Nicholas Morton – författare

The Crusader States and their Neighbours explores the military history of the Medieval Near East, piecing together the fault-lines of conflict which entangled this much-contested region. This was an area where ethnic, religious, dynastic, and commercial interests collided and the causes of war could be numerous. Conflicts persisted for decades and were fought out between many groups including Kurds, Turks, Armenians, Arabs, and the crusaders themselves. Nicholas Morton recreates this world, exploring how each faction sought to advance its own interests by any means possible, adapting its warcraft to better respond to the threats posed by their rivals. Strategies and tactics employed by the pastoral societies of the Central Asian Steppe were pitted against the armies of the agricultural societies of Western Christendom, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, galvanising commanders to adapt their practices in response to their foes. Today, we are generally encouraged to think of this era as a time of religious conflict, and yet this vastly over-simplifies a complex region where violence could take place for many reasons and peoples of different faiths could easily find themselves fighting side-by-side.

The Crusader States and their Neighbours (Winner, The Verbruggen Prize, The Society for Medieval Military History) explores the military history of the Medieval Near East, piecing together the fault-lines of conflict which entangled this much-contested region. This was an area where ethnic, religious, dynastic, and commercial interests collided and the causes of war could be numerous. Conflicts persisted for decades and were fought out between many groups including Kurds, Turks, Armenians, Arabs, and the crusaders themselves. Nicholas Morton recreates this world, exploring how each faction sought to advance its own interests by any means possible, adapting its warcraft to better respond to the threats posed by their rivals. Strategies and tactics employed by the pastoral societies of the Central Asian Steppe were pitted against the armies of the agricultural societies of Western Christendom, Byzantium, and the Islamic World, galvanising commanders to adapt their practices in response to their foes. Today, we are generally encouraged to think of this era as a time of religious conflict, and yet this vastly over-simplifies a complex region where violence could take place for many reasons and peoples of different faiths could easily find themselves fighting side-by-side.

In 1119, the people of the Near East came together in an epic clash of horses, swords, sand, and blood that would decide the fate of the city of the Aleppo-and the eastern Crusader states. Fought between tribal Turkish warriors on steppe ponies, Arab foot soldiers, Armenian bowmen, and European knights, the battlefield was the amphitheatre into which the people of Eurasia poured their full gladiatorial might. Carrying a piece of the true cross before them, the Frankish army advanced, anticipating a victory that would secure their dominance over the entire region. But the famed Frankish cavalry charge failed them, and the well-arranged battlefield dissolved into a melee. Surrounded by enemy forces, the crusaders suffered a colossal defeat. With their advance in Northern Syria stalled, the momentum of the crusader conquest began to evaporate, and would never be recovered.

The Military Orders essay collections arising from the quadrennial conferences held at Clerkenwell in London have come to represent an international point of reference for scholars. This present volume brings together twenty-nine papers given at the seventh iteration of this event. The studies offered here cover regions as disparate as Prussia, Iberia and the Eastern Mediterranean and chronologically span topics from the Twelfth to the Twentieth century. They draw attention to little used textual and non-textual sources, advance challenging new methodologies, and help to place these military-religious institutions in a broader context.

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 First Crusade (1095-9) has often been characterised as a head-to-head confrontation between the forces of Christianity and Islam. For many, it is the campaign that created a lasting rupture between these two faiths. Nevertheless, is such a characterisation borne out by the sources? Engagingly written and supported by a wealth of evidence, Encountering Islam on the First Crusade offers a major reinterpretation of the crusaders' attitudes towards the Arabic and Turkic peoples they encountered on their journey to Jerusalem. Nicholas Morton considers how they interpreted the new peoples, civilizations and landscapes they encountered; sights for which their former lives in Western Christendom had provided little preparation. Morton offers a varied picture of cross cultural relations, depicting the Near East as an arena in which multiple protagonists were pitted against each other. Some were fighting for supremacy, others for their religion, and many simply for survival.

The First Crusade (1095-9) has often been characterised as a head-to-head confrontation between the forces of Christianity and Islam. For many, it is the campaign that created a lasting rupture between these two faiths. Nevertheless, is such a characterisation borne out by the sources? Engagingly written and supported by a wealth of evidence, Encountering Islam on the First Crusade offers a major reinterpretation of the crusaders' attitudes towards the Arabic and Turkic peoples they encountered on their journey to Jerusalem. Nicholas Morton considers how they interpreted the new peoples, civilizations and landscapes they encountered; sights for which their former lives in Western Christendom had provided little preparation. Morton offers a varied picture of cross cultural relations, depicting the Near East as an arena in which multiple protagonists were pitted against each other. Some were fighting for supremacy, others for their religion, and many simply for survival.

