Dates: 28 January to 18 March 2025 

Time: 7pm-9pm  

Venue: Western Gateway Building, Room G14, UCC

Fee: €250

Closing date for registrations: 20 January 2025.

Course Overview: 

Those who answered the Pope’s call to free the holy places had never heard the word ‘crusade’. It was too new and revolutionary a concept to have a name yet. Thus what history knows as the First Crusade was then simply ‘the journey’, or ‘the pilgrimage’. But as one expedition followed another, and crusading became an understood feature of medieval Christendom, it came to be known as ‘the business of the Cross’ or ‘the business of the Holy Land’. 

These lectures will recount the story of that business – of the dramatic collision between Christendom and Islam, and the savage two-hundred-year contest for the Holy Land, the echoes of which can still be heard today.  

Course Schedule: 

This course will introduce the student to the world of Christendom and Islam in the Middle Ages, explaining the beliefs and circumstances that climaxed in the First Crusade. Having traced the course of that most shocking and remarkable expedition, we will look at what it created – the singular entity that was the Kingdom of Jerusalem.  

For close on two hundred years, this strange far-flung piece of medieval France clung to its strongholds between the desert and the sea, riven by the squabbles of princesses and adventurers, guarded by warrior monks, and under constant pressure from the Muslim states which surrounded it. 

For the Christians the crusades were a fulfilment of both scriptural prophecy and of the chivalric ideal, but for the Muslims this holy war waged against them constituted a new barbarian invasion and the greatest threat that Islam had yet faced. For all concerned, the age of the crusades proved to be transforming, and these  lectures will examine all of it, from the origins to the lasting legacy. 

1. Rome, Byzantium, Baghdad: the world of the 11th century.

2. The First Crusade: 'God wills it!’.

3. The First Crusade: war in the age of miracles.

4. The Kingdom of Jerusalem: the Land of Overseas.

5. The Kingdom of Jerusalem: a twelfth-century romance.

6. Righteousness of the Faith: the Muslim response.

7. The Crusading Ideal: Christian against Christian.

8. 'A long act of intolerance': the legacy of the crusades.

Course Lecturer : 

John Ware is a part-time lecturer in the School of History UCC, and in Adult Continuing Education. Although trained as a medievalist, he pursues a wide range of historical interests. He is the author of Dirty Shirt, A Green Bough, and The World In A Sandbag.  

Requirements: 

Applicants must be at least 18 years old at course commencement. 

Contact Details for Further Information: 

Email: shortcourses@ucc.ie  

Please note our refund policy as follows: 

100% refund if student cancels 1 week prior to course commencement, less €50 processing fee.

100% refund if student's course is cancelled due to insufficient numbers.