Joseph O'Callaghan offers the first full and authoritative history of the epic battle for control of the Strait of Gibraltar waged by Castile, Morocco, and Granada in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries--a major, but often overlooked chapter in the Christian recon…
Through textual analysis of specific medieval vocabulary, this book clarifies the changing course of the concept of vengeance in general as well as the more specific idea of crusading as an act of vengeance.
To date, historians of the crusades have not thoroughly investigated the theme of crusading as an act of vengeance, despite its frequent appearance in crusading sources. This has led to inaccurate assumptions regarding the nature of medieval vengeance and the role that various c…