Elizabeth Lapina

Elizabeth Lapina

Professor of History

lapina@wisc.edu

608.263.1971

Office: 5267 Levy Hall
Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
Office Hours: TBA

Elizabeth Lapina

I am a historian of the Middle Ages with a research focus on the history of the crusades. One of my main interests is the perceptions and representations of the crusading movement in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. My first two monographs, Warfare and the Miraculous in the Chronicles of the First Crusade (Penn State, 2015) and Depicting the Holy War: Crusader Imagery in Programs of Mural Paintings in France and England in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Penn State, 2025), focused on the development of the concept of sacralization of warfare as reflected in, respectively, written and visual sources.

My current project, Crusaders and Things: Acquisition and Movement of Objects in the Twelfth Century, deals with two subjects: (1) acquisition of objects in the Middle East by crusaders, especially through gift-giving, and (2) the functions of these objects in Europe. The goal is to enhance our understanding of different types of interactions between crusaders and the peoples of the Middle East – friends, foes and those in-between, Muslims and Eastern Christians – as well as of the memory of these interactions.

Education

Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University
M.A., Johns Hopkins University; Maîtrise: University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne)
B.A., University of Wisconsin – Madison

Books

Encounters: The Crusades in 50 Objects

Cathleen A. Fleck, Elizabeth Lapina, Richard A. Leson, and Vardit Ruth Shotten. Encounters: The Crusades in 50 Objects. Routledge, 2026.

From the late eleventh to the late thirteenth century, during the existence of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and other crusader states, Latin Christians did not only frequently encounter Muslims on the battlefield, but also engaged in unprecedented commercial and cultural exchanges with the Muslim, Eastern Christian, and Jewish inhabitants of the Middle East. Through a focused analysis of fifty objects, this volume examines what material culture can tell us about interpersonal, interfaith, cross-cultural, and trans-regional encounters during this period. This richly illustrated volume explores a variety of Latin Christian, Eastern Christian, Muslim, and Jewish objects, including sculpture, glassware, metalware, manuscripts, textiles, painting, coins, and seals. Addressing the themes of Belief, Conflict, Exchange, Power, and Memory, the essays examine the conception of these objects and the uses to which they were put throughout their history. As a result, there emerges a picture of the Middle East as a place of profound cultural diversity and of multiplicity of encounters between different communities. The book stands as a valuable resource for students and scholars of the medieval crusades, the medieval Middle East and Europe, as well as all those interested in archaeology, art history, global history, and religious studies more broadly.

Depicting the Holy War: Crusader Imagery in Medieval French and English Murals

Elizabeth Lapina. Depicting the Holy War: Crusader Imagery in Medieval French and English Murals. Penn State University Press, 2025.

Depicting the Holy War examines the impact that crusades in the Middle East had on societies in western Europe through the analysis of a heretofore largely ignored type of source: mural paintings. In this book, Elizabeth Lapina analyzes five programs of mural paintings from the early twelfth to the late thirteenth century in what is today France and England—in Hardham, Berzé-la-Ville, Poncé-sur-le-Loir, Cressac, and Tour Ferrande. These images provide rare sources of information about attitudes toward crusades in locations that have produced next to no written evidence about the subject, such as rural parishes. Four of the murals are found in ecclesiastical structures, themselves sacred and made more so as the location of the celebration of mass. This sacralization of violence, Lapina argues, led to changing attitudes toward the enemy and depictions of battles as “holy wars” between the forces of good and evil. The mural paintings come from England, Normandy, Aquitaine, Provence, and Burgundy, areas that supplied both numerous crusaders and ideas related to crusades. Taken together, the murals show a trend toward an acceptance and celebration of increasingly varied types of violence across the period. This pathbreaking study employs new methods to open a window onto perceptions and representations of crusades in strata of society about which we know relatively little. It will be indispensable to historians and art historians who study crusades, warfare, and violence in medieval England and France.

The Crusades and Nature: Natural and Supernatural Environments in the Middle Ages

Jessalynn Bird (Co-editor), and Elizabeth Lapina (Co-editor). The Crusades and Nature: Natural and Supernatural Environments in the Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.

The Crusades and Nature: Natural and Supernatural Environments in the Middle Ages explores the intersection of crusader studies and studies of nature. The volume addresses encounters with, responses to and representations of a broad variety of phenomena: celestial objects and events; familiar and unfamiliar fauna and flora; seascapes and landscapes; the elements and the seasons; etc. It introduces readers to crusaders’ actual, but also largely or entirely imaginary encounters with natural phenomena, as well as literary references to nature in crusader sources more generally (such as, for example, animal metaphors). Finally, this project investigates the relationships between the natural and the supernatural and between nature and human-made environments. The volume will define “crusades” broadly, to include not only crusades to the East, but also crusades to frontier regions such as the Baltic and Iberian peninsula and extends to representations of crusades and nature in later medieval and early modern sources.

