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Historiography of the Crusades


The historiography of the Crusades has been a controversial topic since at least the Protestant Reformation. The term was first used to refer to the entire period from the First Crusade until the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in French historiography of the 17th century. The 18th-century Enlightenment ideology as represented by Edward Gibbon and Voltaire held up the Crusades as an example of medieval barbarism, while 19th-century Romantic nationalism tended to paint them in a heroic light, surrounding the Crusades with an aura of romance and grandeur, of chivalry and courage. In the second half of the 20th century, western historiography again tended to be more critical of the Crusades, following Steven Runciman (1951-4) Popular opinion, influenced by general trends of decolonisation and critical theory tended to portray the crusades with a sense of "western guilt". In early 21st literature, a "pluralist" view has become common which treats the "crusades" as a wider phenomenon of "all those medieval military endeavors that were penitential in nature (like pilgrimages), were authorized by bishops or the Pope, and whose participants typically engaged in the rite of taking the cross and the crusader’s vow".

In Eastern Orthodoxy, the Crusades had always been viewed in light of the disastrous attack on Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade, while in the Islamic world, the Crusades were mostly ignored prior to the growth of Arab nationalism in the 20th century.

The relevant medieval historiography of the period is edited in Recueil des historiens des croisades (RHC, 1841–1906). The RHC is divided into five series: 1. Lois ("Laws", i.e. the Assizes of Jerusalem), 2. Historiens occidentaux ("Western historians", i.e. texts in Latin and Old French), 3. Historiens orientaux ("Eastern historians", i.e. Arabic texts), 4.. Historiens grecs ("Greek historians") and 5. Historiens arméniens ("Armenian historians")


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