The Barons' Crusade A Call to Arms and Its Consequences Michael Lower "Michael Lower has begun a reassessment of the historiographical paradigm in regard to crusading which has grown so comfortable to European and American scholars in last century. He has done this by engaging in more contextualization and less theory. The result is an evolving picture of crusading as a process which owed as much to "realpolitik" as to muscular Christianity. . . . This a well-argued and researched book which is accessible to both general and academic readers."--"Medieval Review" "What a dismal story this is. It is extremely well told, however, and magnificently researched."--"Speculum" In December 1235, Pope Gregory IX altered the mission of a crusade he had begun to preach the year before. Instead of calling for Christian magnates to go on to fight the infidel in Jerusalem, he now urged them to combat the spread of Christian heresy in Latin Greece and to defend the Latin empire of Constantinople. The Barons' Crusade, as it was named by a fourteenth-century chronicler impressed by the great number of barons who participated, would last until 1241 and would represent in many ways the high point of papal efforts to make crusading a universal Christian undertaking. This book, the first full-length treatment of the Barons' Crusade, examines the call for holy war and its consequences in Hungary, France, England, Constantinople, and the Holy Land. In the end, Michael Lower reveals, the pope's call for unified action resulted in a range of locally determined initiatives and accommodations. In some places in Europe, the crusade unleashed violence against Jews that the pope had not sought; in others, it unleashed no violence at all. In the Levant, it even ended in peaceful negotiation between Christian and Muslim forces. Virtually everywhere, but in different ways, it altered the relations between Christians and non-Christians. By emphasizing comparative local history, "The Barons' Crusade: A Call to Arms and Its Consequences" brings into question the idea that crusading embodies the religious unity of medieval society and demonstrates how thoroughly crusading had been affected by the new strategic and political demands of the papacy. Michael Lower teaches history at the University of Minnesota. The Middle Ages Series 2005 272 pages 6 x 9 3 maps ISBN 978-0-8122-3873-0 Cloth $55.00s 36.00 ISBN 978-0-8122-0267-0 Ebook $55s 36.00 World Rights History, Religion Short copy: This first full-length treatment of the Barons' Crusade examines the call for holy war and its consequences in Hungary, France, England, Constantinople, and the Holy Land.

Why did the last of the major European campaigns to reclaim Jerusalem end in an attack on Tunis, a peaceful North African port city thousands of miles from the Holy Land? In the first book-length study of the campaign in English, Michael Lower tells the story of how the classic era of crusading came to such an unexpected end. Unfolding against a backdrop of conflict and collaboration that extended from England to Inner Asia, the Tunis Crusade entangled people from every corner of the Mediterranean world. Within this expansive geographical playing field, the ambitions of four powerful Mediterranean dynasts would collide. While the slave-boy-turned-sultan Baybars of Egypt and the saint-king Louis IX of France waged a bitter battle for Syria, al-Mustansir of Tunis and Louis's younger brother Charles of Anjou struggled for control of the Sicilian Straits. When the conflicts over Syria and Sicily became intertwined in the late 1260s, the Tunis Crusade was the shocking result. While the history of the crusades is often told only from the crusaders' perspective, in The Tunis Crusade of 1270, Lower brings Arabic and European-language sources together to offer a panoramic view of these complex multilateral conflicts. Standing at the intersection of two established bodies of scholarship - European History and Near Eastern Studies - this volume contributes to both by opening up a new conversation about the place of crusading in medieval Mediterranean culture.

The rights of the employee and the themes of employee ownership and participation have been central, recurring themes as the body of Catholic social thought has developed. There is now a unified corpus of official Catholic teaching that focuses the resources of moral theology and natural law theory on the important social issues of the day such as this. The description and explanation of the essential elements of Catholic social thought and its relationship to these themes helps the reader think about the place of the corporation in the economy and whether British and European corporate governance and labour law do what they should to put the employee at the centre of corporate governance.

The rights of the employee and the themes of employee ownership and participation have been central, recurring themes as the body of Catholic Social Thought has developed. There is now a unified corpus of official Catholic teaching that focuses the resources of moral theology and natural law theory on the important social issues of the day such as this. The description and explanation of the essential elements of Catholic Social Thought and its relationship to these themes helps the reader think about the place of the corporation in the economy and whether British and European corporate governance and labour law do what they should to put the employee at the centre of corporate governance.

This book examines the role of the papacy and the crusade in the religious life of the late twelfth through late thirteenth centuries and beyond. Throughout the book, the contributors ask several important questions. Was Innocent III more theologian than lawyer-pope and how did his personal experience of earlier crusade campaigns inform his own vigorous promotion of the crusades? How did the outlook and policy of Honorius III differ from that of Innocent III in crucial areas including the promotion of multiple crusades (including the Fifth Crusade and the crusade of William of Montferrat) and how were both pope's mindsets manifested in writings associated with them? What kind of men did Honorius III and Innocent III select to promote their plans for reform and crusade? How did the laity make their own mark on the crusade through participation in the peace movements which were so crucial to the stability in Europe essential for enabling crusaders to fulfill their vows abroad and through joining in the liturgical processions and prayers deemed essential for divine favor at home and abroad? Further essays explore the commemoration of crusade campaigns through the deliberate construction of physical and literary paths of remembrance. Yet while the enemy was often constructed in a deliberately polarizing fashion, did confessional differences really determine the way in which Latin crusaders and their descendants interacted with the Muslim world or did a more pragmatic position of 'rough tolerance' shape mundane activities including trade agreements and treaties?