This new edition and translation published under the prestigious Oxford Medieval Texts banner represents an important development in the study of the early crusading movement and the foundation of the Crusader States. The anonymous Gesta Francorum Ierusalem Expugnantium (GFIE), composed in northern France in the 1110s and previously attributed to Bartolf of Nangis by the early modern philologist Kaspar von Barth, is a source that for a long time went undervalued by scholars, largely due to belief in its derivative nature. In recent years, Susan B. Edgington, now aided more than ably by Thomas W. Smith, has reestablished its significance. Primarily, their arguments rest on the fact that the GFIE represents a vital window onto the “lost” recension of the work of another author, Fulcher of Chartres, which was produced in Frankish Jerusalem around 1106. Yet, as the editors demonstrate, this is far more than a simple copy or abbreviation of the latter and instead reflects the work of a skilled redactor who mediated Fulcher’s work for audiences in northern Europe. Increased access to this text through a reliable edition and, for the first time, a modern translation, has the potential to help develop modern understanding regarding how authors in the early Crusader States constructed the history of their new homelands and how such texts were subsequently received and adapted in the Latin West.
The book itself is impeccable in its scholarship and for its attention to readers’ needs. Throughout, it is supported by academic apparatus that will aid audiences at all levels, from undergraduates to academics. Those new to the history of the Crusader States will find key contextual details that will support learning, while those interested in manuscript traditions and variants in transmission can mine the introduction and notes for such information. The researcher is also aided by the inclusion of appendices that offer translations of other manuscripts transmitting elements of Fulcher’s work, a main index, and an index of quotations and allusions.
