Byzantine Sources for the Crusades, 1095-1204

Book excerpt: The Christian, Greek-speaking Byzantine empire was placed rather uneasily between western Christendom and the Islamic world during the Crusade era. Like all historical topics – particularly medieval – sources on the crusades give a variety of perspectives and accounts, but Byzantine writers provide a unique outlook on these crucial events. Byzantine Sources for the Crusades, 1095–1204 brings together important sources on the Crusades into one volume. The texts translated here include established accounts, such as selections from Anna Komnene’s description of the passage of the First Crusade in 1096–8, John Kinnamos' writings on the Second Crusade and Niketas Choniates’ studies on the Second and Third Crusades, particularly covering the passage of German emperor Frederick I Barbarossa during the latter. However, less well-known accounts are also translated and provided, such as Zonaras' and the contemporary letters of the archbishop of Ohrid during the First Crusade, various poems and speeches recorded throughout the reigns of John II and Manuel I Komnenos and smaller accounts about crusaders passing through the Byzantine Empire. This book covers up to the Fourth Crusade, in which Niketas Choniates was an eye-witness to the Siege of Constantinople in 1204 and later a refugee in Nicaea, writing a series of speeches about the capture of the Byzantine capital and rallying the Byzantines to recovery the city from the newly created Latin Empire. This book will appeal to scholars and students alike studying the era of the Crusades in the East and the perspectives and accounts of Byzantine writers both at the time and after, as well as all those interested in the history of the Byzantine Empire in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries.