This volume is intended to cover the history of Outremer and the Holy Wars from the revival of the Frankish kingdom at the time of the Third Crusade till its collapse a century later, with an epilogue on the last manifestations of the Crusading spirit. It is a story with several interwoven themes. The decline of Outremer, with its petty but complex tragedies, was periodically interrupted by great Crusades, all of which, after the Third, closed in diversion or disaster. In Europe, though it was still usual for every potentate to pay lip-service to the Crusading movement, not even the fervent piety of Saint Louis could arrest its decline, while the growing enmity between Eastern and Western Christendom reached its climax in the greatest tragedy of the Middle Ages, the destruction of Byzantine civilization in the name of Christ. In the Moslem world the constant stimulus of the Holy War resulted in the replacement of the kindly and cultured Ayubites by the more efficient and less sympathetic Mameluks, whose Sultans were to eliminate Frankish Syria. Finally, there was the arbitrary irruption of the Mongols, whose coming seemed at first likely to rescue Eastern Christendom but whose influence in the end, through the mishandling and misunderstanding of their potential allies, was only destructive in its effects. The whole tale is one of faith and folly, courage and greed, hope and disillusion.
I have included short chapters on the commerce and the arts of Outremer. The treatment is necessarily perfunctory; for neither the commercial nor the artistic history of a colonial state such as Outremer can be detached from the general history of medieval trade and civilization. I have therefore tried to confine myself within limits that are strictly relevant to the understanding of Outremer.
The history of the Crusades is a large subject with undefined frontiers; and the treatment that I have given to it represents my own personal choice. If readers consider that the emphasis that I have given to its various aspects is wrong, I can only plead that an author must write his book in his own way. It is beside the point for critics to complain that he has not written the book that they would have written had they undertaken the theme. But I hope that I have not entirely omitted anything that is essential to its comprehension.
The large debts that I owe to many scholars, dead and living, are, I think, apparent in my footnotes. Sir George Hill’s great history of Cyprus and Professor Atiya’s meticulous history of the Later Crusades are both essential for the study of the period; and students must be permanently grateful to Professor Claude Cahen for the learned information contained in his works. I must mention with regret the death of M. Grousset, whose broad vision and lively writing did much to elucidate the politics of Outremer and the Asiatic background. I have again been largely dependent on the work of American scholars, such as the late Professor La Monte, and Mr P. A. Throop.
Once again I must thank my friends in the Near East, who have helped me during my travels there, in particular the Iraq Petroleum Company; and the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press for their kindness.
STEVEN RUNCIMAN
LONDON 1954