Cross and the Crescent: Crusading and the Contemporary World Blog

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The Maid of Orleans and Crusading

The Maid of Orleans and Crusading

The Maid of Orleans and Crusading:   reflections on a colloquium La France et l’Orient au temps de Jeanne d’Arc. Idéaux pacifiques et réalités guerrières, Rouen, 29 May 2015 Meeting in the splendid surroundings of the Salle des États in Rouen’s recently opened ‘Historial Jeanne d’Arc’, the speakers at this colloquium gave their attention to a […]

A tale of three cities: Constantinople 1453, Belgrade 1456, Olomouc 1468

A tale of three cities: Constantinople 1453, Belgrade 1456, Olomouc 1468

A tale of three cities: Constantinople 1453, Belgrade 1456, Olomouc 1468 In my essay ‘Giovanni da Capistrano and the crusade of 1456’, published in 2004 in Crusading in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Norman Housley, I briefly (pp. 112-13) made reference to a fresco in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Olomouc. The church, which […]

English charity and the Turkish threat

English charity and the Turkish threat

  English charity and the Turkish threat The Henry Smith charity When a friend of mine was at university he benefited from a charity established in his Wiltshire village for ‘indigent scholars’. He didn’t get much money, but it was typical of the thousands of similar bequests in towns and villages scattered across the country. […]

Wolf Hall, Thomas More and the Turks

Wolf Hall, Thomas More and the Turks

Wolf Hall, Thomas More and the Turks One of the joys of the BBC’S outstanding dramatization of ‘Wolf Hall’ is its historical accuracy. While each programme is being broadcast, Tudor historians ecstatically tweet away pointing out how much the series is getting right – though there are minor slips like showing wisteria, which apparently was […]

Two fifteenth-century prelates and crusading – Piccolomini and Cusa

Two fifteenth-century prelates and crusading – Piccolomini and Cusa The Church produced some outstanding figures in the  fifteenth century and none more so than Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (1405-64), who became pope in 1458 as Pius II, and Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64), who was made cardinal in 1448. They make for an interesting comparison. Piccolomini hailed […]

Unexpected consequences: expulsion and flight in fifteenth-century Europe.

Pope Martin V

Unexpected consequences: expulsion and flight in fifteenth-century Europe.             We live in an age of enforced migration, as war, ethnic cleansing and religious conflict force vast numbers of innocent people to leave their homes and livelihoods and face an uncertain future. In the 1420s the populations of certain parts of […]

A Crusading Richard III ?

A Crusading Richard III ?

A crusading Richard III? In the spring of 1484 Richard III’s position on the throne of England was as secure as it would ever be. He had put down a rebellion against his usurpation a few months previously and was doing what he could to get Henry Tudor ousted from his exile in Brittany.   […]

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