This presentation, based on a recently published monograph, will discuss perceptions and representations of the crusades in Western Europe, specifically in France and England, as revealed in a type of source that few historians of the crusades have discussed: twelfth and thirteenth-century mural paintings in France and England. The talk will attempt to demonstrate that the crusades were very much on the mind of the inhabitants of Western Europe, including those who did not belong to any of the groups with a special interest in crusading. It will also argue that, during the period under discussion, there was a growing acceptance of the possibility that violence (under certain circumstances, the definition of which was vague and unstable) was sacred.
Sponsored by the War in Society and Culture Program