The Crusades

Catalog description

The course examines the crusading energy of the High Middle Ages. Focus will be on the medieval imagination of the Latin West as Christendom and attacks on threats to that identity. Topics will include the strengthening of the papacy; the growth of chivalry; the history of Jerusalem and its crucial holy sites; relations between Christendom and the Byzantine Empire; the Islamic world; the Reconquista; the Albigensian Crusade; the rise of anti-Semitism; and the military orders.