Speakers
Six respected crusade scholars join us to discuss a range of relevant topics, and answer your questions.
Professor Jonathan Phillips
Jonathan Phillips is Professor of Crusading History at Royal Holloway, University of London. His most recent book was The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin (2019), also translated into Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and Danish. Earlier titles include: Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades (2009); The Second Crusade: Extending the Frontiers of Christendom (2007); The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople (2004). In August 2021 he was elected President of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East. He is the General Editor of the forthcoming Cambridge History of the Crusades, 2 volumes, 2025. He is working on the memory and the legacy of the Crusades, as well as writing a monograph on the Third Crusade.
Professor Jonathan Harris
Professor Jonathan Harris is a Professor of the History of Byzantium, teaching Medieval History at Royal Holloway. His research and second and third-year teaching focuses on Byzantium (or the Byzantine empire). Effectively that means Eastern Europe in the period 602-1453 CE and the now vanished Christian state centred on the city of Constantinople (modern Istanbul). Byzantium is not well-known in this country but it is the origin of the Orthodox Christian culture of Russia, Greece and other eastern European countries.
He has always been interested in how Byzantium interacted with the world around it, both with its Christian neighbours to the west and Muslim ones to the east. He wrote his PhD on the refugees who left Constantinople when the city fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the moment when Byzantium came to an end. Later he became interested in the enigma of the Crusades. The First Crusade was launched by the Pope in 1095, partly with a view to helping the Byzantine emperor against the Seljuk Turks. Yet just over one hundred years later, the Fourth Crusade captured and sacked the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, exploring this paradox in Byzantium and the Crusades, which is now in its second edition. His first novel, Theosis, was published in 2023.
Dr Susan Edgington
Susan B. Edgington is an honorary senior research fellow at Queen Mary University of London. She has written extensively on many aspects of the crusades, including the roles of women on which she co-edited Gendering the Crusades (Cardiff, 2001). Her most recent publication is a biography of Baldwin I of Jerusalem, 1100–18 (Abingdon, 2019). Susan’s particular interest is in the Latin sources for twelfth-century crusades. She is the editor and translator of Albert of Aachen’s Historia Ierosolimitana (Oxford, 2007); translator (with Thomas S. Asbridge) of Walter the Chancellor’s The Antiochene Wars (Aldershot, 1999); (with Carol Sweetenham) of The Chanson d’Antioche (Farnham, 2011); and (with Steven Biddlecombe) of Baldric of Bourgueil’s History of the Jerusalemites (Woodbridge). She is currently working with Thomas Smith on an edition and translation of the Gesta Francorum Ierusalem expugnantium, formerly attributed to Bartolf of Nangis, for Oxford Medieval Texts.
Dr Andrew Buck
Andrew Buck is Lecturer in Medieval History at Cardiff University. He has published widely on the history of the Crusades and the Latin East, particularly regarding the principality of Antioch, power relations, and the memorialisation of crusade and settlement in medieval historical writing. Currently he is preparing a monograph on William of Tyre's account of the First Crusade and embarking on a project to consider medieval notions of colonialism.
Dr S.J. Allen
Dr S.J. Allen is a medieval historian and Associate Lecture for The Open University. She holds an MA in British Medieval Archaeology from the University of York, and a doctorate in Medieval History (D.Phil.) from Oxford University. Her most recent book, An Introduction to the Crusades, was published by University of Toronto Press in May 2017 and the 3rd edition of The Crusades: A Reader (edited SJ Allen and EM Amt) will be published in 2024 (University of Toronto Press).
Dr Matthew Bennett
Dr Matthew Bennett chiefly researches the ethos and practice of warfare in the High Middle Age, chivalry, masculinity, crusades, Templars, sieges and amphibious warfare, as well as cultural history including Old French literature (Chansons de Geste), interactions between Christians, Jews and Muslims. He has published several books, some three dozen academic articles and is the General Editor of the Boydell series Warfare in History (since 1996). Visiting Lecturer at the University of Winchester since 2016, he teaches an MA module on Normandy 911-1204 and several modules on medieval warfare and hostageship to date. Visiting Fellow, University of Southampton from April, 2019. He is a regular attendee and presenter at IMC Leeds and frequent contributor to other conferences and study days within the UK. Lecture trips and conference lectures abroad include: Slovenia (2012) Norway (2014) France (2015 and 2018) Spain (2015) Portugal (2016 and 2017) Turkey (2015) and Switzerland (2016). In April 2017, he visited the USA, speaking at universities in Virginia, Michigan, New York and New York State.
Dr Sean McGlynn
Dr Sean McGlynn is Programme Director for CrusadeCon. He will be master of ceremonies for the event, including introductions and facilitating Q&A. He is a lecturer in medieval history for Plymouth University at Strode College, and a leading authority on medieval warfare. He holds an MA (King's College, London), PhD (University of Exeter), and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. His books include Blood Cries Afar: The Magna Carta War and the Invasion of England, 1215-1217 (The History Press), By Sword and Fire: Cruelty and Atrocity in Medieval Warfare, and Kill Them All: Cathars and Carnage in the Albigensian Crusade. He is a regular contributor to BBC History Magazine and The Spectator.