Katherine Allen Katherine Smith – författare

A new investigation into the twelfth-century accounts of the First Crusade, showing their complex relationship with the Bible.The Bible exerted an enormous influence on the crusading movement: it provided medieval Christians with language to describe holy war, spiritual models for crusaders, and justifications for conquests in the East. This book adds tothe growing body of scholarship on the biblical underpinnings of crusading, offering a reappraisal of the early twelfth-century narratives of the First Crusade as works of biblical exegesis rather than simply historical texts. Itrestores these works and their authors to the context of the monastic and cathedral schools where the curricula centred on biblical study, and demonstrates how the crusade's narrators applied familiar methods of scriptural commentary to the crusade, treating it as a text which could, like the Bible, be understood through historical, allegorical, and mystical lenses. These glosses of the First Crusade, which collectively constitute one of the greatintellectual achievements of their age, drew upon the Scriptures and earlier Christian theology, pilgrimage guides, and polemic to construct the crusade as a new chapter of sacred history. Within this story, the first crusaders played various biblically inspired roles: as new Israelites, they wrested the promised land from Muslims cast as new Canaanites and Babylonians; as new apostles, they reenacted some of the greatest miracles of the Gospels. By reconstructing the interpretive processes that made such readings possible, this study allows us to better appreciate the crusading movement's relationship to church reform, the apostolic revival, and the growth of anti-Jewish sentiment in twelfth-century Europe. KATHERINE ALLEN SMITH is professor of history at the University of Puget Sound.

A new investigation into the twelfth-century accounts of the First Crusade, showing their complex relationship with the Bible.The Bible exerted an enormous influence on the crusading movement: it provided medieval Christians with language to describe holy war, spiritual models for crusaders, and justifications for conquests in the East. This book adds tothe growing body of scholarship on the biblical underpinnings of crusading, offering a reappraisal of the early twelfth-century narratives of the First Crusade as works of biblical exegesis rather than simply historical texts. Itrestores these works and their authors to the context of the monastic and cathedral schools where the curricula centred on biblical study, and demonstrates how the crusade's narrators applied familiar methods of scriptural commentary to the crusade, treating it as a text which could, like the Bible, be understood through historical, allegorical, and mystical lenses. These glosses of the First Crusade, which collectively constitute one of the greatintellectual achievements of their age, drew upon the Scriptures and earlier Christian theology, pilgrimage guides, and polemic to construct the crusade as a new chapter of sacred history. Within this story, the first crusaders played various biblically inspired roles: as new Israelites, they wrested the promised land from Muslims cast as new Canaanites and Babylonians; as new apostles, they reenacted some of the greatest miracles of the Gospels. By reconstructing the interpretive processes that made such readings possible, this study allows us to better appreciate the crusading movement's relationship to church reform, the apostolic revival, and the growth of anti-Jewish sentiment in twelfth-century Europe. KATHERINE ALLEN SMITH is professor of history at the University of Puget Sound.

Finalist for AAH First Book PrizeThe monastic life, traditionally considered as an area of withdrawal from the world, is here shown to be shaped by metaphors of war, and to be actively engaged with battle in the world outside.An extremely interesting and important book... makes an important contribution to the history of medieval monastic spirituality in a formative period, whilst also fitting into wider debates on the origins, development and impactof ideas on crusading and holy war. Dr William Purkis, University of BirminghamMonastic culture has generally been seen as set apart from the medieval battlefield, as "those who prayed" were set apart from "those whofought". However, in this first study of the place of war within medieval monastic culture, the author shows the limitations of this division. Through a wide reading of Latin sermons, letters, and hagiography, she identifies a monastic language of war that presented the monk as the archetypal "soldier of Christ" and his life of prayer as a continuous combat with the devil: indeed, monks' claims to supremacy on the spiritual battlefield grew even louder asChurch leaders extended the title of "soldier of Christ" to lay knights and crusaders. So, while medieval monasteries have traditionally been portrayed as peaceful sanctuaries in a violent world, here the author demonstrates thatmonastic identity was negotiated through real and imaginary encounters with war, and that the concept of spiritual warfare informed virtually every aspect of life in the cloister. It thus breaks new ground in the history of European attitudes toward warfare and warriors in the age of the papal reform movement and the early crusades.Katherine Allen Smith is Assistant Professor of History, University of Puget Sound.