Rulers of the Latin East
About the Book Series
Academics concerned with the history of the Crusades and the Latin East will be familiar with the various survey histories that have been produced for this fascinating topic. Many historians have published wide-ranging texts that either seek to make sense of the strange phenomenon that was the Crusades or shed light upon the Christian territories of the Latin East. Such panoramic works have helped to generate enormous interest in this subject, but they can only take their readers so far. Works addressing the lives of individual rulers - whether kings, queens, counts, princes or patriarchs - are less common and yet are needed if we are to achieve a more detailed understanding of this period.
This series seeks to address this need by stimulating a collection of political biographies of the men and women who ruled the Latin East between 1098 and 1291 and the kingdom of Cyprus up to 1571. These focus in detail upon the evolving political and diplomatic events of this period, whilst shedding light upon more thematic issues such as: gender and marriage, intellectual life, kingship and governance, military history and inter-faith relations.
For further information about the series please contact the series editors or Michael Greenwood at Routledge ([email protected]).
King Henry II of Cyprus, 1285 - 1324
1st Edition
By Nicholas Coureas
June 02, 2026
This book discusses the Lusignan kingdom of Cyprus and its interactions with Latin Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean under King Henry II (1285–1324). His eventful reign covered the loss of Latin Syria, the emergence of Cyprus and especially Famagusta as a major commercial hub in East-West trade,...
Robert of Nantes, Patriarch of Jerusalem (1240-1254)
1st Edition
By Adam M. Bishop
December 26, 2025
Robert of Nantes was Latin patriarch of Jerusalem from 1240 to 1254, and, according to Bernard Hamilton, was “the most important single person” in the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem after the Battle of Forbie in 1244. Despite this importance, he was a rather obscure figure: almost nothing is known ...
Sybil, Queen of Jerusalem, 1186–1190
1st Edition
By Helen J. Nicholson
September 25, 2023
Queen Sybil of Jerusalem, queen in her own right, was ruler of the kingdom of Jerusalem from 1186 to 1190. Her reign saw the loss of the city of Jerusalem to Saladin, and the beginning of the Third Crusade. Her reign began with her nobles divided and crisis looming; by her death the military forces...
Baldwin of Bourcq: Count of Edessa and King of Jerusalem (1100-1131)
1st Edition
By Alan V. Murray
May 31, 2023
Awarded the Verbruggen Prize 2022 for the best book on medieval military history. Baldwin of Bourcq left his home in France in 1096 to join the great crusade summoned by Pope Urban II for the liberation of the holy sites and Christian peoples of Syria and Palestine from the domination of the Muslim...
Baldwin I of Jerusalem, 1100-1118
1st Edition
By Susan Edgington
September 30, 2020
Baldwin of Boulogne was born the youngest of three sons and marked out for a clerical career, yet in turn he became a First Crusader, first Latin count of Edessa and the founder of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. Nevertheless, remarkably, he has never been the subject of a full-length biography. ...
The Counts of Tripoli and Lebanon in the Twelfth Century: Sons of Saint-Gilles
1st Edition
By Kevin James Lewis
December 12, 2019
The county of Tripoli in what is now North Lebanon is arguably the most neglected of the so-called ‘crusader states’ established in the Middle East at the beginning of the twelfth century. The present work is the first monograph on the county to be published in English, and the first in any western...
Godfrey of Bouillon: Duke of Lower Lotharingia, Ruler of Latin Jerusalem, c.1060-1100
1st Edition
By Simon John
April 11, 2019
This book offers a new appraisal of the ancestry and career of Godfrey of Bouillon (c.1060-1100), a leading participant in the First Crusade (1096-99), and the first ruler of Latin Jerusalem (1099-1100), the polity established by the crusaders after they captured the Holy City. While previous ...