Mike Horswell's Report - International Conference Participation, June 2016

My research examines the memory and legacy of the crusades between the mid-nineteenth century and the end of the Second World War in Britain. The Santander Travel Award enabled me to attend the quadrennial international conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East (SSCLE) in Odense, Denmark which was a major gathering of crusade scholars from around the world where I was able to present my research, organise two panels and begin to form a network of scholars interested in this emerging field.

The theme of the conference was the 'Diversity of Crusading' and it encompassed speakers on a broad variety of aspects of the crusades, from material elements such as the (supposed) finding of the Holy Lance in Antioch in 1098 to the legend of Prester John, a mythical Christian king and potential crusader ally. Several presentations during the week directly addressed aspects of modern memories of the crusades. Iris Shagrir's plenary paper traced the historical knowledge of a nineteenth-century French painter in Metz of the massacre of Jews in the city during the First Crusade, linking crusade historiography, the collective memory of the Jewish community and contemporary romanticism. Janus M. Jensen drew out the understanding of crusading behind a Danish naval chaplain's account of negotiations with Algiers in 1746 while Elizabeth Siberry built on her work on the memory of the crusades with a paper on the use of the crusades in First World War letters between soldiers fighting in Gallipoli and Palestine and the Home Front.

As well as expanding the horizons of the content of this growing field, there were contributions towards developing it methodologically. In a panel which I chaired, Adam Knobler identified several key ways in which crusader medievalism has been deployed in the last two centuries around the world. His paper represented an early formulation of a typology for crusader medievalism and provoked conversations about how best to conceptualise the later use of crusading rhetoric and imagery. Judith Bronstein's paper in the same session gave a demonstration of the interconnected and layered use of crusader history in the specific example of Zionist interpretations of Athlit castle in Israel and the ambiguous place which the crusader kingdoms hold in Israeli perceptions of the past. It was great to have the experience of chairing a well-attended panel with a lively and broad-ranging conversation afterwards.

My own paper was a summary of my PhD thesis in which I argued that British crusader medievalism was encouraged by the nineteenth-century culture of chivalry which pervaded Britain as the century wore on. This was supported by the Romantic turn to medievalism, an increasingly militant imperialism, and the emergence of a 'muscular' Christianity; all of which could be embodied by crusader rhetoric and imagery. Where WWI was supposed to represent a 'moment of modernity' and end to the prewar culture, examples of crusader medievalism can be found throughout the war and the interwar years. It was only with the Second World War that we can see a loss of resonance and coherence of crusader medievalism for the British. The paper was well received and there were some constructive questions which will help me to sharpen my work as I finish my PhD.

Attending the conference, presenting my research and chairing a panel were all positive experiences. The opportunity to organise two sessions - a subtheme for the conference - was enabled me to gather others interested in the field from around the world. We were able to go deeper into the subject in the sessions and informally and to suggest ways of developing the interest and the field. While I was encouraged in my research personally, these conversations and the ability to draw on the depth of academic experience and advice of senior scholars at the conference was invaluable. I'm looking forward to taking the momentum built here (which itself built on the conference I organised in September 2015) into new workshops, conferences and network-building events coupled with opportunities for publishing new material and showcasing the research to a wider audience. Watch this space!