Byzantium and the Crusades

Jonathan Harris

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781350199774
• Edition: 3
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350199798
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Byzantine History
• Index: History

Jonathan Harris's classic text chronologically surveys Byzantine history in the time of the Crusades. The book reveals the attitudes of the Byzantine ruling elites towards the Crusades and their ultimate inability to adapt to the challenges this presented. Using evidence amassed in a wealth of primary sources, Harris successfully makes the point that Byzantine interactions with Western Europe, the Crusades and the crusader states is best understood in the nature of the Byzantine Empire and the ideology which underpinned it, rather than in any generalised hostility between the peoples. Incorporating recent scholarship, this 3rd edition has 25 further images, as well as additional maps and genealogical tables. This new edition also comes with two significant additions to the text: * Appendix I sees the inclusion of seven critical Latin primary sources taken from across three centuries. Translated by the author, these sources are then discussed in detail, providing multiple first-hand perspectives on the subject in the process * Appendix II provides assessments of various representations of the subject in key fiction and non-fiction works, thereby enriching your appreciation of the way that Byzantine interaction with the Crusades has been constructed at different times, from various standpoints and in other languages This book remains the keystone to understanding the East-West relationship during the Crusades and what this meant for the Byzantine Empire.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Timeline
• Genealogical tables
• Introduction
• 1 The empire of Christ (900–1050)
• 2 The power behind the throne (900–1050)
• 3 Response to crisis (1050–95)
• 4 The passage of the First Crusade (1096–9)
• 5 Jerusalem and Antioch (1100–43)
• 6 The friend of the Latins (1143–80)
• 7 Andronikos the tyrant (1180–5)
• 8 Iron not gold (1185–92)
• 9 Paralysis and extortion (1192–1204)
• 10 The rivers of Babylon (1204–61)
• 11 And so the land is lost! (1261–91)
• Epilogue: The impact
• Appendix 1: Benzo of Alba’s account of Constantine X’s embassy of 1062
• Appendix 2: Letter of Bohemond to Pope Paschal II (c. 1106–8)
• Appendix 3: Letter of Pope Innocent II to Latins serving in the army of John II (28 March 1138)
• Appendix 4: Letter of Manuel I to Louis VII (August 1146)
• Appendix 5: Letter of Pope Alexander III to Peter, Cardinal Priest of San Crisogono, legate in France (19 January 1176)
• Appendix 6: Otto of St Blasien on Henry VI’s preparations for a crusade (1196)
• Appendix 7: Envoys of Michael VIII promise aid for the Holy Land (July 1274)
• Appendix 8: Byzantium and the Crusades in fiction
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright