplomatic and spiritual background behind the Western perception of the Mongols as potential allies with whom to recover Jerusalem during the late thirteenth and the early fourteenth centuries. It will investigate on the contacts between Europe and the Ilkhanate of Persia, examining on the role of the
Mongols in the European projects to retake the Holy Land during a period when the religious significance of the East and the crusade’s objectives were subject to important transformations. The project suggests a re-interpretation of an important article by Sylvia Schein on the same topic, re-evaluating it in the light of works by Richard and Jackson concerning the diplomatic relationship between Europe and the Mongols, and those by Housley and Musarra relating on the developments of the crusading movement in the aftermath of 1291. Overall, the «Mongol-factor» represented a vital aspect of the crusade policy of the papacy during the second half of the thirteenth century. However, its relevance grew even more marked in the aftermath of the Mamluk conquest of Acre, acquiring a concrete value in the year 1300 with the news - almost a legend – of the Mongol capture of Jerusalem and the intention of the il-khan, Ghazan, to return it to Christianity. Most importantly, their role acquired strategic as much as a religious role in the eyes of the late medieval Europe, still concerned about the status of the Holy Land but which was celebrating the Roman first jubilee. In the light of this, the possibility of Western-Mongol alliance had an additional resonance as it occurred exactly in a phase where the crusade was gradually assuming different characteristics and objectives.
Alessandro Scalone earned his bachelor’s degree at the Univerisity of Siena with a dissertation on the political and administrative system of the Latin settlements in the Middle East. Thereafter, he studied at the Univerisities of Pisa and
Paris-4 La Sorbonne for his first master’s degree for a dissertation on the diplomatic relations between the Latin East and the West between the Second and the Third Crusade. Lastly, he earned his second master’s degree at the Royal Holloway
University of London under the supervision of the Professors Jonathan Phillips and Andrew Jotischky with a dissertation on the myth on the Mongol Conquest of Jerusalem in 1300.
Chair: Kurt Villads Jensen (Stockholm University)
Zeynep Cecen (Bilkent University): Images of the Turk in French Writings after the Battle of Nicopolis.
Zeynep Kocabıyıkoğlu Çeçen received her PhD from Bilkent University in Turkey in 2012 with a thesis on late fourteenth-century France and chivalry. Since then, she has been teaching part-time and doing research on later crusades with a specific focus on the late fourteenth century and East-West encounters. Her areas of interest include medieval warfare, crusades and the Turkish image in the West.
Roman Ivashko (Independent Scholar, Lviv): The Latin Metropolitanate of Lviv and the Crusade of Varna.
The core of the Lviv Latin Metropolitanate coincided with the territory of the Jagiellonians royal domain. Lviv and Kamieniec were last strongholds of Catholics whom had struggle against unfaithful and ʻschismaticsʼ in Eastern Europe. The King Ulászló I (Władysław III of Varna) of the aforementioned royal dynasty as the king of Hungary had to be formally commander of the ground forces at the Crusade called later of Varna. The population of the royal domain and the Metropolitanate were basis which on the King could organize preparation to the Crusade directly on his behalf. At the outset of the immediate start of the Crusade was the Civil War in the Hungarian kingdom between supporters of the Holy Roman Empire ad Jagiellonians. The King Ulászló I was forced to borrow money and to force estates in population of the royal domain of
Jagiellonians for struggle in the Civil War. After the truce this practice was continued during the Crusade. To secure a rear, the King allowed the ʻschismaticsʼ to profess their faith, and the Cardinal Julian Caesarini granted the Catholics of Lviv the indulgence and confirmed the royal permission to build the school in that city. Three future pastors of the Lviv Church were the immediate participants of the Battle of Varna. The future Bishop of Chołm Paul of Grabow, the future Metropolitan of Lviv Jan Wątrąbka-Strzełecki were knights, and also the future Metropolitan of Lviv Gregory of Syanok was the personal confessor to the King Ulászló I. The degree of influence of them and other knights from Lviv land on the King’s decision to go on the last offensive is difficult to determine. In the camp of Crusaders also was the author of the report on the Battle of Varna, the papal collector Andreas de Palacio, whose service extended to the Lviv Latin Metropolitanate. After the fatal death of the King Ulászló I on the battlefield of Varna, the fate of the pledge in the royal domain remained undetermined. The property came under control of the royal Governor Andrzej Odrowąż. He was responsible for protecting the Eastern border of the Polish-Lithuanian state. But in the service charge, he tried to take control of all customs and bidding in the region. The nobility of Lviv united in the military confederation and subsequently redeemed the disputed lands under the patronage of the new Polish King Casimir IV Jagiellon. In parallel, preparations for the Crusade, which was to start from Ancona, also continued.
Alessandro Scalone (Royal Holloway, University of London): The Recovery of Jerusalem and the Relationship between the Mongols and the West.
This brief paper aims to propose an analysis of the diplomatic and spiritual background behind the Western perception of the Mongols as potential allies with whom to recover Jerusalem during the late thirteenth and the early fourteenth centuries. It will investigate on the contacts between Europe and the Ilkhanate of Persia, examining on the role of the
Mongols in the European projects to retake the Holy Land during a period when the religious significance of the East and the crusade’s objectives were subject to important transformations. The project suggests a re-interpretation of an important article by Sylvia Schein on the same topic, re-evaluating it in the light of works by Richard and Jackson concerning the diplomatic relationship between Europe and the Mongols, and those by Housley and Musarra relating on the developments of the crusading movement in the aftermath of 1291. Overall, the «Mongol-factor» represented a vital aspect of the crusade policy of the papacy during the second half of the thirteenth century. However, its relevance grew even more marked in the aftermath of the Mamluk conquest of Acre, acquiring a concrete value in the year 1300 with the news - almost a legend – of the Mongol capture of Jerusalem and the intention of the il-khan, Ghazan, to return it to Christianity. Most importantly, their role acquired strategic as much as a religious role in the eyes of the late medieval Europe, still concerned about the status of the Holy Land but which was celebrating the Roman first jubilee. In the light of this, the possibility of Western-Mongol alliance had an additional resonance as it occurred exactly in a phase where the crusade was gradually assuming different characteristics and objectives.
Alessandro Scalone earned his bachelor’s degree at the Univerisity of Siena with a dissertation on the political and administrative system of the Latin settlements in the Middle East. Thereafter, he studied at the Univerisities of Pisa and
Paris-4 La Sorbonne for his first master’s degree for a dissertation on the diplomatic relations between the Latin East and the West between the Second and the Third Crusade. Lastly, he earned his second master’s degree at the Royal Holloway
University of London under the supervision of the Professors Jonathan Phillips and Andrew Jotischky with a dissertation on the myth on the Mongol Conquest of Jerusalem in 1300.