New insights into interpretive problems in the history of England and Europe between the eighth and thirteenth centuries. The articles in this volume of the Haskins Society Journal take the reader from early England to the thirteenth century, from Europe to the Holy Land. Chapters explore issues of Anglo-Saxon social status and settlement andpeasant agency in the France of King Louis IX; while, through a careful re-examination of documentary and narrative evidence, further articles offer new insights into succession crises in England and the Principality of Antioch, with special attention to the role of women in the assumption of political power and its narration. The record and moral horizons of both First and Fourth Crusaders also receive close attention; and finally, a survey of the construction of the Norman past in the French Chronique de Normandie rounds out the collection. CONTRIBUTORS: Mark E. Blincoe, Andrew D. Buck, Wim de Clercq, Theodore Evergates, Alex Hurlow, William Chester Jordan, Alexandra Locking, Alheydis Plassman, Stuart Pracy, Katherine Allen Smith, Veerle van Eetvelde, Steven Vanderputten, Gerben Verbrugghe

This collection offers a holistic understanding of the impact of both crusading and settlement on the literary cultures of Latin Christendom. The period between the First Crusade and the collapse of the "crusader states" in the eastern Mediterranean was a crucial one for medieval historical writing. From the departure of the earliest crusading armies in 1096 to the Mamlūk conquest of the Latin states in the late thirteenth century, crusading activity, and the settlements it established and aimed to protect, generated a vast textual output, offering rich insights into the historiographical cultures of the Latin West and Latin East. However, modern scholarship on the crusades and the "crusader states" has tended to draw an artificial boundary between the two, even though medieval writers treated their histories as virtually indistinguishable. This volume places these spheres into dialogue with each other, looking at how individual crusading campaigns and the Frankish settlements in the eastern Mediterranean were depicted and remembered in the central Middle Ages. Its essays cover a geographical range that incorporates England, France, Germany, southern Italy and the Holy Land, and address such topics as gender, emotion, the natural world, crusading as an institution, origin myths, textual reception, forms of storytelling and historical genre. Bringing to the foreground neglected sources, methodologies, events and regions of textual production, the collection offers a holistic understanding of the impact of both crusading and settlement on the literary cultures of Latin Christendom.

An investigation into how Antioch maintained itself as an independent principality during a period of considerable challenges. Situated in northern Syria, on the eastern-most frontier of Latin Christendom, the principality of Antioch was a medieval polity bordered by a host of rival powers, including the Byzantine Empire, the Armenian Christians of Cilicia, the rulers of the neighbouring Islamic world and even the other crusader states, the kingdom of Jerusalem and the counties of Edessa and Tripoli. Coupled with the numerous Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities who populatedthe region, Antioch's Frankish settlers - initially installed into power by the military successes of the First Crusade - thus faced numerous challenges to their survival. This book examines how the ruling elites of the principality sought to manage these competing interests in order to maintain Antioch's existence during the troubled twelfth century, particularly following the death of Prince Bohemond II in 1130. His demise helped to spark renewed interest from Byzantium and the kingdom of Jerusalem, and came at a time of both Islamic resurgence under the Zengids of Aleppo and Mosul, as well as Armenian power growth under the Rupenids. An examination of Antioch's diplomatic and military endeavours, its internal power structures and its interaction with indigenous peoples can therefore help to reveal a great deal about how medieval Latins adapted to the demands of their frontiers. ANDREW BUCK is an Associate Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, from where he received his PhD in 2014.

Exploring Latin texts, as well as Old French, Castilian and Occitan songs and lyrics, Remembering the Crusades in Medieval Texts and Songs takes inspiration from the new ways scholars are looking to trace the dissemination and influence of the memories and narratives surrounding the crusading past in medieval Europe. It contributes to these new directions in crusade studies by offering a more nuanced understanding of the diverse ways in which medieval authors presented events, people and places central to the crusading movement. This volume investigates how the transmission of stories related to suffering, heroism, the miraculous and ideals of masculinity helped to shape ideas of crusading presented in narratives produced in both the Latin East and the West, as well as the importance of Jerusalem in the lyric cultures of southern France, and how the narrative arc of the First Crusade developed from the earliest written and oral responses to the venture.