Games and Visual Culture in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Vanina Kopp (Co-editor), and Elizabeth Lapina (Co-editor). Games and Visual Culture in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Brepols, 2021.

The volume contributes to reconstruction of medieval and early modern gaming culture through analysis of visual and material evidence. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, games were not an idle pastime, but were in fact important tools for exploring, transmitting, enhancing, subverting, and challenging social practices and their rules. Their study, through both visual and material sources, offers a unique insight into medieval and early modern gaming culture, shedding light not only on why, where, when, with whom and in what conditions and circumstances people played games, but also on the variety of interpretations that they had of games and play. Representations of games, and of artefacts associated with games, also often served to communicate complex ideas on topics that ranged from war to love, and from politics to theology. This volume offers a particular focus onto the type of games that required little or no physical exertion and that, consequently, all people could enjoy, regardless of age, gender, status, occupation, or religion. The representations and artefacts discussed here by contributors, who come from varied disciplines including history, literary studies, art history, and archaeology, cover a wide geographical and chronological range, from Spain to Scandinavia to the Ottoman Turkey and from the early medieval period to the seventeenth century and beyond. Far from offering the ‘last word’ on the subject, it is hoped that this volume will encourage further studies. Vanina Kopp is Privatdozentin at the University of Münster. She was research group leader on medieval games at the German Historical Institute in Paris, where she wrote her second book Sacred, Serious, Subversive (Habilitation, 2020) on literary games in monastic, courtly, and urban contexts, and she has co-edited two volumes on educational games (Jeux éducatifs et savoirs ludiques in Ludica, 2016-2018). She is also the author of one monograph (Der König und die Bücher, Thorbecke 2016) and co-author of an edited volume on archives and power (Archiv Macht Wissen, Campus 2010). Elizabeth Lapina is Associate Professor of Medieval History and Director of the Medieval Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She is the author of one monograph (Warfare and the Miraculous in the Chronicles of the First Crusade, Penn State, 2015) and is co-editor of two volumes (The Crusades and Visual Culture, Ashgate, 2015 and The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources, Brill, 2017). Her articles include　”Gambling and Gaming in the Holy Land: Chess, Dice and Other Games in the Sources of the Crusades,” published in Crusades in 2013. Table of Contents List of Illustrations Introduction — VANINA KOPP AND ELIZABETH LAPINA Rhetoric and Reality in the Visual Culture of Medieval Celtic Board Games: Literary and Archaeological Evidence Combined — KATHERINE FORSYTH AND MARK A. HALL ‘Turne Over the Leef’: Games and Interpretation on Misericords — PAUL HARDWICK Gambling Miners — LENA ASRIH AND JENNIFER GARNER Chess and Cultural Crossings in Boccaccio — AKASH KUMAR Visualizing Chess and Love in Les Eschéz d’Amours — DANIEL E. O’SULLIVAN Game as a Sign of Social Status: Backgammon in the Ottoman Literature and Visual Culture — TÜLÜN DEĞIRMENCI Chess of the Gnostics: The Sufi Version of Snakes and Ladders in Turkey and India — İRVIN CEMIL SCHICK Playthings: Ivory on Ivory — ELINA GERTSMAN The Playing Eye: On the Transfer of Game-related Knowledge through Miniatures in Alfonso X’s Book of Games (1283/84) — MICHAEL A. CONRAD Children’s Toys in Italy, 1350–1550 — ANNEMARIEKE WILLEMSEN The Printed Book and the Visual Culture of Chess in the Late Middle Ages: William Caxton’s 1483 Edition of The Game and Playe of Chess — LOUISE FANG Graffiti as Gaming: Vikings at Play in the Orkney Islands — JULIE MELL Scratching the Surface: Graffiti Games in the Byzantine Empire — WALTER CRIST

The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources

Elizabeth Lapina (Co-editor), and Nicholas Morton (Co-editor). The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources. Brill, 2017.

The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources sets out to understand the ideology and spirituality of crusading by exploring the biblical imagery and exegetical interpretations which formed its philosophical basis. Medieval authors frequently drew upon scripture when seeking to justify, praise, or censure the deeds of crusading warriors on many frontiers. After all, as the fundamental written manifestation of God’s will for mankind, the Bible was the ultimate authority for contemporary writers when advancing their ideas and framing their world view. This volume explores a broad spectrum of biblically-derived themes surrounding crusading and, by doing so, seeks to better comprehend a thought world in which lethal violence could be deemed justifiable according to Christian theology. Contributors are: Jessalynn Bird, Adam M. Bishop, John D. Cotts, Sini Kangas, Thomas Lecaque, T. J. H. McCarthy, Nicholas Morton, Torben Kjersgaard Nielsen, Luigi Russo, Uri Shachar, Iris Shagrir, Kristin Skottki, Katherine Allen Smith, Thomas W. Smith, Carol Sweetenham, Miriam Rita Tessera, Jan Vandeburie, Julian J. T. Yolles, and Lydia Marie Walker.  

