“A Crusade from the First”: The Norman Conquest of Islamic Sicily, 1060-1091

摘要

In the creation myth of the Crusades, Pope Urban II (r. 1088-1099) is the founding father and 1095 is the critical year. During the twentieth century, French, Spanish, and English scholars challenged this myth; yet this myth remains as durable as ever. Because the origins of the crusading enterprise came to be associated with the so-called First Crusade (1095-1102), scholars have created a vision of crusading at odds with Pope Urban's vision, which views the “First” Crusade as the third part of a triptych: first, the Norman conquest of Sicily (1060-1091); then, the Castilian and Catalan advances in Iberia; and finally the 1095 Eastern Crusade. Today, the study of the Crusades is hampered by a failure to concentrate on the direct evidence and to take into account what contemporaries understood by crusading. To get a sense of what contemporaries understood by crusading, this paper examines the Norman Crusade in Sicily, drawing upon both Christian and Islamic sources.View full textDownload full textKeywordsCrusades-1st Crusade (1096-1099), Sicily (kingdom)-crusades, Normans-in Sicily, Roger I, count of Sicily, Robert Guiscard, duke of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, Amatus of Montecassini, chronicler, Geoffrey Malaterra, chronicler, William of Apulia, chronicler, al-Sulamī, ՙ Alī b. āhir, authorRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09503110.2010.488891