Publisher's Synopsis
The articles collected here, from widely scattered publications, deal with Latin activity in the medieval Near East, before, during and after the crusades. The first adduces evidence for the presence of Genoese traders in Egypt some 30 years before the First Crusade; the last pieces together the biography of a Genoese merchant who served Mamluk sultans after the fall of Acre in 1291. The focus of the volume, however, is on the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem. Among these studies, two use summaries of works by a virtually unknown 12th-century author, Gerard of Nazareth, to throw new light on the kingdom?s intellectual and monastic history; six deal with the indigenous peoples under Frankish rule, and their place in canon law; while a further five discuss developments in the years before Saladin?s conquests.
