- Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Saint Louis University
3800 Lindell Blvd.
Saint Louis, MO 63108
USA
Thomas F Madden
Saint Louis University, History, Faculty Member
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... must have occurred sometime between 1176 and 11923 After the con-quest of Constantinople in 1204 ... 17 At the agreed time Villehardouin and his companions were led to the ducal palace. ... the cross to avenge the shame done to Jesus... more
... must have occurred sometime between 1176 and 11923 After the con-quest of Constantinople in 1204 ... 17 At the agreed time Villehardouin and his companions were led to the ducal palace. ... the cross to avenge the shame done to Jesus Christ and to conquer Jerusalem, if God ...
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Contents: Introduction Event: Richard I and the early evolution of the 4th crusade, Vincent Ryan Venise et son arriAre-pays au temps de la quatriAme croisade, Pierre Racine The '4 crusades' of 1204, Marco Meschini. Aftermath: The... more
Contents: Introduction Event: Richard I and the early evolution of the 4th crusade, Vincent Ryan Venise et son arriAre-pays au temps de la quatriAme croisade, Pierre Racine The '4 crusades' of 1204, Marco Meschini. Aftermath: The Latin empire of Constantinople's fractured foundation: the rift between Boniface of Montferrat and Baldwin of Flanders, Thomas F. Madden The Greeks of Constantinople under Latin rule 1204a "1261, David Jacoby The effects of the 4th crusade on European gold coinage, Robert D. Leonard Jr. Perceptions: The Translatio Symonensis and the 7 thieves: a Venetian 4th crusade Furta Sacra narrative and the looting of Constantinople, David M. Perry Between justification and glory: the Venetian Chronicles' view of the 4th crusade, Serban Marin Per Innocenzo III i Cristiani Latini 'peggiori degli altri': l'anno 1204. Un sintomo di nuova cultura, Guilio Cipollone Aux sources de la chronique en prose franA aise: entre dA(c)culturation et acculturation, Cyril Aslanov Arab perspectives on the 4th crusade, William J. Hamblin Index.
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Many medieval chroniclers described the Christian conquest of Jerusalem during the First Crusade in 1099 and their words have been repeated ever since without much scrutiny. As horrible as the carnage was in the mosque and in the rest of... more
Many medieval chroniclers described the Christian conquest of Jerusalem during the First Crusade in 1099 and their words have been repeated ever since without much scrutiny. As horrible as the carnage was in the mosque and in the rest of the city, it could never be enough to sustain the reports of streets of blood that are heard so often today. These are fantastical descriptions, clearly impossible. Modern descriptions of crusaders wading through streets of blood turn a historical massacre into little more than a cartoon. The blood that was spilled in the massacre of Jerusalem was real; the rivers of it that course down the pages of modern newspapers and popular books are not.
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Marios, and Walter K. Hanak. The Siege and the Fall of Constantinople in 1453: Historiography, Topography, and Military Studies. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2011. Pp. 759.This is an unusual book in many respects. Despite its title,... more
Marios, and Walter K. Hanak. The Siege and the Fall of Constantinople in 1453: Historiography, Topography, and Military Studies. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2011. Pp. 759.This is an unusual book in many respects. Despite its title, the publication is not a historical narrative of a specific event. Indeed, the book assumes a fairly extensive familiarity with fifteenth-century Constantinople from the start. At nearly eight hundred pages, it also cannot be called a handbook. Perhaps the text is best described as a work in the "toward a history" gerne, this one regarding the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Whatever one calls the volume, though, there is no doubt that this opus represents an extraordinary effort. Any scholar with an interest in the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople will find this work very useful.The book is divided into two main parts, the first evaluating the sources for the siege and fall and the second analyzing the military operations themselves. The first chapter provides an excellent overview and evaluation of the major sources for the event as well as the production of later memory as it manifested itself in subsequent historiography. The next two chapters discuss specific historiographical problems. Chapter 2 examines a few works that are not often used for inquiries into the events of 1453, namely Riccherio, Tetaldi, Pius H, and Nestor-Iskander. The last, the authors argue, is especially important as an eyewitness source. Chapter 3 follows this up with an extended discussion of the relationship between Georgios Sphrantzes' Chronicon Minns and the elaborated Chronicon Mains. The last chapter of the first part is a bit surprising, for it opens the vast subject of the subsequent myths and legends surrounding the fall of Constantinople. The authors reference the enormity of the subject several times yet are content to focus their examination on prophecies and the final resting place of Constantine XI.The book's second part examines various aspects of the military siege itself. Chapter 5 provides an analysis and many pictures of the city's fortifications. The authors maintain that previous efforts to understand the siege "even by the most eminent scholars and respected authors" are deficient because of their "unfamiliarity with the ancient remains" (xiv). The authors, therefore, assure the reader that they have themselves "spent a great deal of time surveying the walls, gates, and adjacent structures, even in neighborhoods such as Sulu Kale, which are seldom if ever visited by scholars" (xiv). Chapter 6 examines some of the imperial court's diplomatic efforts, while Chapter 7 explores the Ottoman preparations for the siege. Chapter 8 turns to Constantinople's secure harbor, the Golden Horn. The authors maintain that the extraordinary effort that Sultan Mehmed II put into carrying his ships overland and into the harbor has blinded historians to its true significance. They insist that the naval threat to the city was, in fact, minimal. Instead, they surmise that the Ottomans used their vessels as a diversionary tactic, which forced the defenders to move precious forces away from the land walls, where the siege would ultimately be decided. …
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There is no doubt that Pope Urban II’s sermon at Clermont that launched the First Crusade in 1095 struck a chord with Europe’s nobility. Just what chord it struck, though, remains an open question. The headstrong warriors, it is sometimes... more
