Sources

The Historiography of the Crusades

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "The Historiography of the Crusades." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://divinity.interactivelion.com/sources/the-historiography-of-the-crusades.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). The Historiography of the Crusades. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://divinity.interactivelion.com/sources/the-historiography-of-the-crusades

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-the-historiography-of-the-crusades,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {The Historiography of the Crusades},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://divinity.interactivelion.com/sources/the-historiography-of-the-crusades},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Giles Constable's The Historiography of the Crusades, published by Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in 2001, is a scholarly survey tracing how historians from the medieval period to the present have defined, interpreted and argued over what counts as a crusade. Constable was a leading medieval historian. Its strength is that it maps the whole span of crusades scholarship rather than arguing for one school. Its limit is that it is a survey of interpretation rather than a narrative history of any single crusade, so a claim needing the specific events of a particular campaign needs a source addressing that campaign directly rather than this historiographic overview.

Facts

Citation

Author

Giles Constable

Publisher

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection

This entry cites Constable's essay "The Historiography of the Crusades," a chapter in Angeliki E. Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh, eds., The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, Dumbarton Oaks, 2001, not a standalone monograph.

Publication Year

2001

Source Type

Scholarly work

Assessment

Reliability Tier

Published by the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, a specialist academic institution, Giles Constable's scholarly study, peer reviewed university-level historiography.

Notes

Scholarly survey of how historians have interpreted and written about the Crusades.

Claims Backed By This Source (38 claims)

This source backs 38 claims across the atlas. As facts: 20 well-attested, 4 scholarly debate. As cited relationships: 5 holds, 1 connected. Plus 8 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.

Disposition By Topic

Religious Events, 10 claims: 5 well-attested, 2 holds, 3 general references.
Articles, 7 claims: 5 well-attested, 1 connected, 1 general references.
Sources, 7 claims: 7 well-attested.
Wars & Conflicts, 7 claims: 2 well-attested, 3 scholarly debate, 2 general references.
Figures, 4 claims: 1 well-attested, 2 holds, 1 general references.
Doctrines, 3 claims: 1 scholarly debate, 1 holds, 1 general references.