In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Cultural Encounters during the Crusadesed. by Kurt Villads Jensen, Kirsi Salonen, and Helle Vogt
  • David James Griffiths
Jensen, Kurt Villads, Kirsi Salonen, and Helle Vogt, eds, Cultural Encounters during the Crusades(Studies in History and Social Sciences, 445), Odense, University Press of Southern Denmark, 2013; hardback; pp. 329; 25 colour illustrations; R.R.P. DKK325.00; ISBN 9788776746599.

Emerging from a 2009 conference held in Damascus, the framing of this collection of papers through its Introduction is curiously understated for its themes. Editors Kurt Villads Jensen, Kirsi Salonen, and Helle Vogt start off by painting a picture of the increased interest in cultural encounters over the past thirty years, both in scholarship and in the way in which cultural interactions are reflected in geopolitical tropes. With a rise in globalisation and the resultant cultural exchange and instability, they foreground the essays in the ways in which medieval Europe has been contested, either as the starting point for nation states and languages which must be held on to, or as a open era before passports, immigration worries, and the like. [End Page 223]

The editors argue that the two key concepts of the collection – cultural encounters and crusading studies – have a lot to offer each other, if built on this central contestation of the medieval period and what it means for modernity, especially in relation to the Crusades. The prospect of entangling the two allows for a reconsideration of the borrowing between Crusader Christian and disparate Muslim, and a consideration of their parallels.

The first article by Jensen considers the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ thesis that emerged in the 1990s through the historical Crusading perspective, to ground that modern idea in previous practice, and to argue this is not possible without the Crusades being used as an anchoring moment for modern perceptions. While the subsequent articles do not return to this theme, it hangs over the collection to some extent, with further questions prodding the back of the reader’s mind.

Many of the contibutions quite usefully consider the didactic thought behind the Crusades. Paul E. Chevedden, in particular, argues for a reconnection of the Crusading period, by suggesting that both leading Christian and Muslim thinkers saw the Mediterranean as one united front: the battle for territory, for dignity, and defence was the same whether fought over Jerusalem, Muslim Sicily, or the early Reconquistaof Spain.

Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen’s contribution switches to the Baltic crusades of conversion, and the depiction of pagan Russians in the chronicle of Henry of Livonia. This interjection abruptly forces the reader to reconsider the idea of ‘crusade’. Unfortunately, the Introduction does not lay sufficient groundwork to enable the reader to connect the traditional capital ‘C’ Crusades with those beyond the Middle East battlefield.

Jonathon Phillips then approaches the figure of Saladin (back to the Middle East again) but complicates the layperson’s understanding by examining Saladin through the lens of a Muslim author and traveller, Ibn Jubayr. This contribution provides a useful reminder of the political and social undercurrents among the arrayed Muslim forces. Following this reminder, the collection turns again to a European field with Janus Møller Jensen’s consideration of how the crusading history of one Danish king – Erik Emune – may have been suppressed by his rivals and successors in order to ignore the lustre of such a history and focus on his domestic mismanagement.

The next four papers all examine cultural constructions of particular crusading concepts. Helen J. Nicholson considers the encounter between the Christian warrior and his Muslim opponent across epic and chronicle, and finds it allows for recognition of the Muslim warrior’s skill, nobility, and piety. Sini Kangas continues the theme by examining how the ‘encounter model’ was shaped in crusading narratives and limited by warfare (this seems a little repetitive coming so soon after the previous paper). Osman Latiff interestingly considers the use of Jesus as a Qur’anic image to create [End Page 224]a priestly warrior ethos in contemporary Muslim poetry, hinting at the class distinctions inherent in those who consumed poetry and those who did not. Lastly, Bertil Nilsson provides a short outline of Gratian’s Decretum, at least where it applies...

pdf

Share