The first part of this collection comprises nine chapters dedicated to ‘The crusades’. Denigration of one's opponents and dismissal of the heterodox might appear indispensable for conducting holy warfare. Yet a recurrent theme here is that attitudes were more nuanced and cultural boundaries more elastic than used to be supposed. In ‘Byzantium in western chronicles’, J. France draws attention to the lack of evidence of widespread hostility towards Byzantium in western Christendom before the First Crusade, while T. S. Asbridge notes the readiness of crusading commanders to make truces and even discuss alliances with certain Muslim regimes between 1097 and 1099 (‘Knowing the enemy’). The papacy's hopes of a rapprochement with the Armenian Church, together with the working relationship struck between Frankish churchmen and settlers and the Armenians in Cilicia and the Holy Land, are expounded by J. Phillips (‘Armenia, Edessa and the Second Crusade’). And that the Saracens were ‘the enemy, but not fundamentally different from the Christians’ in a Norman chronicle composed soon after the Third Crusade is noted by M. J. Ailes (‘The admirable enemy?’). As Ailes acknowledges, the praise lavished on Saladin is essentially a literary device, making him an adversary worthy of the chronicle's true hero, Richard the Lion-Heart. Indeed, boundaries sometimes grew more pronounced, for example the Franks and Armenians were jointly reacting against the resurgence of Byzantine power in the mid-twelfth century. Yet multiple affiliations and ambivalence concerning culturo-religious signifiers also feature in A. V. Murray's ‘Kingship, identity and name-giving’ and J. Folda's ‘Mounted warrior saints in Crusader icons’. If Baldwin ii kept green his family origins by choosing for his daughters names favoured by the counts of Rethel, saints such as George and Demetrios were venerated by members of the Frankish elites in the Holy Land. They commissioned icons of these saints which are all the harder to differentiate from icons produced in eastern Christian milieus because, as Folda notes, a Byzantine-trained painter could have worked for diverse patrons, Franks in Acre or Cyprus, or even a Frankish woman married to an eastern Christian. Among other contributions to part i may be noted P. Noble's demonstration that Henry of Hainault was markedly more capable as emperor than his brother Baldwin: his success cannot be ascribed to luck alone (‘Baldwin of Flanders’). Part ii of the collection, dedicated to the Knights Templar, contains eight chapters. Something of the character of individual masters and lesser brethren is captured by, respectively, S. Menache (‘The last Master of the Temple, James of Molay’) and A. Forey (‘The career of a Templar: Peter of St Just’). James emerges as a more considerable, if not capable, figure than contemporary chronicles allowed. The nature and extent of the Templars' role in western society is discussed by H. J. Nicholson (‘Relations between houses’). She discloses cases of a house playing a significant part in its locality, ‘with travellers passing through the house on a regular basis’ (p. 207). And the ‘astonishing’ increase in Templar properties in northern Valencia in the last years of the order's existence is demonstrated by L. García-Guijarro (‘The growth of the Order of the Temple’). The partial convergence in the twelfth century between the objectives and ideals of the kings of Aragon and those of the Order of the Temple is analysed by A. Demurger: on the whole, the kings' prime concern was the reconquista, and while the Templars' assistance was not unwelcome, an order dedicated wholly to fighting for Aragon was preferable, and the upshot was Mountjoy (‘Belchite, le Temple et Montjoie’). Other chapters in part ii include a new edition of the Old French translation of William of Tyre's celebrated chapter on the origins of the Templars, together with a useful commentary indicating that William's criticisms were lost neither in the translation nor in the many subsequent copies of the translation (P. W. Edbury, ‘The Old French William of Tyre’). And J. Riley-Smith offers a valuable survey of the fifty-two extant letters addressed by Levant-based brothers of the Temple and the Hospital to confrères, kings and others in the west between 1149 and 1291 (‘The military orders and the east’). Overall, this fine collection is fitting tribute to the honorand's own contributions to our understanding of the Templars and crusading.