The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the Crusades

How were the Crusades, and the crusaders, narrated, described, and romanticised by the various communities that experienced or remembered them?This Companion provides a critical overview of the diverse and multilingual literary output connected with crusading over the last millennium, from the first writings which sought to understand and report on what was happening, to contemporary medievalism, in which crusading is a potent image of holy war andjihad. The chapters show the enduring legacy of the crusaders' imagery, from thechansons de gesteto Walter Scott, from Charlemagne to Orlando Bloom. Whilst the crusaders' hold on Jerusalem was relatively short-lived, thedesirefor Jerusalem has had a long afterlife in many cultural contexts and media.