This volume seeks to increase understanding of the origins, ideology, implementation, impact, and historiography of religion and conflict in the medieval and early modern periods. The chapters examine ideas about religion and conflict in the context of text and identity, church and state, civic environments, marriage, the parish, heresy, gender, dialogues, war and finance, and Holy War. The volume covers a wide chronological period, and the contributors investigate relationships between religion and conflict from the seventh to eighteenth centuries ranging from Byzantium to post-conquest Mexico. Religious expressions of conflict at a localised level are explored, including the use of language in legal and clerical contexts to influence social behaviours and the use of religion to legitimise the spiritual value of violence, rationalising the enforcement of social rules. The collection also examines spatial expressions of religious conflict both within urban environments and through travel and pilgrimage.With both written and visual sources being explored, this volume is the ideal resource for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and researchers of religion and military, political, social, legal, cultural, or intellectual conflict in medieval and early modern worlds.

This volume seeks to increase understanding of the origins, ideology, implementation, impact, and historiography of religion and conflict in the medieval and early modern periods. The chapters examine ideas about religion and conflict in the context of text and identity, church and state, civic environments, marriage, the parish, heresy, gender, dialogues, war and finance, and Holy War. The volume covers a wide chronological period, and the contributors investigate relationships between religion and conflict from the seventh to eighteenth centuries ranging from Byzantium to post-conquest Mexico. Religious expressions of conflict at a localised level are explored, including the use of language in legal and clerical contexts to influence social behaviours and the use of religion to legitimise the spiritual value of violence, rationalising the enforcement of social rules. The collection also examines spatial expressions of religious conflict both within urban environments and through travel and pilgrimage.With both written and visual sources being explored, this volume is the ideal resource for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and researchers of religion and military, political, social, legal, cultural, or intellectual conflict in medieval and early modern worlds.

This new addition to the popular Seminar Studies series looks at the origins, development and organisation of the Military Orders during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, showing how they functioned as a form of religious life and concentrating on their role in the Crusades and in the government and defence of the Christian kingdoms in the Holy Land. Dr Nicholas Morton offers coverage of the Templars, Hospitalers and Teutonic Knights, as well as various smaller orders.Perfect for undergraduate students studying the Crusades, and for anyone with an interest in this popular topic, this concise and useful history contains numerous primary source materials as well as features to aid understanding.

The Military Orders essay collections arising from the quadrennial conferences held at Clerkenwell in London have come to represent an international point of reference for scholars. This present volume brings together twenty-nine papers given at the seventh iteration of this event. The studies offered here cover regions as disparate as Prussia, Iberia and the Eastern Mediterranean and chronologically span topics from the Twelfth to the Twentieth century. They draw attention to little used textual and non-textual sources, advance challenging new methodologies, and help to place these military-religious institutions in a broader context.

This volume has been created by scholars from a range of disciplines who wish to show their appreciation for Professor John France and to celebrate his career and achievements. For many decades, Professor France’s work has been instrumental in many of the advances made in the fields of crusader studies and medieval warfare. He has published widely on these topics including major publications such as: Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (1994) and Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades (1999). This present volume mirrors his interests, offering studies upon both areas. The fifteen essays cover a wide variety of topics, spanning chronologically from the Carolingian period through to the early fourteenth century. Some offer new insights upon long-contested issues, such as the question of whether a new form of cavalry was created by Charles Martel and his successors or the implications of the Mongol defeat at Ayn Jalut. Others use innovative methodologies to unlock the potential of various types of source material including: manuscript illuminations depicting warfare, Templar graffiti, German crusading songs, and crusading charters. Several of the articles open up new areas of debate connected to the history of crusading. Malcolm Barber discusses why Christendom did not react decisively to the fall of Acre in 1291. Bernard Hamilton explores how the rising Frankish presence in the Eastern Mediterranean during the central medieval period reshaped Christendom’s knowledge and understanding of the North African cultures they encountered. In this way, this work seeks both to advance debate in core areas whilst opening new vistas for future research.

