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IMC 2021: Sessions

Session 2104: Historical Writing, the Crusades, and the Latin East, II: New Approaches to William of Tyre's Historia

Friday 9 July 2021, 11.15-12.45

Organisers:Andrew David Buck, School of History, Queen Mary University of London
James Henry Kane, Medieval & Early Modern Centre, University of Sydney
Moderator/Chair:Natasha Ruth Hodgson, School of Arts & Humanities, Nottingham Trent University
Paper 2104-aWilliam of Tyre, the First Crusade, and the Creation of Outre-Mer
(Language: English)
Andrew David Buck, School of History, Queen Mary University of London
Index terms: Crusades, Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin
Paper 2104-bOthering the Self: Orientalism and Latin Identity in William of Tyre's Historia Hierosolymitana
(Language: English)
Ivo Wolsing, Independent Scholar, Amsterdam
Index terms: Crusades, Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin
Paper 2104-cThe Manners, Lives, and Personal Appearance of Kings: William of Tyre's Modelling of Kingship and Masculinity
(Language: English)
Katherine J. Lewis, Department of History, University of Huddersfield
Index terms: Crusades, Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin
Abstract

The papers in this session offer fresh scrutiny of the diverse sources for the crusades and the Latin East, and demonstrate the value of utilising different methodological frameworks, such as narrative theory, to interrogate texts in the broader context of medieval historical writing. All three papers in this session focus on one particular text: the Historia (or Chronicon) of William of Tyre. Paper A offers some preliminary findings on William's text for the First Crusade, in particular his use of sources and his attempts to encode the crusader conquests with an underlying rationale and model for Latin power in the East. Paper B presents a literary examination of Jerusalemite identity in William of Tyre's Historia by exploring how the author presents an ideal 'Self'-image both by contrasting it to several (Eastern) 'Others' (Turks, Greeks, Egyptians) and through comparison with the memory of former generations. Paper C explores the narrative intertwining of kingship and masculinity by examining William of Tyre's accounts of the rulers of Jerusalem, in particular Kings Baldwin III and Amalric, and considers what this can tell us about contemporary ideologies of both gender and rulership, as well as the expectations placed on kings.