ABSTRACT
This paper presents a rough exploratory survey of the terminology used in German for crusade between the 13th and 18th centuries by considering two particular periods. It starts off with an exploration of the first occasional occurrences of words for what we today call the crusade in 13th- and 14th-century vernacular texts. It then follows the process of establishing a more or less consistent crusade terminology in German during the eighteenth century. With regard to the first topic, the paper aims to investigate how far medieval German usage of vernacular crusade terminology differs from that in other vernacular languages. With regard to the second focus, questions of interdependence between French historiography and German language texts on the crusades in the 17th and 18th centuries will be explored.
