English Historiography of the Crusades; An Assessment of Interpretations of Crusade to the East: Its Sponsors and its Participants, by English-speaking Historians from 1639 to 1972

Abstract

This thesis examines English accounts of crusade to the East, of its sponsors and participants, in order to delineate their interpretations and to attempt to explain them in the light of the assumptions and attitudes of the society in which they were written or of the methods employed. In examining works of individual historians, this study is concerned more with general trends and interests than with the quintessential qualities that distinguish each. In the period under discussion, 1639 to 1972, "English" applies to British and American historians or to those writers who have spent part of their careers either in Britain or in the United States of America, and whose contributions are in English.