The Mongols have long been viewed in the West as violent barbarians who plundered and wrecked the societiesthey invaded. But in fact the Mongol Empire was highly sophisticated, and through their conquests they built a new world order. Within the space of a single generation, they swept across the Middle East, tied Europe and Asia together through trade, and completely reshaped global geopolitics.The Mongol Storm tells the story of the Mongols and the empires they conquered. Drawing on years of deep archival research, historian Nicholas Morton traces the rise of the Mongols in the 13th century through their rapid invasions of eight different Middle Eastern societies. As Mongol armies advanced upon the Middle East, Morton shows, longstanding powers such as the Khwarazmian Empire, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the Abbasid Caliphate collapsed, while waves of refugees broke across borders and upset the region's delicate religious and social hierarchies. Amidst the chaos arose aggressive new empires including the Mamluks and the Ottomans, who would ultimately challenge the Mongol Empire's authority and dominate the Middle East for centuries. Even as the Mongols' power declined, the diplomatic and economic ties their conquests had established between once-disparate societies endured, and they left a much more connected Eurasia in their wake, permanently reconfiguring the balance of medieval world power.The Mongol Storm is an epic account of violent conflict unfolding against the vibrant backdrop of the Seljuk Turks' magnificent garden palaces, mighty Crusader fortresses, Egyptian pyramids, Damascus' sprawling markets, and the vast Mongol wagon cities. Vividly written and vast in scope, it completely revises our understanding of the Mongols and the world of the Middle Ages.

'Brain-stretching . . . pulsating . . . irresistable' The Sunday Times'Deeply researched and elegantly written - essential reading' Dan Jones'Erudite, often thrilling and much-needed' Daily TelegraphHow the Mongol invasions of the Near East reshaped the balance of world power in the Middle Ages.For centuries, the Crusades have been central to the story of the medieval Near East, but these religious wars are only part of the region's complex history. As The Mongol Storm reveals, during the same era the Near East was utterly remade by another series of wars: the Mongol invasions. In a single generation, the Mongols conquered vast swaths of the Near East and upended the region's geopolitics. Amid the chaos of the Mongol onslaught, long-standing powers such as the Byzantines, the Seljuk Turks, and the crusaders struggled to survive, while new players such as the Ottomans arose to fight back. The Mongol conquests forever transformed the region, while forging closer ties among societies spread across Eurasia.This is the definitive history of the Mongol assault on the Near East and its enduring global consequences.

'Bold, vital and urgent . . . Blows the old parochial Western accounts clean away' SUZANNAH LIPSCOMB'A refreshing and astutely judged book . . . an extensively researched and fast-paced account of the struggle for the Holy Land . . . Morton confidently steers us through a fabulous cast of characters within the region's myriad Muslim and Eastern Christian powerbrokers. Informative and immensely enjoyable' JONATHAN PHILLIPSA spectacular new panoramic history of the Crusades. From their foundation in 1097 to Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem almost a century later, the Crusader States transformed the Middle Eastern world. In an era shaped by many conflicts, this was not simply a war between Christianity and Islam, but an epic contest among multiple rival empires, dynasties and cultures.The Crusader Storm unfolds through a kaleidoscope of perspectives: a Byzantine renegade, a crusader princess, a Turkish matriarch, a young Arab nobleman, a Syriac archbishop, Saladin's leading commander and the vizier of Egypt. Between them, information, technologies and ideas - as well as weapons - crossed borders at astonishing speed as their societies fought, allied and traded. Their entangled fates reshaped not only the Middle East, but the medieval world itself.Drawing on sources from Arabic, Greek, Syriac, Armenian, Latin and Hebrew traditions, Nicholas Morton's enthralling panorama transforms our understanding of the Crusades - revealing them not as a single clash of faiths, but as a dynamic era of war, commerce, innovation and exchange that defined the course of history.PRAISE FOR THE MONGOL STORM:'Brain-stretching . . . Pulsating . . . Irresistible' SUNDAY TIMES'Deeply researched and elegantly written - essential reading' DAN JONES'Erudite . . . Thrilling and much-needed' DAILY TELEGRAPH'Revelatory, lively and stocked with colourful personalities'LITERARY REVIEW

