Essays on the Latin Orient.

These scholarly essays turn to a fascinating and often neglected corner of medieval history, the Latin, or Frankish, states planted in the eastern Mediterranean after the Crusades.

What it's about

Essays on the Latin Orient gathers studies of the Western European rulers, families and principalities that governed parts of Greece, the Aegean islands and the Levant in the centuries following the Fourth Crusade and the conquests of the medieval West. Drawing on the sources, the essays examine the dukes, princes and lords of this transplanted Latin world, its dynasties, its dealings with Byzantine and later Ottoman powers, and the mingling of cultures along a contested frontier.

Themes

The book is concerned with conquest and settlement, the meeting and clash of Latin West and Greek East, and the fortunes of small states caught between greater empires. It illuminates a hybrid, cosmopolitan world that has largely faded from popular memory.

Why it still matters

The Latin Orient is a rewarding subject for anyone interested in the Crusades, Byzantium and the long struggle for the eastern Mediterranean. These essays preserve careful historical work on a period that shaped the region's tangled past.

Who it's for

For students of medieval and Mediterranean history, readers curious about the Crusader states, and those drawn to the meeting of East and West.