The Conquest of the Holy Land by Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Anonymous by Keagan Brewer, and James H. Kane (review)

Keagan Brewer and James Kane's critical edition and English translation of the Libellus de expugnatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum is an enormously valuable and impeccably researched and presented resource for the study of the crusades and the Latin East. The Libellus is an intriguing and often overlooked source for the dramatic events surrounding the occupation of Jerusalem by the forces of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, sultan of Egypt, Damascus and Aleppo, in October 1187, and the Third Crusade. The text exists today as an anonymous early thirteenth-century compilation from Coggeshall Abbey, a provenance which Brewer and Kane reexamine in their introduction, where they propose some exciting new possibilities regarding the identity of the Coggeshall compiler. The Libellus (a later appellation) is comprised of three parts, all of which are included as a facing edition and translation in this book. Part I describes events leading up to the occupation of Jerusalem in 1187 and beginning with the death of Baldwin V of Jerusalem in September 1186. Part II is a continuation of this narrative extracted from the rubrics and content of another composite text, the Itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta regis Ricardi (IP2) and detailing the events of the Third Crusade until the arrival of Richard I of England and Philip II of France at the siege of Acre in 1191. Finally, the third part is comprised of two letters which can also be found in IP2 and may have circulated independently. The first of these is from Frederick Barbarossa to Saladin; the second is the supposed reply.

Brewer and Kane's is the first critical edition of the Libellus to use all four extant medieval witnesses, with the earliest of these, known as C (London, British Library, Cotton MS Cleopatra B I, fols 2^r–23^r), as their base manuscript. Their edition and translation is accompanied by an extensive introduction, several maps and figures, and three appendices, all of which add significant value to the book. In the introduction, Brewer and Kane provide a useful outline of the text's narrative alongside an overview of the complex political backdrop against which these events occurred. They also include an extended discussion of the identity of the author of Part I, who was likely an ecclesiastic present in Jerusalem during the siege, and an analysis of parallels between the Libellus and other sources for these events in Arabic, Latin, and Old French. An evaluation of the exegetical style and language of Part I is supported by detailed footnotes concerning scriptural references in the text itself and a list of further scriptural allusions from the text, organized by chapter, in Appendix 3. Brewer and Kane also consider the circumstances in which the continuations (Parts I and III) were appended to the stylistically distinct Part I by the monks at Coggeshall Abbey, probably after October 1222. Instructive examinations of the seven extant manuscripts of the Libellus, including palaeographical analysis and a helpful stemma depicting the relationships between them, also feature in the introduction. The other appendices are a demonstration of intertextuality in the account of 1187 contained in Ralph of Coggeshall's Chronicon Anglicanum, marking where it borrows from either the Libellus or Roger of Howden's Chronica (Appendix 1), and a gazetteer detailing numerous place names highlighted in bold font in the translation (Appendix 2). These resources contribute towards making this book an easily navigable and detailed study of this text, in addition to being a useful edition and highly readable translation.

It is perhaps because of the decidedly exegetical flavour of much of the Libellus's account that the text has often represented a corroborative or additional...