Historical Dictionary of the Crusades (review)

This volume joins a crowded field of new reference books on the crusades, most notably Alfred J. Andrea's excellent Encyclopedia of the Crusades(Greenwood, 2003) and the multi-volume Encyclopedia of the Crusadesedited by Alan Murray and forthcoming from ABC-Clio. The present dictionary has the advantage of being concise and appears to be pitched at an undergraduate audience. It has other strengths as well. There are good entries on many primary sources for the crusades as well as on the military technology and strategies used during the campaigns. Yet elsewhere it does not seem as well grounded in recent crusade scholarship. This is particularly true when it comes to the purpose of the crusades and the motivations of the crusaders. Historians like Jonathan Riley-Smith and Giles Constable have shown us the enormous importance of medieval religious piety for understanding the movement. Yet there is none of that here. Instead, right from the preface the crusades are portrayed as "a contest for economic and military supremacy that was often expressed in religious terminology" (p. xii). Why it should be expressed in that way is not made clear. Nor is it explained why one would want artificially to strip religion out of the intensely religious exercise of crusading. Be that as it may, this statement and others like it ignore decades of modern crusade historiography.

Equally surprising is the focus here on the "traditional" crusades—those major campaigns aimed at the conquest or defense of Jerusalem between 1095 and 1291. Few others are included. Readers will search in vain for the Crusade of King Sigurd, the Venetian Crusade of 1122, the Crusade of Nicopolis, the Crusade of Varna, or even the Battle of Lepanto. There are, however, entries for subjects that seem rather tangential to the crusades, for example, the Spanish Inquisition, the Waldensians, and St. Catherine of Siena. Given the strength of the entries on military history, one might expect that crusade battles would be well represented. Here again, though, there are odd omissions. One will find the Battle of Hattin, for example, but no entries at all on the battles at Manzikert, the Field of Blood, Las Navas de Tolosa, or Muret. Most prominent rulers and leaders are included, but not all. For example, all of the kings of Jerusalem to 1291 have their own entries, yet the Latin emperors of Constantinople do not. Popes like Innocent III and Alexander III are included, but others like Innocent IV or Gregory IX are not. Since some of these popes, rulers, battles, etc., are referred to in other entries an index would certainly have been helpful. Finally, there are a few surprising errors. These include that Justinian "was unable to conquer the Italian peninsula" (p. 3) and that "the word popecame from the Greek word for bishops" (p. 174). The entry on the Fourth Crusade has numerous errors.

Producing a concise dictionary for a subject as large and complex as the crusades is surely no easy task. Despite some flaws, in most respects this remains a sound and convenient reference work. It will surely be of use to those students just beginning their explorations into crusade studies.