Depicting the Holy War examines the impact that crusades in the Middle East had on societies in western Europe through the analysis of a heretofore largely ignored type of source: mural paintings.

In this book, Elizabeth Lapina analyzes five programs of mural paintings from the early twelfth to the late thirteenth century in what is today France and England—in Hardham, Berzé-la-Ville, Poncé-sur-le-Loir, Cressac, and Tour Ferrande. These images provide rare sources of information about attitudes toward crusades in locations that have produced next to no written evidence about the subject, such as rural parishes. Four of the murals are found in ecclesiastical structures, themselves sacred and made more so as the location of the celebration of mass. This sacralization of violence, Lapina argues, led to changing attitudes toward the enemy and depictions of battles as “holy wars” between the forces of good and evil. The mural paintings come from England, Normandy, Aquitaine, Provence, and Burgundy, areas that supplied both numerous crusaders and ideas related to crusades. Taken together, the murals show a trend toward an acceptance and celebration of increasingly varied types of violence across the period.

This pathbreaking study employs new methods to open a window onto perceptions and representations of crusades in strata of society about which we know relatively little. It will be indispensable to historians and art historians who study crusades, warfare, and violence in medieval England and France.

“This book offers an important, original approach to medieval visual history informed by crusading ideas of war, infidels, violence, and chivalry—not just for those who went but also for those who never did. When the author cannot find answers in local archives, she turns to relevant scriptures and literature, chronicles, and sermons to convey context and perceptions of the images. Her analysis of those sources is nuanced and creative, examining topics from different angles for her subtle analysis.”

—Cathleen A. Fleck, author of Reimagining Jerusalem's Architectural Identities in the Later Middle Ages

Elizabeth Lapina is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of Warfare and the Miraculous in the Chronicles of the First Crusade, also published by Penn State University Press.