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IMC 2010: Sessions

Session 528: Crusade Texts and Manuscripts, I: An Excitatorium for the Third Crusade - The Libellus de expugnatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum

Tuesday 13 July 2010, 09.00-10.30

Sponsor:Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Sydney / Society for the Study of the Crusades & the Latin East
Organiser:John H. Pryor, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Sydney
Moderator/Chair:Peter Edbury, School of History, Archaeology & Religion, Cardiff University
Paper 528-aThe Libellus: Authorship, Dating, and Relationship to Other excitatoria
(Language: English)
John H. Pryor, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Sydney
Index terms: Crusades, Historiography - Medieval
Paper 528-bThe Libellus: Latinity and Relationship to Latin and Old French Sources for the Third Crusade
(Language: English)
James Henry Kane, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Sydney
Index terms: Crusades, Historiography - Medieval
Abstract

The Libellus de expugnatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum is an anonymous treatise which has traditionally been associated with Ralph of Coggeshall, but there is actually no evidence to support that. It purports to be an account of Saladin's conquest of the Holy Land in 1187, beginning with the battle of the Springs of Cresson on 1 May and ending with the surrender of Jerusalem on 2 October. But interspersed with the account are lengthy and highly emotional lamentations on Holy Places lost and their Biblical Significance. The text is extremely complex and full of allusions both to scripture and also to 12th-century Mariology. Its author may possibly have been a Cistercian or a Templar. The session examines the text's authorship, sources, Biblical geography, Latinity, and relation to other Latin and Old French Sources and excitatoria for the Third Crusade.