Papers by Christoph T Maier
How Modern Are Modern Crusade Studies?
Speculum, 2024
This article explores the historiography of the medieval crusades in recent decades. It begins by... more This article explores the historiography of the medieval crusades in recent decades. It begins by questioning the usefulness of the compartmentalization of the field of crusade studies into “traditionalist,”“pluralist,” “generalist,” and “popularist” approaches, which has been employed for some time to describe different strands within modern crusade scholarship. It argues that the stark contrast between “traditionalists” and “pluralists” in particular has been overstated and does not accurately reflect the developments of recent researchbased work on the crusades. As an alternative, this essay suggests viewing the field in terms of narrative traditions and examines how these traditions, which in some of their constituent elements reach all the way back to the Middle Ages, have been conserved and at the same time transformed in recent decades. It argues that, while textbook histories of the crusades still tend to follow traditional narrative patterns, specialist studies have for some time placed the medieval crusades in new thematic contexts. The article closes with an appeal to acknowledge recent approaches and results of specialist studies by expanding and reorientating the standard master narrative of the medieval crusades. It suggests that they should no longer only be viewed as part of a clash-of-cultures narrative mainly focusing on the geographical edges of Europe but also as a movement which affected and crucially shaped many aspects of mainstream European society during the Middle Ages.
Crusade: The Uses of a Word from the Middle Ages to the Present, 2024
This chapter has been made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. German is a complicated lan... more This chapter has been made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. German is a complicated language. Whereas English has one standard expression for referring to the crusade, German has two: Kreuzfahrt and Kreuzzug. This has probably to do with the way in which the Latin cruciata or the Romance crozada/crozeia/crozea/croiserie were translated and absorbed into the two languages. Aided by its partly Romance roots, English merely transformed the Latin viz. Romance term by anglicising it to the word 'crusade'. In contrast, German translated the term by using its own lexical pool. In doing so, two alternative terms emerged: Kreuzfahrt and Kreuzzug. Kreuzfahrt is an earlier word dating back to medieval times. It has also had several meanings, including 'pleasure cruise' and 'Way of the Cross,' some of which have been preserved to the present day. Kreuzzug, on the other hand, does not appear until after the Middle Ages and is more narrowly defined. It is now the preferred term in German for referring to what the English language describes as 'crusade.' Nevertheless, today Kreuzfahrt, too, is still being used as a less frequent synonym for Kreuzzug. The history of the use of the words Kreuzfahrt and Kreuzzug has so far not been investigated in any systematic fashion. This article presents some aspects of this history with the aim of pointing possible paths towards a more comprehensive treatment of the question of how the German language has conceptualised what in English is referred to as 'crusade.' The following survey is far from complete. It highlights two key moments in the history of German crusade terminology: firstly, its medieval origins in vernacular texts of the 12 th to the 14 th centuries, culminating in the first known occurrence of the word kriuzvart/cruzevart in the late 13 th century; and secondly, the first use of the terms Kreuzzug and Kreuzfahrt for referring to the events and phenomenon we now conceptualise as the crusades in 17 th-and 18 th-century texts, which gradually began using the two terms in a systematic manner.
Journal of Medieval History, 2023
This article presents a case study of the papal communication accompanying crusader violence agai... more This article presents a case study of the papal communication accompanying crusader violence against Jews in France in the mid 1230s. The pogroms perpetrated during the preparatory phase of the so-called Crusade of the Barons, during which 1000s of Jews were killed, are the best-documented anti-Jewish attacks of the thirteenth century. They coincide with a period of unprecedented crusade propaganda in Europe when crusades to the Holy Land, the Latin Empire and the Baltic were preached. The article argues that the pogroms were at least in part provoked by Pope Gregory IX's crusade message, which formed the basis of propaganda, even though the pope never called for violence against Jews and on the contrary condemned the attacks sharply. The fact that so many Jews were killed by crusaders in France in the mid 1230s can, therefore, be described as the result of a partial breakdown of papal communication.
Anglo-Norman Studies XLIV, 2022
Except for the general expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290, the York massacre of 1190 is a... more Except for the general expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290, the York massacre of 1190 is arguably the most momentous and disruptive event in the history of the relationship between Christians and Jews in medieval England. Contemporaries, both Christian and Jewish, in England and elsewhere remarked on the enormity of the massacre in which around one hundred and fifty people are estimated to have died. As a subject of historiography, the York massacre can be framed in different contexts. First of all, there is the wider history of the relationship between Christians and Jews in twelfth-century England. Secondly, there is the more immediate context of the late twelfth century which witnessed an increasing hostility towards Jews in England. Thirdly, there is a crusading context. The York massacre took place during the preparatory phase of the Third Crusade, in which the English King Richard I played a leading role. This makes sense because, since its beginnings at the end of the eleventh century, the crusade movement carried with it a potential for anti-Jewish violence which intermittently led to pogroms against Jews perpetrated by crusaders. The York massacre of 1190 can, in fact, be understood as a typical example of the structural violence with which the crusading movement confronted European Jewry. It is this third frame, that is the connections between crusading and the York massacre, which will be the focus of this article.
When Was the First History of the Crusades Written?
The Crusades:History and Memory, 2021
This article considers the question of when historians first used the word ‘crusade’ for telling ... more This article considers the question of when historians first used the word ‘crusade’ for telling the story which modern historians call the history of the crusades. In the Middle Ages, the word ‘crusade’ (cruciata, croiserie), as opposed to ‘crusader’ (crucesignatus) was only used very occasionally and rarely described what is nowadays called a crusade,
i.e. a particular type of medieval warfare. In fact, it was
not until the seventeenth century that French historians
first used the concept of croisade in writing the story of what had previously been termed the ‘history of the holy war’ or guerre sainte. This article investigates how the seventeenth century became a terminological watershed for crusade history and examines the impact that this change in terminology has had on modern crusade studies.
Brevis Ordinacio de Predicacione Sancte Crucis: Edition, Translation and Commentary
Crusades 18, 2019
Propaganda and masculinity. Gendering the crusades in thirteenth-century sermons
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Papers by Christoph T Maier
i.e. a particular type of medieval warfare. In fact, it was
not until the seventeenth century that French historians
first used the concept of croisade in writing the story of what had previously been termed the ‘history of the holy war’ or guerre sainte. This article investigates how the seventeenth century became a terminological watershed for crusade history and examines the impact that this change in terminology has had on modern crusade studies.