The Crusades and Visual Culture

Elizabeth Lapina (Co-editor), April Jehan Morris (Co-editor), Laura J Whatley (Co-editor), and Susanna A. Throop (Co-editor). The Crusades and Visual Culture. Ashgate, 2015.

The crusades, whether realized or merely planned, had a profound impact on medieval and early modern societies. Numerous scholars in the fields of history and literature have explored the influence of crusading ideas, values, aspirations and anxieties in both the Latin States and Europe. However, there have been few studies dedicated to investigating how the crusading movement influenced and was reflected in medieval visual cultures. Written by scholars from around the world working in the domains of art history and history, the essays in this volume examine the ways in which ideas of crusading were realized in a broad variety of media (including manuscripts, cartography, sculpture, mural paintings, and metalwork). Arguing implicitly for recognition of the conceptual frameworks of crusades that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries, the volume explores the pervasive influence and diverse expression of the crusading movement from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries.

Warfare and the Miraculous in the Chronicles of the First Crusade

Elizabeth Lapina. Warfare and the Miraculous in the Chronicles of the First Crusade. Penn State University Press, 2015.

In Warfare and the Miraculous in the Chronicles of the First Crusade, Elizabeth Lapina examines a variety of these chronicles, written both by participants in the crusade and by those who stayed behind. Her goal is to understand the enterprise from the perspective of its contemporaries and near contemporaries. Lapina analyzes the diversity of ways in which the chroniclers tried to justify the First Crusade as a “holy war,” where physical violence could be not just sinless, but salvific. The book focuses on accounts of miracles reported to have happened in the course of the crusade, especially the miracle of the intervention of saints in the Battle of Antioch. Lapina shows why and how chroniclers used these miracles to provide historical precedent and to reconcile the messiness of history with the conviction that history was ordered by divine will. In doing so, she provides an important glimpse into the intellectual efforts of the chronicles and their authors, illuminating their perspectives toward the concepts of history, salvation, and the East. Warfare and the Miraculous in the Chronicles of the First Crusade demonstrates how these narratives sought to position the crusade as an event in the time line of sacred history. Lapina offers original insights into the effects of the crusade on the Western imaginary as well as how medieval authors thought about and represented history.

Selected Publications

  • “A Swift Answer: Wind in the Sources of Crusades,” Mediaevistik 39 (2026): 185-202.
    https://www.peterlang.com/document/1748905
  • “Elite Tents and the Hustle for Power on the First Crusade,” Crusades 24:2 (2025) 1–21. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14765276.2025.2592037
  • “Celestial Phenomena of 1097/1098 in the Chronicles of the First Crusade,” Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 54 (2023): 235-268.
  • “Medievalism, Misogyny, and Orientalism: The Representation of Queen Sibylla” in Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven,” 6 (2020): 109-13.
  • “Crusader Chronicles,” in Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the Crusades, edited by Anthony Bale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2019): 11-24.
  • “Crusades, Memory and Visual Culture. Representations of the Miracle of Intervention of Saints in Battle,” in Remembering the Crusades and Crusading, edited by Megan Cassidy-Welch. London and New York: Routledge (2017): 49-72.
  • “Gambling and Gaming in the Holy Land: Chess, Dice and Other Games in the Sources of the Crusades,” Crusades 12 (2013), 121-132.
  • “Maccabees and the Battle of Antioch (1098).” Dying for the Faith, Killing for the Faith: Old-Testament Faith-Warriors (Maccabees 1 and 2) in Historical Perspective, ed. Gabriela Signori, 147-159. Leiden: Brill, 2012.
  • “St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki: Patron Saint of Crusaders.” Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 40 (2009): 93-112.
  • “Anti-Jewish Rhetoric in Guibert of Nogent’s Dei Gesta Per Francos.” Journal of Medieval History 35 (2009):
    239-253.
  • “La représentation de la bataille d’Antioche (1098) sur les peintures murales de Poncé-sur-le-Loir.” Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale 52 (2009): 137-157.
  • “Nec signis nec testibus creditur: the Problem of Eyewitnesses in the Chronicles of the First Crusade.” Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 38 (2007): 117-139.
  • “The Paintings of Berzé-la-Ville in the Context of the First Crusade and the Reconquista.” Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005): 309-326.

Advisor To

Selected Awards

  • Institute for Research in the Humanities, Resident Fellowship, University of Wisconsin – Madison (2019)
  • University Housing Honored Instructor Award, University of Wisconsin – Madison (Spring 2017, Fall 2017)
  • Vilas Associate Award, University of Wisconsin – Madison (2017)
  • Graduate School Fall Competition Grant, University of Wisconsin – Madison (2016)
  • Kent Union Teaching Award, University of Kent (2013)
  • Leverhulme Early-Career Research Fellowship, University of Kent (2012)
  • British Academy Overseas Conference Grant (2011)
  • Post-Doctoral Travel Award, Queen’s University (2008, 2010)
  • Marjorie McLean Oliver Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Queen’s University (2007)

History Courses