Elizabeth Lapina – författare

In Warfare and the Miraculous in the Chronicles of the First Crusade, Elizabeth Lapina examines a variety of these chronicles, written both by participants in the crusade and by those who stayed behind. Her goal is to understand the enterprise from the perspective of its contemporaries and near contemporaries. Lapina analyzes the diversity of ways in which the chroniclers tried to justify the First Crusade as a “holy war,” where physical violence could be not just sinless, but salvific.The book focuses on accounts of miracles reported to have happened in the course of the crusade, especially the miracle of the intervention of saints in the Battle of Antioch. Lapina shows why and how chroniclers used these miracles to provide historical precedent and to reconcile the messiness of history with the conviction that history was ordered by divine will. In doing so, she provides an important glimpse into the intellectual efforts of the chronicles and their authors, illuminating their perspectives toward the concepts of history, salvation, and the East. Warfare and the Miraculous in the Chronicles of the First Crusade demonstrates how these narratives sought to position the crusade as an event in the time line of sacred history. Lapina offers original insights into the effects of the crusade on the Western imaginary as well as how medieval authors thought about and represented history.

Depicting the Holy War examines the impact that crusades in the Middle East had on societies in western Europe through the analysis of a heretofore largely ignored type of source: mural paintings. In this book, Elizabeth Lapina analyzes five programs of mural paintings from the early twelfth to the late thirteenth century in what is today France and England—in Hardham, Berzé-la-Ville, Poncé-sur-le-Loir, Cressac, and Tour Ferrande. These images provide rare sources of information about attitudes toward crusades in locations that have produced next to no written evidence about the subject, such as rural parishes. Four of the murals are found in ecclesiastical structures, themselves sacred and made more so as the location of the celebration of mass. This sacralization of violence, Lapina argues, led to changing attitudes toward the enemy and depictions of battles as “holy wars” between the forces of good and evil. The mural paintings come from England, Normandy, Aquitaine, Provence, and Burgundy, areas that supplied both numerous crusaders and ideas related to crusades. Taken together, the murals show a trend toward an acceptance and celebration of increasingly varied types of violence across the period.This pathbreaking study employs new methods to open a window onto perceptions and representations of crusades in strata of society about which we know relatively little. It will be indispensable to historians and art historians who study crusades, warfare, and violence in medieval England and France.

From the late eleventh to the late thirteenth century, during the existence of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and other crusader states, Latin Christians did not only frequently encounter Muslims on the battlefield, but also engaged in unprecedented commercial and cultural exchanges with the Muslim, Eastern Christian, and Jewish inhabitants of the Middle East. Through a focused analysis of fifty objects, this volume examines what material culture can tell us about interpersonal, interfaith, cross-cultural, and trans-regional encounters during this period.This richly illustrated volume explores a variety of Latin Christian, Eastern Christian, Muslim, and Jewish objects, including sculpture, glassware, metalware, manuscripts, textiles, painting, coins, and seals. Addressing the themes of Belief, Conflict, Exchange, Power, and Memory, the essays examine the conception of these objects and the uses to which they were put throughout their history. As a result, there emerges a picture of the Middle East as a place of profound cultural diversity and of multiplicity of encounters between different communities.The book stands as a valuable resource for students and scholars of the medieval crusades, the medieval Middle East and Europe, as well as all those interested in archaeology, art history, global history, and religious studies more broadly.

From the late eleventh to the late thirteenth century, during the existence of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and other crusader states, Latin Christians did not only frequently encounter Muslims on the battlefield, but also engaged in unprecedented commercial and cultural exchanges with the Muslim, Eastern Christian, and Jewish inhabitants of the Middle East. Through a focused analysis of fifty objects, this volume examines what material culture can tell us about interpersonal, interfaith, cross-cultural, and trans-regional encounters during this period.This richly illustrated volume explores a variety of Latin Christian, Eastern Christian, Muslim, and Jewish objects, including sculpture, glassware, metalware, manuscripts, textiles, painting, coins, and seals. Addressing the themes of Belief, Conflict, Exchange, Power, and Memory, the essays examine the conception of these objects and the uses to which they were put throughout their history. As a result, there emerges a picture of the Middle East as a place of profound cultural diversity and of multiplicity of encounters between different communities.The book stands as a valuable resource for students and scholars of the medieval crusades, the medieval Middle East and Europe, as well as all those interested in archaeology, art history, global history, and religious studies more broadly.

The great Crusader fortresses are amongst the most enduring and iconic legacies of the Latin East, but they represent only a fraction of the surviving material culture. From the establishment of the kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099 through to the fall of the kingdom of Cyprus in 1571, these complex and energetic societies produced an astonishing variety of items, from textiles to metalwork, from mural paintings to stone carving, and from ceramics to glassware, whilst constructing a huge array of buildings and installations, including houses, churches, ports and fortifications. This handbook explores the rich material culture from this era whether produced by the Frankish settlers themselves or by the many other communities within the territories they founded. Dovetailing these sources with the surviving textual materials, the chapters contained in this volume demonstrate how items of material culture can illuminate themes as varied as daily life, religious observance, warfare, trade, and technological change.In particular, this work draws out the cross-cultural trends shaping the Crusader states’ history and the constellation of influences that contributed to its evolving identity. It also extends beyond the Crusader states’ final collapse to consider how cultures in later centuries drew upon these territories’ memory in their own material culture.

The Crusades and Nature: Natural and Supernatural Environments in the Middle Ages explores the intersection of crusader studies and studies of nature.

The Crusades and Nature: Natural and Supernatural Environments in the Middle Ages explores the intersection of crusader studies and studies of nature. The volume addresses encounters with, responses to and representations of a broad variety of phenomena: celestial objects and events; familiar and unfamiliar fauna and flora; seascapes and landscapes; the elements and the seasons; etc. It introduces readers to crusaders’ actual, but also largely or entirely imaginary encounters with natural phenomena, as well as literary references to nature in crusader sources more generally (such as, for example, animal metaphors). Finally, this project investigates the relationships between the natural and the supernatural and between nature and human-made environments. The volume will define “crusades” broadly, to include not only crusades to the East, but also crusades to frontier regions such as the Baltic and Iberian peninsula and extends to representations of crusades and nature in later medieval and early modern sources.

The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources sets out to understand the ideology and spirituality of crusading by exploring the biblical imagery and exegetical interpretations which formed its philosophical basis. Medieval authors frequently drew upon scripture when seeking to justify, praise, or censure the deeds of crusading warriors on many frontiers. After all, as the fundamental written manifestation of God’s will for mankind, the Bible was the ultimate authority for contemporary writers when advancing their ideas and framing their world view. This volume explores a broad spectrum of biblically-derived themes surrounding crusading and, by doing so, seeks to better comprehend a thought world in which lethal violence could be deemed justifiable according to Christian theology.Contributors are: Jessalynn Bird, Adam M. Bishop, John D. Cotts, Sini Kangas, Thomas Lecaque, T. J. H. McCarthy, Nicholas Morton, Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen, Luigi Russo, Uri Shachar, Iris Shagrir, Kristin Skottki, Katherine Allen Smith, Thomas W. Smith, Carol Sweetenham, Miriam Rita Tessera, Jan Vandeburie, Julian J. T. Yolles, and Lydia Marie Walker.