From the late eleventh to the early fourteenth century, western Europeans established the crusader states of the Levant and had unprecedented commercial, cultural, and military exchanges with the Middle East. Through a focused analysis of fifty objects, this book examines what material culture can tell us about interpersonal, interfaith, cross-cultural, and trans-regional encounters during this period of the medieval crusades.

This richly illustrated volume explores Latin Christian, Eastern Christian, Muslim, and Jewish objects, reflecting the variety of artifacts surviving from this period and region, including sculpture, glassware, metalware, manuscripts, textiles, painting, coins, and seals. Addressing the themes of Belief, Conflict, Exchange, Power, and Memory, the essays examine the encounters of each object with its environments throughout its history to show the richness and multiplicities of material culture and perspectives in the Middle Ages, which lead to the complexities of the region today.

The book stands as a valuable resource for students and scholars of the medieval crusades, the medieval Middle East and Europe, as well as all those interested in archaeology, art history, global history, and religious studies more broadly.

“Through a rich, varied and stimulating collection of carefully chosen objects, this book offers a state-of-the-art and fascinating new way with which to engage with the crusading movement as an idea and with the polities established in the East following the Crusades. Ranging from objects attesting to daily life, commerce and cultural encounters, to objects attesting to aspects of warfare and conflict, the book presents a balanced, nuanced and vivid picture of life in the 'crusader states'. Eloquently written and beautifully illustrated, this captivating book will be of interest to both scholars and the general public alike.”

- Gil Fishhof, University of Haifa

“This is a marvelous volume that conveys the complexity of life in the eastern Mediterranean and the Kingdom of Jerusalem during the period of the crusades, ca. 1099-1291. The authors have chosen fifty objects spanning from buttons to drinking glasses, altars to swords, reliquaries to game boards that demonstrate the histories of conflict, but also shared practices of exchange, religiosity, power, and remembrance. Often beautifully written and enhanced by high-quality images the book offers a material history of encounters in the crusading world. Taken together it is an argument for the power of assembled fragments over a unified narrative. A model of collaborative scholarship the volume will be useful to anyone working on the crusader world and to all who teach this and related subjects.”

- Anne E. Lester, Johns Hopkins University

“An understanding of the past needs more than written sources. Readers of this volume see how archaeologists and art historians use objects, art and material culture to reveal the details of past societies, from the everyday to the elite. Each of the fifty objects described in this book becomes the focus of a deep dive into the Middle East of the crusader period, showing how Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived alongside each other in peace and war, sharing some aspects of their culture and also repurposing each other’s art and manufacture for new functions. Detailed explanations of each item provide both an accessible introduction for students and a scholarly resource for the more knowledgeable reader.”

- Helen Nicholson, Cardiff University

Cathleen A. Fleck is Professor of Art History and Director of the School of Visual Studies at the University of Missouri, Columbia. She has published articles and monographs on the court art of Naples and Avignon and representations of Jerusalem in the crusader era of the Middle Ages (c. 1187–1356).

Elizabeth Lapina is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her main interest is in perceptions and representations—textual and visual—of the crusading movement in the twelfth-thirteenth centuries, on which she has published widely.

Richard A. Leson is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. His research and publications focus on the art and architectural patronage of elite French families, with a special emphasis on heraldry. He is currently writing about the life and artistic patronage of Jeanne of Flanders (ca. 1272–1333).

Vardit Ruth Shotten is an architect and archaeologist working in the Archaeological Research Department, Israel Antiquities Authority, whose research and writing focuses on medieval architecture, particularly in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. She is currently leading the research project on ‘Atlit Castle and teaches at the University of Haifa.