Crusade Charters 1138-1270

The Crusade Charters, a collection of thirty-one donation documents from northern France, records gifts to Premonstratensian abbeys founded throughout Europe between 1121 and 1150. The donors are predominantly lower nobility whose families accumulated wealth and prestige during the twelfth century due to the crusades. The theme of the book is imminent departure on crusade, and its primary importance lies in offering material evidence of the lay response to preaching and promotion of the crusades by the Premonstratensians. About a third of these charters are edited from manuscript, and the rest are from various printed, but inaccessible, sources. Each charter is printed both in the original Latin and with a facing-page translation.

Edited and translated by Corliss Slack, with English translations by Hugh Bernard Feiss