Nipissing University
HISTORY 3116 (Fall 2008) – Crusade and Jihad
Second Written Assignment
A research paper on Crusade or Jihad
In your second paper, you may write a research paper on any topic relevant to the idea
and implementation of crusade, the idea and implementation of jihad, or the significance
of either in the Middle Ages. You may also, if you do it carefully, write a paper on the
later effects of these movements or ideas. Below you will find listed a number of possible
topics. Some of them concern the personal experiences of participants; others concern
crusading or jihadist ideals as they affected areas outside of the Middle East.
Remember this paper like other papers is part of an ongoing conversation about this
historical period. I strongly suggest that you take a point raised by some modern or
medieval writer and make your paper a reaction to that other person's view -- whether
through agreement or some degree of disagreement. This will give your paper the kind of
focus that will be satisfying to the reader.
Length: 8 pages
Due: November 18
Worth: 30%
Make sure to include proper references (footnotes at the bottom of the page, following
Rampolla), a bibliography, and page numbers (don’t number the title page).
Possible topics:
Jean de Joinville as a crusader
The Sicilian Vespers
Louis IX as a crusader
The Normans in Sicily and the Crusade
Movement
The Holy Sepulcher under Muslim
control
The Teutonic Knights -- from the Holy
Land to the Baltic
Crusading in the 14th Century
The Crusades as a Colonial Venture
The Crusades and Byzantine-Western
relations
The Influence of Jihadist Ideas
King Henry III's Sicilian project
El Cid and Spanish Holy Wars
1
Almoravids and Almohads – “Muslim
crusaders?”
The Albigensian Crusade
crusading movement
and
the
The Fall of Constantinople -- 1452
Villehardouin and the Fourth Crusade
Slave Soldiers and Islam
The Gregorian Reform and the First
Crusade
The Mongols in the 13th Century
Crusades
The Latin Empire of Constantinople -Distraction?
Jews and the Crusading Movement
The Early Ottomans as Jihadists
Popular Crusades
Edward I and the Crusade
The Pursuit of the Millennium and
Recent Scholarship
Crusading Kings
Richard I and the Crusade
Byzantine views of the West and the
Crusade
Crusading Emperors
Venice and Genoa
Frederick II -- The Crusade and His
Ambitions
The Crusades and the Art of War in the
12th and 13th Centuries
Organizing a Crusader Fleet
The Crusade in the 19th Century
Jihad in the 19th Century
2