Introduction

Abstract

This book examines crusading as a family affair during the high Middle Ages. It suggests that the support of the medieval nobility for crusade expeditions in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was shaped fundamentally by knowledge and attitudes that were preserved, transformed, and transmitted in the social or collective memories of the families themselves. It also highlights the role played by kinship networks in the success of crusading as well as the connection between crusading and pilgrimage. Part I of the book discusses the mechanisms through which ideas and images about the crusades were preserved and transmitted within the collective memory of noble families, as well as the meaning of these memories and their place in the family past. Part II explores the role that ancestry played in the attempts to persuade Henry II of England and Alfonso II of Aragón to take the cross in the second half of the twelfth century.