While titled “in the Crusader States,” only Daniel Galadza and Andrew Jotischky, both writing on Greek liturgy, speak of “crusader” Jerusalem in this collection. The majority of contributors follow Iris Shagrir and Cecilia Gaposchkin's introduction and refer instead to the “Latin East,” “Latin Jerusalem,” “Frankish Levant,” “Franks in the Holy Land,” etc. This terminology differentiates “Crusades Studies,” focused on Latin-Christian military expeditions, from an area-studies field also discussing Greek, Armenian, and Syriac Christians (Muslim sects are also recognized, but not emphasized in a liturgical study). Originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Medieval History, this volume thus goes beyond medieval historiography's recent emphasis on including mention of non-Latin populations by its regional context. Eastern Christianities are not included alongside or in addition to Latin but discussed comparatively as interacting in their shared region.
Liturgy makes an ideal lens for such a study; instead of doctrinal writings by scholars in conversation across distances, liturgy as lived religion again centers the discussion on regional dynamics. Together, the contributors ask not how Latin and Eastern Christianities interacted as reified sects, but how Latin and Eastern Christians themselves interacted in practice on the ground in the Levant after the First Crusade. The editors define three groups: Wolf Zöller's, Cara Aspesi's, and Sebastián Salvadó's papers which interrogate manuscripts for the details of liturgical practice; Daniel Galadza's, Andrew Jotischky's, and Christopher MacEvitt's which interpret Latin, Greek, and Armenian performances of devotion comparatively; and Rubenstein's and John's which explore the liturgical connection between divine and secular as a political device by ecclesiastic authorities as well as royals. Liturgy and Devotion as a whole makes for a valuable intersection of scholarship on the Latin East, religions interaction, and lived or popular religion based on an array of sources outside learned treatises.
