About a decade ago I remember taking part in a well-attended colloquium on medieval warfare at the end of which a historian of the crusades (whose blushes I will spare by keeping him anonymous) declared that ‘The First Crusade has been done. Stop writing about the First Crusade.’ This statement was met with smiles and a general sense of amused agreement. Still, if the last decade has proved anything, it is that, so far from abandoning the well-tilled fields of First Crusade research for pastures new, the reverse is true. As Susan Edgington observes in her introduction to Jerusalem the golden, the last fourteen years have seen more monographs on this subject than any previous period. Having made this point, it might appear that I am laying the foundations for a renewed appeal for the cessation of research on the ‘exhausted’ First Crusade. Still, as study after study has demonstrated, including many essays in this volume, the First Crusade and its colossal (by medieval standards) source base continue to yield new ideas and avenues for research.

In structure, Jerusalem the golden proceeds chronologically, beginning with a group of essays on the origins of crusading, before considering the campaign itself and finally moving in the last two sections to its impact and afterlife. The first part begins with Cowdrey's piece on changing notions of martyrdom in the period before the First Crusade. As with so many of his masterly works, he skilfully traces how Christendom's social and spiritual vector lines were steadily converging into a form which ultimately would create the First Crusade. In this particular piece he underlines the significance of Gregory vii’ s pontificate in remoulding notions of military martyrdom. Robert Somerville maintains the discussion on papal activity, turning to the various Church councils – besides Clermont – which Urban ii organised and/or attended during his pontificate. His general conclusion is that these councils – whilst interesting – cannot actually tell us very much about crusading; what little can be drawn from the surviving sources is discussed. Alongside these pieces, Rojas reviews some of the major historiographical questions concerning eleventh-century warfare. These include medieval chroniclers' understanding of warfare, the role of castles in this period, the literacy of medieval commanders and suchlike. Overall he offers a lively discussion with some thought-provoking asides. Then there is Mike Carr, who engages with the vexed question of the Italian cities and their attempts to juggle their commercial and religious objectives during the course of the First Crusade. Flori examines aspects of crusader spirituality, including their eschatology, their determination to retake Jerusalem and their desire to secure converts. He makes the point that notions of pilgrimage and penance were only components within a wider sacralisation of the campaign and have perhaps been granted too great a centrality in the reconstruction of crusading piety.

In the second section, on the campaign itself, John France offers a clinical dissection of the crusaders' conduct after the fall of Antioch, providing some striking insights into the nature of the crusade leaders' relationships both with Byzantium and with each other. Riley-Smith, by contrast, weighs into the ongoing debate over the First Crusade's status as a ‘pilgrimage’. He raises some thought-provoking distinctions between the position of the ‘pilgrim’ and that of the ‘crusader’. García-Guijarro's essay unpacks the letter written by the crusaders to Urban ii in 1098, focusing especially on the role of papal leadership in the overall campaign. Stephen Spencer then explores the First Crusade narratives and their depictions of idealised crusaders, considering emotions and behaviours that were projected onto such fictional paragons. Bronstein's article changes the focus. She explores the attacks made against Jewish communities in the opening phases of the campaign, and offers a fascinating historiographical overview of debate on this subject, examining the different ways in which the various schools of thought on this topic have approached the subject. Murray's article considers both the levels of interest exhibited by later authors in the conquest of the city of Jerusalem whilst also offering insights into the crusaders' motives for conducting massacres within the city after its fall.

The third and fourth sections extend discussion on a number of themes which have already been touched upon. Menache continues to focus on the emotional history of the crusades, examining the emotions provoked among Western Christians by the conquest of Jerusalem and the later fall of Edessa and the defeat at Hattin. Likewise, Bellomo works through some fascinating research on the memory of the First Crusade (and its repositioning) in the histories of the cities of Milan and Genoa. Brett's piece, on the Fatimid response to the crusade, is the only piece to focus upon medieval Muslim perspectives; it covers some aspects of Fatimid approaches to jihad. Kangas offers a highly innovative piece on childhood and crusading, examining both the role of children in the early crusades and the raising of children within a culture of crusading.

The next group of essays turns to the chansons with two very strong articles by Sweetenham and Parsons. Parsons explores how the Chanson d'Antioche remoulded the memory of various First Crusade protagonists, most strikingly Robert of Normandy, to fit contemporary agendas. Sweetenham looks at the way in which the Chanson d'Antioche used exemplars, most notably the Tafurs and Stephen of Blois, to communicate messages of redemption and salvation to its audience. Bartal provides a refreshing break from articles focusing almost exclusively on textual sources by considering a series of sculptural representations of Christian and Islamic warfare, assessing how their underlying messages chime with those propounded in the chansons and in narrative sources. Robert Irwin concludes the volume with a lively (and at times amusing) study on the presentation of crusading in modern fiction and film, both European and Middle Eastern. In his first section, on crusading novels, he convincingly unearths the context, milieu and purposes for which many fictional narratives of the crusades were written.

Overall, this collection demonstrates both that there is more to be said even about well-worn topics such as the political history of the crusade and its ideological origins, whilst showcasing how many new lines of inquiry have developed in recent years. There are articles here on emotional history, memory and impact, childhood and civic memorialisation. Some new lines of enquiry shed more light than others on our wider understanding of the crusade, but all reflect our ongoing fascination with the bizarre odyssey that was the First Crusade.