There is no doubt that Pope Urban II’s sermon at Clermont that launched the First Crusade in 1095 struck a chord with Europe’s nobility. Just what chord it struck, though, remains an open question. The headstrong warriors, it is sometimes said, responded to reports of Muslim attacks on Eastern Christians with a burning desire to exact vengeance through what amounted to a vendetta. Susanna A. Throop’s analysis suggests that things were not that simple. The book begins with a survey of the five main eyewitness accounts of the First Crusade—the Gesta Francorum, Fulcher of Chartres, Peter Tudebode, Ekkehard of Aura, and Raymond of Aguilers—revealing that references to vengeance were rare. Indeed, of the five only Raymond of Aguilers refers to crusading as an act of vengeance and does so only twice. Instead, eyewitnesses overwhelmingly describe the crusade as a religious pilgrimage and the crusaders as pious men devoting their lives to God, like monks in their cells. This, Throop argues, confirms Jonathan Riley-Smith’s famous description of the crusade as a monastery on the march. It was not the eyewitness sources (and by extension the participants) that characterized the First Crusade as an act of vengeance, but the first generation of nonparticipant authors who reworked and enhanced the story before 1138. Writers like Robert of Rheims and Guibert of Nogent made much of the righteous vengeance that the crusaders had visited upon wrongdoers. Throop classifies into three categories the rationales expressed by these authors to justify crusading vengeance. First, and most intuitively, was that Muslims had made God their enemy by rejecting his faith, persecuting his people, and defiling his holy places. Interestingly, though, Throop finds that Muslims were not characterized as a foreign “other.” On the contrary, they were described as a people not unlike Europeans, yet who had chosen the way of sin and evil. Vengeance, therefore, belonged to God, and the crusade was the tool of that vengeance. Throop’s second category fits closely with Riley-Smith’s characterization of crusading as “an act of love” (History 65 [1980]: 185– 9). Well-understood concepts like caritas and auxilium, which Christians owed to their family and friends, were extended to the wider family of all Christians joined in brotherhood with Christ, with God as their father and Jerusalem as their mother. Thus, Muslim attacks on Christians necessarily demanded vengeance. Finally, there was the vengeance for the crucifixion of Christ, which Throop examines in relationship to the anti-Jewish pogroms in Germany. She finds little evidence for this rationale in the early sources. The Anonymous Mainz refers to vengeance rarely, and it is but one of many explanations for the violence. First-generation Latin sources are silent on the subject. Indeed, when they refer to the pogroms at all it is with disapproval. These same categories of vengeance are then followed chronologically forward, first between 1138 and 1197 and then during the pontificate of Innocent III (1198–1216). Although the papacy refrained from equating crusade with vengeance during this first period, the concept blossomed almost everywhere else. Crusade narratives, chronicles, and songs routinely use the words of vengeance—which Throop defines for this study as vindicta, ultio, and venjance—to describe crusade activities. It may be, as Throop sensibly 928 Reviews
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The Catholic Historical Review Copyright © 2001 The Catholic University of America Press. All rights reserved. The Catholic Historical Review 87.4 (2001) 729, ...
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way stones are worked and foundations laid are never redundant; the authors use them to bring the reader into dialogue with the medieval engineers and masons, though without personifying them as Master This and Master That.Their account... more
way stones are worked and foundations laid are never redundant; the authors use them to bring the reader into dialogue with the medieval engineers and masons, though without personifying them as Master This and Master That.Their account is replete with historical figures whose names appear in the documents—the donors and canons who underwrote and oversaw the work.And an original viewing community comes to life in sections on the ritual uses of the refectory for reading and dining (chap.8), and on the more mundane aspects of daily life (chap.9).
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court of Western Europe. One tract (Modus procedendi in tuitoriis negociis) offers a guide to correct forms of action, while a second (Iste est modus prosequendi causas in curia Cantuariensi) provides for lawyers a practical guide on how... more
court of Western Europe. One tract (Modus procedendi in tuitoriis negociis) offers a guide to correct forms of action, while a second (Iste est modus prosequendi causas in curia Cantuariensi) provides for lawyers a practical guide on how to proceed in the Arches.A third treatise (Hic calumpniatur processus curie Cantuariensis) concerns calumnies in the narrow sense, i.e., unjust, unfair, inappropriate court practices.The fourth and fifth works are academic handbooks for advocates. While Quia cause ad curiam Cantuariensem is straightforward, the Tractatus super appellacionibus tam directis quam tuitoriis secundum consuetudinem curie Cantuariensis presents the longest and most developed procedural treatise on the court. Composed in stages by several authors, this last-named treatise evidences no principle of organization after a short initial summary section.
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This article re-evaluates Venice's interests in the Patriarchate of Constantinople as well as the disputes that arose regarding the elections of the patriarchates.
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Emperor Alexius I Comnenus granted to the Republic of Venice a generous chrysobull of privileges and property in return for the latter's support in Byzantium's war with the Normans. Despite more than a century of criticism, scholarly... more
Emperor Alexius I Comnenus granted to the Republic of Venice a generous chrysobull of privileges and property in return for the latter's support in Byzantium's war with the Normans. Despite more than a century of criticism, scholarly consensus continues to favour May 1082 as the probable date for this important chrysobull. Various attempts by scholars to offer alternate dates have not met with success or acceptance. The evidence for the date of the imperial charter can be divided into three categories: near-contemporary chronicles, contemporary archival documents, and textual/paleographic evidence. An examination of the evidence considered in its totality appears to confirm the traditional date of May 1082.