Finance and the Crusades

<p>This book investigates the financial aspects of crusading in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Taking the kingdom of England as a case study it explores a variety of themes such as how much crusades cost how they were financed how funds were transferred to the East and how crusaders fared financially after their return. Its fundamental argument in contrast with current historiography is that it was the private fundraising of individuals – not the public fundraising of the Crown and the Church – that constituted the life-blood of the crusade movement in the period under consideration. Indeed it is likely that the crusades were only able to remain central to the religious and political life of England and indeed western Christendom because participants and those in their connection continued to be willing to sacrifice their own financial wellbeing for the interests of the Holy Land.</p>