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Reviews 157 achievement is to bring these writings to the attention of a wider audience that would not automatically have access to volumes in the Cistercian Fathers series. Something is better than nothing. Matarasso's translation is fresh and idiomatic, avoiding the stodginess that can beset 'pious'texts.Her rendition of the anonymous Description of the abbey of Clairvaux fully recaptures the naturalistic elegance of this masterpiece of twelfth-century prose. The text also happens to teach us a lot about the sophistication of irrigation at the abbey. This inexpensive volume provides a valuable addition to the growing number of Penguin Classics from the medieval period. Constant J. M e w s Department of History Monash University. Mayer, Hans E., Kings and lords in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Collected studies series, 437), Aldershot, Variorum, 1994; cloth; pp. x, 338; R.R.P. £52.50. This is the third volume of the collected studies of Hans Mayer to appear in the Variorum Collected Studies Series, the two previous ones being: Kreuzztige und lateinischer Orient and Probleme des lateinischen KOnigreichs Jerusalem (both 1983). This latest collection of Mayer's articles comprises eighteen studies in German, English, and French published between 1982 and 1991. Professor Mayer of Kiel University is amongst the most prominent scholars of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the world. His output is prolific and it would be impossible to do more than to list the various studies here if each were to be mentioned. Therefore, comment has been limited to selected articles. Mayer's work is always full of surprises. If it has a particular characteristic, it is that he is a master of ferretting away at primary sources, often ones which have been turned over many times, to produce new insights. Thus in 'Guillaume de Tyr a I'icole', he argues for a connection between Cardinal John of SS. Silvestro and Martino and William of Tyre, the great historian of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Basing his hypothesis on two favourable mentions of Cardinal John in William's chronicle, he then shows that in an earlier life John had been a master at the school of the 158 Reviews Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where it has always been supposed that William received his primary education. Another study, 'Henry II of England and the Holy Land', is of the same ilk. The argument runs as follows. From 1172 Henry II sent money annually to the Holy Land to be held in trust for him by the Templars and HospitaUers as part of his penance for the murder of Thomas Becket and in preparation for his projected Crusade. By 1187 this treasure had reached 30,000 silver marks. Part of it was seized in the spring of that year by the King of Jerusalem, Guy of Lusignan, with the support of the Master of the Templars, Gerard of Ridefort and over the objections of the Master of the Hospitallers, in order to pay for footsoldiers for the forthcoming campaign against Saladin in the summer. This act lay behind the disaster at the Horns of Hattin. Guy and Gerard had norightto seize Henry's treasure without his permission. When, against the advice of all of the barons, including the Count of Tripoli, Guy allowed Gerard to persuade him to leave the safe defensive position in which the army lay at the Springs of Safforiah, they were both motivated not by a gallant desire to rescue a damsel in distress, the Lady Eschiva, Princess of GalUee and wife of the Count of Tripoli, who was under siege by Saladin at Tiberias, as the chroniclers would have it. Rather, then real motive was a need to achieve a spectacular victory in batde over Saladin in order to placate the wrath of the English king over the loss of his money. Well, perhaps! It is a good circumstantial argument well argued, but one for which there is ultimately no real proof and one which is, perhaps, a product of the economic determinism of m o d e m historiography. T w o studies build upon and complement Mayer's well-known, monumental 'Studies in the history of Queen Melisande', Dumbarton Oaks papers...

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