'Bold, vital and urgent . . . Blows the old parochial Western accounts clean away' SUZANNAH LIPSCOMB'A refreshing and astutely judged book . . . an extensively researched and fast-paced account of the struggle for the Holy Land . . . Morton confidently steers us through a fabulous cast of characters within the region's myriad Muslim and Eastern Christian powerbrokers. Informative and immensely enjoyable' JONATHAN PHILLIPSA spectacular new panoramic history of the Crusades. From their foundation in 1097 to Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem almost a century later, the Crusader States transformed the Middle Eastern world. In an era shaped by many conflicts, this was not simply a war between Christianity and Islam, but an epic contest among multiple rival empires, dynasties and cultures.The Crusader Storm unfolds through a kaleidoscope of perspectives: a Byzantine renegade, a crusader princess, a Turkish matriarch, a young Arab nobleman, a Syriac archbishop, Saladin's leading commander and the vizier of Egypt. Between them, information, technologies and ideas - as well as weapons - crossed borders at astonishing speed as their societies fought, allied and traded. Their entangled fates reshaped not only the Middle East, but the medieval world itself.Drawing on sources from Arabic, Greek, Syriac, Armenian, Latin and Hebrew traditions, Nicholas Morton's enthralling panorama transforms our understanding of the Crusades - revealing them not as a single clash of faiths, but as a dynamic era of war, commerce, innovation and exchange that defined the course of history.PRAISE FOR THE MONGOL STORM:'Brain-stretching . . . Pulsating . . . Irresistible' SUNDAY TIMES'Deeply researched and elegantly written - essential reading' DAN JONES'Erudite . . . Thrilling and much-needed' DAILY TELEGRAPH'Revelatory, lively and stocked with colourful personalities'LITERARY REVIEW

This new seminar study considers the origins, development and organisation of the military orders during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, showing how they functioned as a form of religious life and concentrating on their role in the crusades and in the government and defence of the Christian kingdoms in the Holy Land.

This volume has been created by scholars from a range of disciplines who wish to show their appreciation for Professor John France and to celebrate his career and achievements. For many decades, Professor France’s work has been instrumental in many of the advances made in the fields of crusader studies and medieval warfare. He has published widely on these topics including major publications such as: Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (1994) and Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades (1999). This present volume mirrors his interests, offering studies upon both areas. The fifteen essays cover a wide variety of topics, spanning chronologically from the Carolingian period through to the early fourteenth century. Some offer new insights upon long-contested issues, such as the question of whether a new form of cavalry was created by Charles Martel and his successors or the implications of the Mongol defeat at Ayn Jalut. Others use innovative methodologies to unlock the potential of various types of source material including: manuscript illuminations depicting warfare, Templar graffiti, German crusading songs, and crusading charters. Several of the articles open up new areas of debate connected to the history of crusading. Malcolm Barber discusses why Christendom did not react decisively to the fall of Acre in 1291. Bernard Hamilton explores how the rising Frankish presence in the Eastern Mediterranean during the central medieval period reshaped Christendom’s knowledge and understanding of the North African cultures they encountered. In this way, this work seeks both to advance debate in core areas whilst opening new vistas for future research.

A detailed study of the Teutonic Knights in the Holy Land, covering both their military and administrative affairs.The Teutonic Order was founded in 1190 to provide medical care for crusaders in the kingdom of Jerusalem. In time, it assumed a military role and played an important part in the defence of the Christian territories in the EasternMediterranean and in the Baltic regions of Prussia and Livonia; in the Levant, it fought against the neighbouring Islamic powers, whilst managing their turbulent relations with their patrons in the papacy and the German Empire. Asthe Order grew, it colonised territories in Prussia and Livonia, forcing it to address how it distributed its resources between its geographically-spread communities. Similarly, the brethren also needed to develop an organisational framework that could support the conduct of war on frontiers that were divided by hundreds of miles.This book - the first comprehensive analysis of the Order in the Holy Land - explores the formative years of this powerful international institution and places its deeds in the Levant within the context of the wider Christian, pagan and Islamic world. It examines the challenges that shaped its identity and the masters who planned its policies.Dr NICHOLAS MORTON is Lecturer in History at Nottingham Trent University.

A detailed study of the Teutonic Knights in the Holy Land, covering both their military and administrative affairs.The Teutonic Order was founded in 1190 to provide medical care for crusaders in the kingdom of Jerusalem. In time, it assumed a military role and played an important part in the defence of the Christian territories in the EasternMediterranean and in the Baltic regions of Prussia and Livonia; in the Levant, it fought against the neighbouring Islamic powers, whilst managing their turbulent relations with their patrons in the papacy and the German Empire. Asthe Order grew, it colonised territories in Prussia and Livonia, forcing it to address how it distributed its resources between its geographically-spread communities. Similarly, the brethren also needed to develop an organisational framework that could support the conduct of war on frontiers that were divided by hundreds of miles.This book - the first comprehensive analysis of the Order in the Holy Land - explores the formative years of this powerful international institution and places its deeds in the Levant within the context of the wider Christian, pagan and Islamic world. It examines the challenges that shaped its identity and the masters who planned its policies.Dr NICHOLAS MORTON is Lecturer in History at Nottingham Trent University.