Subject of Crusade

Marisa Galvez

"Marisa Galvez challenges received ideas about medieval lyric poetry and Arthurian romance at a time when terms like "crusade," "medieval," and "holy war" continue to be tossed about unexamined in popular media in relation to Islamist fundamentalism. "The Subject of Crusade" offers a more complex view of crusade and holy war, arguing that vernacular crusade lyric and romance of the twelfth through fourteenth centuries and related visual artworks of the fifteenth century can tell us a different story if we read them as literary texts as much as historical documents. Placing chronicles and knightly handbooks in conversation with confessional and pastoral texts, she identifies a "crusade idiom" that emerged out of a conflict between what European poet/crusaders saw as their pious duty as Christian soldiers, on the one hand, and their earthly duties toward their clans, on the other. How,...