Papa et pecunia: Innocent III’s combination of reform and fiscal policy to finance crusades

This article examines the fiscal policies of Pope Innocent III throughout his pontificate, culminating in the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council. The aim of this analysis is to illustrate that not only was Innocent more fiscally minded than his predecessors, but that he also attempted to utilize fiscal policy as a tool for facilitating the crusade movement. Innocent adapted the fiscal tools of his predecessors while inventing several of his own. These tools included streamlined census-taking, income taxation, crusader vow redemptions/commutations, expanding crusade indulgences, the collection of alms, trade embargoes, clerical reform and more. These tools were designed to aid crusade endeavours, either directly or indirectly, and through crusading achieve the salvation of Christian souls.     

Maurofilia y maurofobia en el Libro del conde de Castilla

The Poema de Fernán González (or Libro del conde de Castilla) is not a crusade song, nor is it an epic poem or a historical account commemorating the foundation of San Pedro de Arlanza Monastery. It is rather a hybrid text that employs all the literary and historical resources available around the middle of the thirteenth century to an educated poet who was intent on transmitting to future generations the memory of the Count who made possible the independence of Castile. All episodes in the poem point to Castile's unique place in history, describing through the protagonist's bellicose deeds its hegemonic ascendency as the most important kingdom of the Iberian peninsula. Its destiny is determined by the hero's combative character against all enemies, whether Christians or Moors, and more specifically by confronting the powerful kings of neighboring states León and Navarre.     

How to justify a crusade? The conquest of Livonia and new crusade rhetoric in the early thirteenth century

This article addresses the issue of how it was possible to justify a crusade to a region, such as the eastern shore of the Baltic, where there were no sacred shrines to protect or Christian lands to reconquer. Adopting a pluralist perspective of crusades, it argues that the Livonian crusade of the early thirteenth century offers some interesting clues to the new developments of crusading ideology. Conceiving of the conquest and conversion of Livonia as a crusade, albeit not quite equal to the liberation of Jerusalem, its initiators and apologists employed legal and rhetorical devices to justify the occupation of a region under the auspices of a crusade. This article examines these strategies through the medium of contemporary chronicles and papal letters.     

Crossing boundaries in the Mediterranean: papal trade licences from the Registra supplicationum of Pope Clement VI (1342–52)

This article examines a number of ‘trade licences’ issued during the pontificate of Clement VI, found predominantly in the unpublished Vatican Registra supplicationum. These licences were privileges granted to merchants exempting them from the papal ban on trade with the Muslim world. The article argues that the licences can demonstrate, amongst other things, that merchants were more concerned with their spiritual welfare and the ramifications of illegal trade than has often been presumed, and that the papacy was aware of the need for merchants to have contact with Muslims, in contradiction to the view of a fundamental opposition between the Church and Islam during the period. They provide a valuable insight into the changing Western attitudes towards contact with different Muslim groups in the Mediterranean, and also shed considerable light on the complex interaction between mercantile objectives and religion in the Middle Ages.     

Crusade or cooperation? Savary de Brèves’s treatises on the Ottoman Empire

This article examines two treatises by François Savary de Brèves, French ambassador to Constantinople (1589-1605) and to the Holy See (1608-14), one promoting a crusade against the Ottoman Empire and the other championing the Franco-Ottoman alliance. By closely reading these ostensibly paradoxical texts, which were published in the same volume, I argue that de Brèves’s true intent was to advocate cooperation between France and the Ottoman Empire as a long-term foreign policy objective. This article draws attention to the significant roles played in the political, diplomatic and intellectual worlds of early-seventeenth-century France by Savary de Brèves, a largely forgotten figure. It highlights the ambivalent image of the Ottomans in early modern Europe and contributes to recent scholarship on the interactions between the Islamic East and Christian West.     

A Transformed Life? Geoffrey of Dutton,the Fifth Crusade,and the Holy Cross of Norton

Despite the volume of scholarship dedicated to crusade motivation, comparative little has been said on how the crusades affected the lives of individuals, and how this played out once the returned home. Taking as a case study a Cheshire landholder, Geoffrey of Dutton, this article looks at the reasons for his crusade participation and his actions once he returned to Cheshire, arguing that he was changed by his experiences to the extent that he was concerned with remembering and conveying his own status as a returned pilgrim. It also looks at the impact of a relic of the True Cross he brought back and gave to the Augustinian priory of Norton.     

论中世纪欧洲圣殿骑士团的历史作用

圣殿骑士团的最初职能是保护朝圣者和保证朝圣道路的安全,不久其职能就得以扩展,军事职能遂成为其基本职能.随着军事力量的增长,其政治作用也不断增强.它不仅在十字军国家的政治中具有举足轻重的地位,而且不同程度地影响了欧洲政治.不仅如此,在十字军东侵中它还充当着"银行家"的角色,在12、13世纪的地中海商业中占有一席之地.