Introduction

This volume of collected essays will point those interested in the intersection between the fields of environmental studies, ecocriticism, and the study of the crusades (widely defined) to promising new directions of research. As a pioneering volume, it raises as many questions as it answers. Is Mediterranean studies’ emphasis on the idea that shared environments create cultures with shared values and concerns applicable to the regions often considered “liminal” in studies of medieval history, such as the Iberian peninsula, the Baltic, central and eastern Europe, and the Balkans? What was the result of individuals from northern European environments traveling to the Mediterranean? Did their conceptions of the world and their natural environment(s) change? How was nature conceived of by individuals from other cultures with whom crusaders came into contact, such as Muslims, Byzantines, eastern Christians, Jews, and the Mongols? Other areas of investigation include the transferral of “scientific” conceptions of nature between cultures and how new readers of these materials reconciled these conceptions with their home culture’s religious and social-political perceptions of how the world could and should operate. If crusading involved not only religious but economic, social, and political factors, how was crusaders’ perception of nature shaped by all of these influences? How did perceptions of nature influence descriptions of spirituality and emotion, identity, power, and gender? The essays in this volume offer partial answers to these questions and encourage scholars to explore these and other related topics.