Frisian Crusaders - Fierce Fighters Without Lords

From the First Crusade onwards, men from Frisia, the North Sea coast between the Zuiderzee and the Weser, took the cross. French chroniclers called them Frisons. Their homeland had no territorial prince, and later Frisian tradition made them heroes of the crusades. But what do the sources actually say about these fighters without lords?

Christmas and the medieval Templars

Did the medieval Templars celebrate Christmas and if so, how? 

Medieval Islamic Coins Found at Cluny Abbey, France

In September 2017 archaeologists digging at the abbey of Cluny in Burgundy found a hidden purse: more than 2,200 silver coins of the abbey’s own mint, a gold signet ring and 21 gold dinars struck by the Almoravids of Morocco and al Andalus. French excavators speak of le trésor de Cluny. How did Islamic gold reach a Burgundian monastery?

The early years of Godefroy de Bouillon - on the job training for the First Crusade

Godefroy de Bouillon, also known as Godfrey of Bouillon, led an army on the First Crusade and became the first Latin ruler of Jerusalem in 1099. Later legend gave him a swan knight for an ancestor and a hero’s youth. What do the sources actually tell us about the years before 1096, and how did they prepare him?

Forests to Farmland - Drivers of the Age of Clearance in Medieval Europe

Between about 1050 and 1150 forests, heaths and marshes across western Europe gave way to fields, villages and monastic estates, the period French historians call les grands défrichements. Population growth, new tools, a warmer climate and ambitious lords are all named as causes. Which of these drivers does the evidence actually support?

Abbot Bernard de Clairvaux - Asceticism, Ailment and Growth

In 1112, after living the first 22 years of his life as a member of Burgundian nobility, Bernard de la Fontaine (1090/1091 - 1153) entered the Cistercian monastery at Citeaux, accompanied by many members of his family and friends. In only three years Bernard developed as a remarkable monk. So much that in 1115 he and members of his company were entrusted by Citeaux abbot Stephen Harding with a significant mission: to establish a new Cistercian monastery at Clairvaux. How did Bernard and Clairvaux develop? A tale of hardship.

Muhammad's Covenants and Medieval Holy Land Pluralism (1050-1300)

Several documents claim to be covenants of the Prophet Muhammad protecting Christian communities, among them the famous letter kept at Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, the Ashtiname. Some scholars see them as proof of early Islamic pluralism, others as later forgeries. What can they really tell us about Christians and Muslims in the age of the crusades?

Penance, Fear, and Redemption - The Religious Climate That Birthed the First Crusade

When Pope Urbain II preached the crusade at Clermont in November 1095, he spoke to knights who feared for their souls. Historians have long seen penance, la pénitence, as the key to the response. But how much of the pious crusader do we know from the sources, and how much from later stories?

Sacred Space in Pattern and Paint: Templar Art at Montsaunès and elsewhere

The murals of Montsaunès do not tell sweeping crusade epics but transform the chapel through painted ashlar, rectangular panels filled with geometric patterns (checkerboards/damier, lozenges), rosettes and cosmological motifs (stars, sun-wheels), and consecration crosses. This ornamental program, typical of mid-12th to 13th-century Templar sites, sacralises the space rather than narrates events. 

Comparing Montsaunès with other Templar chapels reveals the diversity of Templar visual culture and invites a broader reflection on how the order shaped sacred space across medieval Europe.