ABSTRACT

Between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, the social and cultural worlds of medieval Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean were transformed by the religious impetus of the crusades. Today we bear witness to these transformations in the material and environmental record revealed by new archaeological excavations and reappraisals of museum collections. This volume highlights new archaeological knowledge being developed by scholars working in the fields of history, archaeology, numismatics, and architecture to demonstrate its potential to change and augment our understanding of the crusades.

The 16 chapters in this volume deploy a contemporary scientific approach to archaeology of the crusades to give an up-to-date account into the diverse range of research in this area. They explore five key themes: the implications of scientific methods, new excavations and surveys, architectural analyses, sigillography, and the application of social interpretations. Together these chapters provide a new way of approaching the study of the crusades, and demonstrate the value of taking a holistic view that utilises the full diverse range of evidence available to us.

chapter |21 pages

Introduction

Current research and approaches

chapter 2|11 pages

Revisiting the strange genesis of a technique

Radiocarbon dating of Frankish mortar

chapter 3|16 pages

Convergences of interdisciplinary paths

The Hospitaller convent of San Giovanni di Prè in Genoa through historical and archaeological evidence (twelfth to fifteenth centuries)

chapter 4|28 pages

La redécouverte de deux châteaux de l’Hôpital en Haute-Provence

Manosque et Puimoisson exhumés par les sources écrites

chapter 6|25 pages

Bread for all

Double-chambered baking ovens in castles of the military orders; Le Crac des Chevaliers (Syria), Le Chastellet du gué de Jacob, Belvoir, and Arsur (Israel)

chapter 8|30 pages

Gothic for all

From macro- to microarchitecture across religious boundaries in Lusignan and Venetian Cyprus 1

chapter 9|62 pages

Villehardouin’s castle of Grand Magne (Megali Maini)

A re-assessment of the evidence for its location

chapter 10|18 pages

Civitas regis regvm omnivm

Inventing a royal seal in Jerusalem, 1100–1118 1

chapter 11|21 pages

Change or continuity? Rural settlement in Eastern Galilee at the time of the crusades

The Hospitaller estate of Belvoir

chapter 12|16 pages

Archaeothanatology, burials, and cemeteries

Perspectives for crusader archaeology

chapter 13|28 pages

Overlooked ordnance

Artillery projectiles of the crusader period

chapter 14|17 pages

The inscriptions of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem

New corpus and perspectives 1

chapter 15|24 pages

Ascalon, 1 a landscape of conflicts

Some landscape archaeology perspectives on conflicts from the days of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem

chapter 16|32 pages

The castle chapel of Arsur

New evidence for its location and architecture