If you are a connoisseur of beautiful books, Taschen are the publishers to go to... Now they've done something Outremer-friendly! I picked up this gem in the university bookshop while sheltering from the rain at lunchtime: Sébastien Mamerot: A Chronicle of the Crusades. It's a translation of a 1470s history of Outremer, with the original MS ( Read more... )

Another day, another grail… It's rather nice, and the association with Urraca Fernandez is interesting. But the grail is a 12C literary invention, so it boggles me that anyone thinks there's a 'real' one to be found!

A couple of weeks ago I went with my other half to a museum conference in Rome. It was punishingly hot ( the mercury hit 40oC) and I was brewing up a stinking cold.  Stumbling around a baking Forum or St Peter’s Square with blocked sinuses in that heat was simply not a runner, so in my spare time I confined my sightseeing to some nice well- ( Read more... )

The BL has all the piccies!

The BL has now got a great website, which allows you to search manuscript illuminations!
William of Tyre, Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, in French, with continuation to 1232, France, mid-13C.
William of Tyre, Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, in French, with continuation to 1231, Bruges, 1479-80.

À propos of the Dover Castle refurbishment: en route home from Austria last week I visited the castle of Haut-Koenigsbourg in Alsace, which I had often seen from a distance when driving up or down the Rhine Valley but never till now had the chance to stop off and visit.

It has a stunning site on top of a beech/sweet chestnut/pine-forest-covered ( Read more... )

Further re: the British Museum:
A 12C portable altar-piece has been opened and they've found most of its contents intact!
See here! It's gorgeous, and very much in our period. It's the sort of thing a Bishop or prince might well have taken on crusade.

This was posted on trobadors by job3_14
Mikhail Vrubel': La Princesse Lointaine. He gets everywhere - even Moscow! (I have actually seen the mosaic version on the Hotel Metropole in Moscow, but was unaware at the time what the scene was, seeing it only from street level.)

I came across an interesting essay by Runciman: The Families of Outremer: The Feudal Nobility of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1099-1299 (1960). It's dated, of course, but I thought the following reference to Wilbrand of Oldenburg's 1212 Itinerarium was interesting. It describes the Beirut residence of Jean d'Ibelin, son of Balian and Queen ( Read more... )

Today is Orthodox Easter, so there's a lovely pic of the Holy Sepulchre. The second photo is from the church in Bethlehem.