ABSTRACT

The historiography of the European migration to the Latin East has traditionally been dominated by the debate as to whether or not one could speak of a colonial society. This chapter investigates the changing relationship between the European Christians and the descendants of the European settlers in the Latin East. Immigration leads to the adoption of a new identity, a mix between the immigrants’ former identity and elements from the place where they have settled. In the case of the European immigration to the Latin East at the time of the Crusades, this new identity was the cause of conflict with their European places of origin. Jacques de Vitry wrote that the Crusaders brought few women along with them to the Holy Land and that those who settled in the Crusader states invited women from the kingdom of Apulia to marry them.