Wales and the Crusades

Wales and the Crusades

What was Wales’s involvement in the Crusades and what role did Welsh soldiers play in the campaign to halt Islamic expansion into Jerusalem? How did Welsh participation in the Crusades help cement English control over Wales?

Wales and the Crusades by Kathryn Hurlock is a new title, published by the University of Wales Press, which looks at the impact of the Crusades on Medieval Wales and what forces and reasons lay behind its participation in the doomed campaign.

Hurlock also considers why Welsh lords and their armies took part in the Crusades, supported military orders, and wrote about events in the Holy Land, despite then being perceived as religiously and culturally underdeveloped compared with the rest of Britain and Europe.

By looking at patterns of Welsh involvement in the Crusades, the book shows how domestic warfare influenced the country’s desire and willingness to join the crusade, and the effect of such absences on the properties of the Welsh landowners who did go.

The book is a unique and refreshing study of a hitherto unexplored area of Welsh history; a time in which a series of events occurring thousands of miles beyond Wales’s borders ultimately led to its own eventual conquer in 1282.

Dr Kathryn Hurlock is a Lecturer in Medieval History at Manchester Metropolitan University and a Research Fellow at Cardiff University.

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9780708324271 Wales and the Crusades by Kathryn Hurlock PB £24.99 – University of Wales Press

Notes to Editors:

For more information on the University of Wales Press visit: www.uwp.co.uk

For press and media information, please contact Tom Barrett, Communications Officer, University of Wales: t.barrett@wales.ac.uk 02920 376991